CRM - June 2008 - (Page 39)

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS HAS THE POTENTIAL TO DRASTICALLY ALTER THE BUSINESS LANDSCAPE— ASSUMING VENDORS REALLY CAN GET THEIR COLLECTIVE ACT (AND YOUR COMMUNICATIONS) TOGETHER by Lauren McKay hen Robert Fort is sick with the flu, that violin you hear weeping in the background isn’t a sign of sympathy—it’s a sign of success. With a computer on his lap and a pillow under his head, Fort, the vice president of Internet technology and chief information officer of Virgin Megastores, manages to operate his business and keep the records (or, these days, the CDs) spinning, not just in his company’s Los Angeles headquarters, but in its 10 stores around the country. What makes it possible for Fort to ensure that all those CD tracks stay on track? His company’s heavy reliance on integrated communication technology. “I was home sick one day when we were having an issue in New York; I was literally in bed with a laptop. I had two [instant messaging] sessions open, which I blended together to make a group chat. I then made a community phone call with one click of my mouse. The issue was solved within minutes while I was lying in bed. I thought, ‘This is fantastic.’” The day-to-day operations at Virgin keep Fort occupied, but he’s enthusiastic about any successful application of technology. As an example, he calls his daughter to illustrate the effectiveness of the click-to-call application Virgin’s using, developed by Microsoft. When she answers, seemingly confused by her dad’s outof-the-blue phone call, Fort laughs, explaining that she’s used to him testing out his latest toy. “We deal with highly trendy products,” Fort says, recalling one artist whose album sold very well one week but dropped 60 percent the next. “That showed that we need to be right on top of everything. Delays in shipments can cost us money,” he says. “Anything to make communication fast and simple definitely has an impact.” In other words, in the ever-fickle music industry, Virgin can’t afford timerelated mistakes. Attempting to stay on top of its game, Virgin deployed Microsoft’s Office Communication Server (OCS) in the fall of 2007. With OCS connecting all of the computers in the company’s retail chain, floor managers can easily reach buyers or other managers with the help of a presence tool. They can access inventory data simply by typing a word into a PC—and they know that the employees they’re communicating with are using the same interface. Technologies such as unified messaging, presence, and video conferencing represent some of the functions that Virgin and other companies are deploying for everyday operations. Some of these things are new, some have been around All Talk CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2008 39

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - June 2008

CRM - June 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Making Mashup Masterpieces Trouble in the Air CRM on Twitter Is SaaS Ready for Its Contact Center Close-up? CRM: In the Public Interest Required Reading Lollipop Loyalty Best Practices Series: CRM & eCommerce eGain NetSuite Infor Longwood Software Vovici The Second Coming of 2.0 Believe the Hype About Hosted Contact Centers All Talk So Hot It’s Cool Linksys Gets Shaken, a Community Is Stirred The Risky Risk Business Awana Hears a SaaS Sermon Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - June 2008

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