for the contact center?

Transcription

1 article Is WebRTC compelling enough for the contact center? By Dries Plasman, VP Product Management, Voxbone Voxbone US LLC - San Francisco Office 535 Voxbone Mission US St San 535 Mission Francisco, St CA San Francisco, United CA States United Tel : +1 States Tel :

2 introduction introduction When WebRTC first launched in 2012, it was heralded as disruptive. Some even claimed it marked the end of the traditional telephone network (aka the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network, providing the infrastructure and services for public voice telecommunication). In the two years since, the adoption of WebRTC has been fairly limited, as the technology has experienced the growing pains that many new technologies endure. Also slowing down adoption has been the misconception about the applicable use cases for WebRTC. As WebRTC is a technology framework and not a network, it is not a going to change personto-person communication; it offers the capability to start a call from a browser, but doesn t handle call routing and addressing. In other words, the technology in and of itself doesn t allow someone to open any browser to call a friend or a colleague (through the browser) like the telephone network does. Although the use cases for WebRTC are more limited than initially imagined, the fact still remains that WebRTC can add tremendous value to specific applications, especially for enterprise contact centers.

3 USE CASES FOR WEBRTC IN THE CONTACT CENTER Replacing inbound inbound (toll-free) numbers with with VoIP VoIP Using WebRTC, click-to-call a sales or support service can be embedded in a company s website, mobile app or on banners spread around the Internet as ad placement. This simple action enables an additional channel for users to communicate with the enterprise, which may over time replace inbound calls via the telephone network. This brings several benefits for the enterprise: BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Since customers or prospects don t need to switch channel from the web page they are visiting or smartphone application they are using, toward dialing a phone call. REDUCED HANDLING TIME THROUGH COLLECTION OF CONTEXT The Web enables the company to know more about the customer. When a customer signs in and browses a website looking for something specific, all that information can be passed along with the call to the agent (information collected during the call itself), reducing the time it takes compared to a regular phone call. IMPROVED QUALITY OF THE CALL WebRTC introduces HD voice, improving the user s experience during his or her interaction with the company. LOWER COSTS, ESPECIALLY COMPARED TO TOLL FREE-NUMBERS WebRTC allows customers to get in touch with customer support with no per minute costs. For enterprises, costs of inbound calling via WebRTC are a fraction of what it costs to use a toll free number. While click-to-call buttons have been available in the past, these used proprietary software and required installation of plugins.

4 Introducing live live video video support Services like Amazon s Mayday and AMEX s Live Video Chat have proven that video calling improves the interaction between web application users and the contact center. While this can be done through a complete new application like the Mayday Button (albeit based on technology very similar to WebRTC), adding a click-to-video-call button using WebRTC can be done with just a couple of lines of code. Beyond traditional customer support, several new applications are emerging that use real-time video interactions as part of a web application, or even totally new business models. For example, a number of micro consulting/services sites have emerged (e.g., PopExpert), that bring together experts (or in the case of PopExpert, life coaches) with their consumers into face-to-face online consultations. SUPPORT AGENTS CAN RECEIVE INCOMING SUPPORT CALLS DIRECTLY INSIDE THE BROWSER This can be a seamless part of the CRM system itself. It usually requires complex CTI integration and browser plug-ins; however, this kind of integration becomes easier with WebRTC. Using the browser instead of an SIP phone or desktop softphone yields the following benefits: Virtualization of the contact center. It frees agents from a specific machine that has all the necessary VoIP software installed, or from a specific desk with the desk phone they have to use. It allows for smaller physical office spaces to be used, and a greater flexibility in recruiting agents. Tighter CRM integration. It leads to less suppliers to work with, lowered costs, and better visibility of the contact center. Lower hardware costs. Agents no longer need to be equipped with expensive SIP Phones. A good headset will do, since the phone has been integrated with the browser.

5 WebRTC has experienced plenty of growing pains, which can be primarily attributed to strategic war gaming between technology giants. First, there was a major conflict over which video codec would be mandatory. Google was pushing for a recent royalty-free codec (VP8), while existing video vendors like Cisco fought for an entirely different one (H.264) that was already compatible with most of the existing IP communications services and systems like Microsoft Lync and Cisco s conferencing platforms. The entire project became fuzzy when both Microsoft and Apple refused to support the emerging standard in their respective browsers, bringing the market share of supported browsers below critical mass. vp8 Google 2 types of video codec H.264 Cisco The end of 2014 seemed to signal a breakthrough in closing both of these issues. First, in an IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) meeting in November, attendees, including Microsoft and Google, agreed to advance a proposal for approval that would make both video codecs mandatory for all browsers. Although neither Microsoft nor Google have formally committed to supporting the opposing codec, it appears as if resolution is possible. Second, an evolution to WebRTC, named ORTC (Object API for RTC), was developed as a next-generation of sorts to the current WebRTC 1.0 standard. Both Google and Microsoft have taken steps to resolve their differences and potentially work together in the effort to achieve widespread adoption of WebRTC. As it stands today, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox will support ORTC, which is above critical mass in my opinion. CHROME WEBRTC 1.0 Evolved to ORTC Supported by INTERNET EXPLORER FIREFOX The coming year will serve as WebRTC s transition from a novelty and a basis for free communications to the basis for offering business-related or subscription-based solutions to consumers. The result will be that these customers will expect to receive a quality experience that equals or exceeds the experience of what the telephone network offers. While the convenience of WebRTC or the availability of HD audio and video may be enticing, drop-outs, echoes or other user experience issues will limit its use and value.

6 Solutions exist that minimize the impacts of traffic congestion common to the open Internet, which I explore further on Voxbone s blog (blog.voxbone.com) if you would care to read more. The combination of assured quality, and WebRTC support for both codecs and all major browsers (except Safari), may WebRTC really take off. But as you can see, we ve got a lot of work to do before we get there. By Dries Plasman, VP Product Management, Voxbone