Reap the Benefits of Presence in UC

By David Portnowitz

Presence technology—the window that allows workers to see the availability of everyone in the company directory and sometimes beyond—has become a process optimization tool for businesses of all sizes.

In April, we discussed the benefits of three important aspects of this technology: Status notification for resource management, instant collaboration for productivity gains and improved customer service through accelerated response times (presence management solutions allow agents to see which of the company’s experts are available at that moment to help resolve an issue with a specific product). But there’s more to discuss.

Below are two more benefits that companies should keep in mind when weighing whether or not to implement this feature into their businesses:

1. Advanced Presence Technology

Simple presence and IM offer employees the ability to know each others’ statuses, generally encompassing ‘available,’ ‘reachable on mobile’ or ‘away.’ An advanced presence strategy goes much further than that to offer intelligent availability. For instance, employees can broadcast their ideal channel for connecting, be it email, phone, chat or even in-person. And, initiating contact with that person will be one-click, so starting a video chat, instant messaging window, voice call or other mode is simple.

Workers can also set custom status messages (i.e., ‘be back at 1 pm’ or ‘working from home today’) to make it easier for others to streamline collaboration with them. And rather than simply showing if a user is online or offline, advanced presence can show how long the user has been away, and can intersect with the person’s calendar to indicate if she’s on a call or in a meeting and for how long that’s expected to be the case.

2. Remote and Mobile Visibility

Most companies have employees that work out of the office, either on the road traveling or telecommuting. But even though these workers are untethered from the office, companies still need to keep track of them. The information collected by the presence module can be used by project leads, managers and supervisors to monitor employees’ work hours and activities.

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