Meeting the Challenges of Mobile Customer Service

A few short years ago, mobile marketing and customer service were cutting edge concepts. Only a small percent of affluent people carried smartphones, and apps were limited to a few gaming and entertainment functions aimed at a narrow slice of demographics. Contact centers were able to largely ignore the concepts.

That was then and this is now. At the end of 2011, there were an estimated six billion mobile phone subscribers in the world, or about 87 percent of the population on Earth. A significant portion of these phones are smartphones. In the U.S., Nielsen estimates that almost half the population – 49.7 percent – of people use smartphones. According to researchers, smartphone shipments grew 58 percent, making up nearly a third of all mobile phones shipped last year. Then there are mobile tablets, sales of which are projected to double this year.

What this all means is that the location of customers is rapidly becoming irrelevant and armed with powerful computers/communicators in their hands, those customers want to use them to interact with product and service vendors. This creates huge opportunities for companies to develop new and more efficient ways to service their customers.

It also creates huge challenges for contact centers: iPhones, Android (News - Alert) phones, mobile applications, mobile self-service and the need to provide consistent experiences for your customers across multiple communications channels sounds daunting. Building an entire mobile channel into the broader contact center format isn't for the faint of heart...at least, not without help.

To help companies make the transition, unified communications and IP solutions provider, Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert), together with TMCnet, will be offering a Web event designed to take an extensive look at how companies can take advantage of the mobile revolution to deliver improved and expanded service experiences for their customers, both inside and outside the contact center. Presenters will include Daniel Hong, lead analyst at Ovum (News - Alert) Research, and Dr. Don Brown, founder and CEO of Interactive Intelligence. Following the presentations, there will be an extensive question and answer session that will include special guests from analyst groups Ventana Research and COMMfusion, who will address audience questions.

To register for the event, visit here.

Interactive Intelligence is a Platinum sponsor of ITEXPO West 2012. To be held Oct. 2-5 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX, ITEXPO (News - Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. For more information on IEXPO West 2012 click here.