Avaya gets socially conscious

ChannelWeb catches up the vendor's EMEA channel boss Jan Lawford to discuss what social media means for the channel

After launching the latest version of its contact centre technology, Avaya is aiming to help partners cash in on new revenue streams stemming from businesses' use of social media.

Avaya Aura Contact Centre 6.2 was released earlier this month, alongside the Avaya Experience Portal and Avaya Social Media Manager. The latter is a desktop application allowing contact centre agents to collate and manage their social media activities.

ChannelWeb caught up with Avaya EMEA channel director Jan Lawford (pictured) to discuss the rise and rise of social media, and what it means for channel sales teams.

ChannelWeb: Tell us about the significance of the latest contact centre release
6.2 integrates social media into the agent desktop. Social media is a very hot topic with a lot of our customers and it is an area where I think there is a great opportunity for partners, both from a revenue and a thought leadership perspective. Partners can elevate themselves from a technical-orientated discussion to a business-orientated discussion on a very topical phenomenon.

To what extent do end user organisations have effective strategies for using social media?
Some customers have a pretty comprehensive strategy on how to introduce social media, but many are struggling. A lot of them lack the technical capability to make sure that that strategy is being deployed across the organisation. For a lot of them, their approach to social media is very siloed. Maybe information is not being disseminated across the organisation effectively. For others, [social media activity] is focused in the customer service environment, but might not be getting through to the contact centre.

Are end users are actively seeking out advice on how to manage and use social media technologies?
With the larger enterprises, it is something that they are actually [looking for]. Most are very aware of the social media environment and the challenges it presents. More end users in the mid-market and the SMB space do not have the awareness of how they should be interacting.

How much does Avaya's new contact centre technology scale down - can partners sell into the small business arena?
I do not think it goes down as far as small business, but we are seeing organisations being very proactive in the enterprise. In the mid-market, there is a great chance to start a conversation: how can you integrate unified communications capability? That is where we are leading partners to have a dialogue with their customers.

Do you think many partners are currently in a position to offer high-end consultancy services in social media technologies?
When I'm talking to partners at the moment, I see partners with differing levels of competence and confidence in this area. Some are having active conversations with customers, but others are not really sure how to address the social media discussion. My gut feeling is that the number of partners who would be able to provide a business consulting capability would be fairly limited.

Is social media expertise something many partners are incorporating into their sales efforts?
There is a lot of work to do. I was at a partner event recently - one of our partners was having an event for their salespeople. A few of them were asking: "How are we going to make revenue?" From the technology capability, there is product revenue, and obviously services and consulting as well, but it is really about that whole education thing.