LETTERS

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, May 2005

Rich:

I'm glad to see you taking up the battle to change our woefully inadequate terminology to describe how people should communicate with others or be contacted by automated application services in a converging multimodal communications environment (High Priority!, March 2005, www.tmc-net.com/cis/0305/hipriority-A-Desperately-Needed-Term.htm).

You are on the right track by starting to focus on the relative priorities of the contact initiator versus those of the recipient. These priorities will realistically start to come into alignment with the power of SIP, which can enable end-to-end presence, availability and, last but not least, modality management. It is the convergence of IP telephony and multimodal messaging that will enable person-toperson communications to be both flexible and manageable.

The "buddy list" for controlling contact relationships, as well as access "rules," [is] a starting point for dynamically controlling personal accessibility, but the dynamics of the real world will need more than such manual "programming" strategies.

Look at the complete failure of the voice mail "greeting" to satisfy the informational needs of a caller who wants to know how he or she can make immediate contact with a recipient, or at least know when to expect a response if the caller leaves a message. Most users record a standard, non-specific greeting. Whenever I ask an audience how many of them change their voice mail greeting at least once a day, I only see a handful of hands raised. Even then, the information is not accurate or adequate enough to be useful for a caller's immediate contact needs.

I recently wrote an article pointing out that, without the initiator's actions, recipients would get nothing. With new multimodal contact alternatives, however, the confusion that you complained about in your editorial is still a problem that I see being resolved through the still-evolving facilities of SIP standards and what I have called "transmodal communication." That term describes the ability to quickly and easily shift from one modality of communication to another, as circumstances require.

Transmodal communications capability is not only useful when trying to establish contact with a person, but is important even after one form of contact has already been made. Now that all forms of person-to-person communications are converging at both the IP network transport levels [and] the communication devices level, people can initiate a contact at a message exchange level and escalate to a voice conversation (and vice versa) as their needs and circumstances dictate. I proposed this perspective in a recent column that was published on TMCnet.com last year (www.tmcnet.com/109.1).

The benefit of this kind of communications flexibility will be seen at the end user level (where it really counts), by enabling users to communicate more easily in whatever way works best for all parties, rather than guessing about what devices others have, what contact method to try first, and then being stuck with an initial communications modality that isn't effective. If the communication exchange suddenly requires a more efficient mode of communication, including conferencing other people in, the switch should be a seamless and simple one. The bottom line will be more successful contacts, as well as more productive use of time.

I don't know if my term, "transmodal communications" (it is kind of a mouthful!) will help fix the terminology problem you describe in your editorial, but the general reaction from experienced industry leaders has been favorable. Perhaps with a little more branding, it could catch up with the success of VoIP!

I welcome your comments and may publish the exchange in my column.

Best regards,

Art Rosenberg

The Unified-View

Dear Nadji:

I truly enjoyed your article, "Boost Market Share With Powerful Marketing And Sensible CRM: Leapfrog Your Competition" (www. tmcnet.com/cis/1002/1002po.htm).

I am in advertising sales for an art and entertainment publication in Bucks County, PA. The New Hope, PA., and Lambertville and Frenchtown, NJ, areas (among others) have suffered several tough years.

The frustrating battle for me is that they all cry "poor" yet do LITTLE OR NO advertising. Most store owners tell me business has been bad and advertising is a waste of money. I ask them, how will someone know to come to your store? They say things like, "I've been here for 15 years." Well, 15 years ago I was 17, so I don't think I knew of you then. How would I know to come to your store now?

My goal is to help these areas gain their market share and increase their business through advertising (hopefully in my publication, but at this point I just want to help). Many stores are closing and people are very complacent.

I came across your article [while] in search of market research to share with the business owners to help them understand and educate them that I [am] not just SELLING them when I [tell] them how important advertising at a time like this truly is. They refuse to understand the importance of repetition as well; if I hear the words, "I'll try one ad and if it works, I'll run more," I am going to freak out. Most often, I tell them to keep their money because I know they most likely will not receive the response they believe justified the ad, and then they will share with others that they ran in our pub and had negative results.