Australia-based automotive parts and accessories company Repco has reportedly upgraded its communications infrastructure to Zeacom Contact Center version 5.0 to enable presence and unified voicemail on BlackBerry (News - Alert) devices.

 

"One of the reasons we have gone to version five is that we are going to bolt on the mobility package," explained Alan Hodgson, Repco's chief information officer, in a recent article on TechTarget. "We run Blackberries across the organization because we have people all over the world all the time and one of the challenges we have is making their lives easier. The idea is for our team to pick up the BlackBerry, say to themselves ‘I want to speak to the CFO’ and be able to see if he is in. If he is, they can call him."

Presence is ability for users to view the availability status of other users on the network. A user’s “presence” can be triggered by mouse, keyboard or phone activity, as well as log in activity. For example, if a user is at their desk using their keyboard, the presence indicator next to that person’s name on the ZCC unified communications system’s user interface will indicate that they are at their desk and available to take calls. But if a user is at his desk and is using the keyboard but is also on the phone, their status indicator will show that they are at their desk but unable to take a call at the time.

This is a key capability, because if a user is trying to reach another user with an important message, they can opt to send a text message or email instead of calling them and leaving a voice message. This way, the recipient is made aware that there is an urgent matter that needs to be acted on immediately – as opposed to learning of the situation later, once they check their voicemail.

Presence is particularly beneficial to companies with mobile workforces. Employees who are out on the road may have no idea where other workers are located or what their availability status is at any given point in time – and simply leaving a voice message and waiting for a reply tends to slow a process down. With presence, a user can find out if another user is currently traveling or in the office, and furthermore whether or not they are available to take calls – or, alternatively, emails or SMS messages. This helps speed communications, improve responsiveness and boost employee productivity.

With the upgrade to ZCC 5.0, Repco is also benefitting from having a single voicemail inbox for all staff, regardless of whether they are at their desks or in the field. Prior to the upgrade, if a customer wanted to reach a rep who was in the field, they would have to dial the company’s main number first, learn that the rep was out on the road, hang up and then dial the rep’s mobile number in order to reach them. But with ZCC 5.0, all employees can have just a single number for both desk phone and mobile device: That means calls can be automatically forwarded to the rep’s mobile device, when they’re out of the office, and if the rep can’t take the call, it can be forwarded to the same voice mailbox – as opposed to having separate mailboxes for desk phone and mobile phone.

 

"We now can change to one voicemail message instead of having multiple devices and messages," Hodgson said in the article. "This means customers do not get frustrated by overlap or conflict."

 

Repco decided to arm its mobile workers with Blackberries exclusively, as opposed to supporting a variety of mobile devices from different manufacturers.

 

"One of the big problems we have with any tool is managing it and managing the peripherals," Hodgson said. "And who can expect IT to know about 25 different handsets?"

 

According to the article, Repco started with the BlackBerry Pearl, migrated to the Curve and will now adopt the latest model, the Bold.

To learn more about ZCC version 5.0 Intelligent Mobility features, including the different modules that are available to facilitate mobility, check out this fact sheet, or for a live demo, click here.