Cisco and Syn-Apps Providing Customer Business Value

At the Cisco Collaboration Summit, I met with Anca van Assendelft of Cisco's Customer Business Transformation Group, and Steve Horton of Syn-Apps, a Cisco partner, who demonstrated applications that Syn-Apps developed to provide business value from communication-enabled processes. As Steve explained, Syn-Apps develops solutions to help retailers transition to implement IP in a way that they weren't able to in the past, eliminating the need to retrofit paging systems in stores and buildings, while taking advantage of unified communications and enriched applications. The demo highlighted the integration of Syn-Apps' application with the Cisco unified communication platform and the Cius device in a retail environment, resulting in the "webification" of the retail store.

In the demo, Steve showed how a retail customer in a store can search for and find a product, talk to an expert to get more information, request in-store assistance, access product information and inventory, and receive current sales specials - all using the Cius. Here's the scenario: when the customer searches for a product on the Cius, they can pull up customer reviews and see other recommended items (customers who like this product also like...). To get more information and speak with an expert, the customer can press a button and view an Expert Pop Up screen, and have a live chat, a two-way video chat, or a web collaboration (or co-browse) session. This leverages and pools experts and expertise across the retail enterprise, eliminating the need for on-site experts at each location, while delivering a more consistent message.

Alternatively, a customer in the store can press a button on the Cius to page customer assistance using a silent notification via a wired or wireless phone indicating the location of the customer. Retailers can also display special offers, such as in-store coupons and enable scheduling of in-store services all on the Cius. Anca further explains that the Cius mobility, security, and ease of placement will enable retailers to deploy customer self-help and sales floor enablement with lower TCO than traditional kiosk technology cost.

By enabling the "webification" of stores, Cisco and Syn-Apps are changing the in-store customer experience while increasing the average basket and the retailer's share of wallet. The entire application is UC-based, providing integration with Cisco's unified communications platform. The result is more productive associates with more customer interactions, and better customer experience through faster service and easy expert access.

Another example of Syn-Apps and Cisco working together is Optimized Call Handling for the store floor. A customer calls the local store to get routed to a particular department or person to get a problem solved. The call is initially handled centrally via the Cisco Unified Communication Manager, and then routed to a paging application that pages the appropriate person/people. The store Associate, or Expert, answers the call from anywhere in the store - on fixed or wireless IP phone. A typical retailer finds implementing this capability can result in a reduction in abandoned calls, from 25-40% to less than 15%, improved customer service, faster call handling, lower TCO, and enhanced performance and call detail reporting.

I've been a fan of Cisco's Customer Business Transformation group since I first learned about it several years ago, and it's nice to see that the group is making progress in terms of working with partners and customers to help provide value via Cisco's communication-enabled processes offerings, utilizing its UC products and capabilities. Cisco's Customer Business Transformation group now has about 80 customer-validated proven use cases in various verticals, from Social Media Customer Care to Nurse Connect to Rapid Emergency Response for manufacturing. While Steve wasn't at liberty to divulge the retail customers' names, Syn-Apps has real customers who are realizing a competitive edge and transforming their businesses via unified communications.