All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Tech News : One-Third Of UK Employees Being Remotely Monitored By The Boss

A Prospect trade union poll has revealed that 32 per cent of UK workers are being remotely monitored and tracked by employers.

Big Rise

The poll also shows a rise in the number of employees under remote surveillance that’s up from a quarter (24 per cent) from just 6 months ago in April. This includes a doubling of the usage of camera monitoring in people’s homes, with 13 per cent of home-workers now being monitored by cameras compared to only 5 per cent 6 months ago.

Young Workers Particularly At Risk

Prospect’s poll, conducted by Opinium, shows that young workers (18 to 34) are particularly at risk of a higher rate of monitoring. The poll showed that 48 per cent of younger workers have reported being monitored at work, including 20 per cent being monitored using cameras.

Tech Sector Workers Particularly Affected

Prospect has stressed its concerns that intrusive monitoring of this kind is likely to be particularly affecting workers in sectors with higher levels of remote working, larger proportions of younger workers, and low levels of trade union membership (e.g., the tech sector).

Monitoring What?

The kinds of metrics and details that employee monitoring software can highlight are:

– Taking sample screenshots/recording screens.

– Whether employees are active/inactive during working hours.

– How much time is spent on the Internet, plus whether games are being played or social media accessed too much.

– Whether employees are using work devices for work or private purposes.

Largely Unregulated

Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy has expressed his concerns, not just at the level of surveillance but also at the apparent lack of regulation saying:

“New technology allows employers to have a constant window into their employees’ homes, and the use of the technology is largely unregulated by government.

“We think that we need to upgrade the law to protect the privacy of workers and set reasonable limits on the use of this snooping technology, and the public overwhelmingly agree with us.”

Labour’s Shadow Digital Minister, Chi Onwurah MP, agreed and highlighted the matter of consent (or lack of it) saying:

“Ministers must urgently provide better regulatory oversight of online surveillance software to ensure people have the right to privacy whether in their workplace or home.

“The bottom line is that workers should not be subject to digital surveillance without their informed consent, and there should be clear rules, rights and expectations for both businesses and workers.”

COVID Has Driven Surveillance and Surveillance Is Driving ‘Gigification’

Anna Thomas, Director of the Institute for the Future of Work think tank pointed to the cause of the increased surveillance and how it could be affecting the nature of some jobs saying:

“IFOW research suggests COVID has driven a significant acceleration in technology adoption by businesses, leading to fundamental changes to the terms, conditions and quality of work.

“Speaking to both remote workers staying at home and key workers who travelled to workplaces through the pandemic, we found that increased surveillance is driving an intensification, and in many cases ‘gigification’ of jobs.”

What Laws Relate To Monitoring of Employees?

Data protection (the data gathered about individual employees), and privacy are the key concerns where there is currently legal protection related to monitoring employees with software and cameras. Relevant laws include Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights whereby individuals have a non-absolute right to respect for their private and family life and correspondence, and (UK) GDPR. Under GDPR, data needs to be processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently as well as being collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a way incompatible with those purposes. Also, monitoring data must be adequate, relevant, and limited to what is necessary for those purposes.

The guidance from ACAS is that although employers can monitor employees, workers are entitled to some privacy at work and employers must tell employees about any monitoring arrangements and the reason for it. Employers should have procedures in place setting out what is and what isn’t allowed, and these procedures should be made clear and understood by all workers before monitoring begins. Generally, employers must have a genuine reason to conduct covert monitoring such as criminal activities or malpractice, and any monitoring should be limited, targeted and within certain times, and employers should also have regard for private communications.

Suggested Measures

Prospect’s fundings have led the union to suggest possible measures to protect employees from intrusive monitoring, which include:

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) needs to toughen the regulation on the introduction of new monitoring technology in workplaces, and ensure that employees are always consulted, and that there is full transparency on how this tech is used.

The government should consider banning the use of camera monitoring in people’s homes and make it illegal for employers to use webcams to check up on workers outside of meetings and calls.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Employee monitoring has a value to businesses in terms of helping to manage productivity and ensure that company policies and procedures are adhered to. Remote monitoring of employees started to become more widespread with the remote working caused by the pandemic lockdowns. The resulting shift to hybrid working patterns appears to have driven a further rise in monitoring, but the level of increase and the use of camera monitoring have caused alarm among unions like Prospect, privacy campaigners, and some government ministers. Although Prospect has called for more regulation and for help from the ICO, employers who are currently monitoring their employees (or are thinking of doing so) need to be aware that there are already laws covering how it can be used. For example, workers are entitled to some privacy at work and employers must tell employees about any monitoring arrangements and the reason for it.

Although Monitoring employees can bring many business benefits (e.g., unbiased insights, highlighting areas for cost savings, and getting early warnings of misbehaviour) it is important to stick to the law and to consider that retaining employee trust, maintaining morale, and displaying behaviour that sends positive motivational messages to employees can also be contributors to productivity.

News

Tech News : Hybrid Working Results In Move Off-Premise For Tech Infrastructure

Research by Zen Internet has revealed that hybrid working is causing businesses to question whether they now need enough on-premise tech infrastructure to support a full capacity office.

Most Business Have Hybrid Working Plan

The research conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Zen Internet showed that 93 per cent of businesses already have a hybrid working plan in place to enable employees to work remotely, and 89 per cent now have their tech operations hosted off-premise.

The Hybrid Effect

Post-COVID Hybrid working patterns using software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) and cloud-based collaborative platforms have meant that there are much fewer people in the office and maintaining the same amount of on-premises tech infrastructure, such as data centres, is no longer needed by many companies. The research showed that the effects on the office hardware include:

– Only 11 per cent of planned tech operations are projected to be hosted on-premise, even though on-premise datacentres take up around 8 per cent of office floor space, and half of UK businesses’ technological infrastructure are currently reliant on on-premise systems.

– Employees only working 3 days per week in the office building means that only 55 per cent of office space and desks are expected to be in use over the next year.

Why Keep On-Premise Data Centres?

With half of the businesses surveyed by Zen admitting that data centres pose security and maintenance challenges, and with more than one-third citing a lack of in-house data centre maintenance skills and the fact they take up a lot of a physical space, there is an argument that with cloud-based hybrid working solutions, on-premise data centres may no longer be needed.

Although between one-third and one-half of the businesses surveyed could see a business case for moving data centres off-premise (e.g. better security and maintenance), their reason for not doing so yet is based on a belief that it would be expensive (77 per cent), and time-consuming (82 per cent).

Function Of The Office Is Changing

Hybrid working means that for many businesses, the office has become more of a place for colleagues to meet, collaborate, socialise, and learn, and the has become the ‘cultural epicentre’ of the business, whereas home is now the place where focused work tasks are carried out.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With hybrid working and the important part played by the cloud and SD-WAN technology now becoming a widely accepted working pattern, and with many offices not likely to see the whole workforce in at any one time, it makes sense that businesses are now asking questions about whether they now need large parts of their in-house, on-premise infrastructure e.g., a data centre. Also, cloud-based alternatives may be more secure and easier to maintain, thereby making the off-premises move more attractive both practically and financially. Although some businesses still see expense and difficulty as barriers to making the move now, it’s important to recognise that a different, valuable use can be made of the office to support the new culture, and many businesses have already successfully made the move to off-premise tech infrastructure and that this could become a source of competitive advantage going forward in the new work environment.

News

Tech Tip – Using The Spacebar To Speed Up Email Reading

Here’s how to use the Reading Pane and Spacebar in Outlook to sort through your daily emails more quickly:

– In Outlook, select “View” and “Reading Pane.”

– Select the Reading Pane to sit on the right-hand side.

– Select the top email in your inbox.

– Press the Spacebar so that Reading Pane will scroll down to reveal the lower section of your email and email chain.

– When you have reached the bottom of the email, the Spacebar will then take you to the next email in your inbox.

– Use the “Delete” key as you go through to remove emails that don’t need to be actioned.

– Use the Spacebar rather than the mouse to go through your remaining emails.

News

E-Waste Asked To Be On Cop26 Agenda

After recent reports that discarded e-waste in 2021 will weigh more than the Great Wall of China, The International Data Sanitization Consortium (IDSC) has sent an open letter to the RT Hon Alok Sharma MP, President of COP26, urging that e-waste be included on the agenda at COP26.

Electronic : The Fastest Growing Global Waste Stream

According to the UN’s Global E-waste Monitor report (2020), e-waste is now the fastest growing global waste stream with a record 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste generated worldwide in 2019, up 21 per cent in just five years.

A 2019 report by Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) and the UN E-Waste Coalition highlighted how global e-waste production looks set to reach 20 million tonnes per year by 2050. To put this in context, the worldwide pile of electronic waste currently weighs more than all the commercial airliners ever made and as highlighted by the WEEE, more than the weight of the Great Wall of China.

UK Big E-Waste Producer

The UK currently produces 24.9kg of e-waste per person, which is nearly 10kg more than the European Union (EU) average and as noted in the IDSC’s open letter to The Rt Hon Alok Sharma MP, the UK is the second-largest producer of e-waste per capita in the world.

Total Disregard For E-Waste In Government Plans

The IDSC’s letter, penned by Fredrik Forslund, Director of the IDSC, states that “UK government’s ambitions to “Build Back Greener” and lead in climate change prevention through its Net Zero strategy and Ten Point Green Plan, there has been a total disregard for e-waste.”

Opportunity For Recycling Scarce Materials Also Overlooked

The letter also makes the point that “Where current government strategies have outlined intentions to create solutions to lower emissions, opportunities to promote and incentivize more reuse and recycling of scarce materials and functional products have been overlooked.”

This a point that’s supported by the Global E-waste Monitor (2020) report which found that less than 20 per cent of the world’s e-waste is collected and recycled, meaning that gold, silver, copper, platinum and other high-value, recoverable materials (conservatively valued at US $57 billion) are simply dumped or burned.

Precious Metals In Phones

A recent assessment by the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) also showed that an estimated 151 million or more phones a year, approximately 416,000 a day, are simply incinerated or landfilled, and that 40 per cent of heavy metals in US landfills come from discarded electronics. Dr Ruediger Kuehr, director of the UN’s Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) programme was recently quoted as saying that “A tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore.”  Dr Kuehr also claims that one million mobile phones contain “24 kg of gold, 16,000 kg of copper, 350 kg of silver, and 14 kg of palladium”.

What’s To Be Done?

The IDSC’s letter calls for a more comprehensive green strategy where the UK government provides incentives for organisations that pursue sustainable e-waste management and demonstrate engagement with the circular economy. It also advises the UK government to provide guidance to organisations and consumers on how to transition away from a “take, make, consume, dispose” attitude to end-of-life electronics and IT equipment.

Organisations Unsure About Data Protection Aspects

The IDSC suggests that there is a relationship between data protection technology, e-waste reduction and circular economy growth, and that organisations may be unsure of how they can engage with the circular economy as data regulation and public sector policy do not advocate for the reuse of data bearing assets.

With this in mind, the IDSC has asked the UK government to consider data sanitisation policy reform, outlining best practices in data management to prepare devices and IT equipment for reuse, refurbishment, and appropriate means of recycling.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

As outlined by the IDSC and others, in order for the UK, which is a big e-waste producer, to deal more effectively with the e-waste problem there needs to be more help from the government. This could be recognising the e-waste problem, including the issue in a more comprehensive green strategy, considering data sanitisation policy reform, and providing incentives for organisations to pursue sustainable e-waste management and engage with the circular economy. The IDSC has rightly highlighted the need for a big change in the “take, make, consume, dispose” attitude to end-of-life electronics and IT equipment, and creating a better circular economy in the UK for electronic goods. Also, those who manufacture and sell devices need to look at ways to de-materialise the electronics industry e.g., through device-as-a-service business models, better product tracking and take-back schemes, and entrepreneurs, investors, academics, business leaders plus lawmakers can help by working together to find ways to make the circular economy function more effectively.

News

Tips For Saving Energy At Home

In the week that the UK government unveiled its Heat and Buildings strategy to decarbonise homes and commercial premises enough to hit the target of net zero by 2050, here are some tips for saving energy at home.

Change The Boiler

For most homeowners, changing a boiler is a significant expense. However, the UK has the oldest housing stock in Western Europe. Government figures show that gas heating accounts for 21 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions and gas the boilers in the UK homes collectively produce twice as much carbon emissions as all the nation’s gas-fired power stations combined!

The UK government is, therefore, promoting the replacement of gas boilers with low carbon, electric heat pumps by offering £5000 grants from next April (although installation currently costs up to £16,000). Heat pumps are energy efficient because they simply absorb heat from the air, ground, or water around a building (with the help of compressed refrigerant fluid) to produce heat.

Other more energy-efficient options for home heating in the future include district heating using a network of hot water pipes drawing on heat from burning waste or heat pumps sunk into rivers, and low carbon hydrogen heating, which is still being tested.

Add/Upgrade Insulation

Homes lose around one-third of their heat through the walls, a quarter through the roof, and roughly 15 per cent through the floor, the windows, and as a result of draughts. Insulating your home, therefore, means that more heat is retained, and less heating needs to take place, thereby saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

Home insulation measures typically include cavity wall insulation, built-in solid wall insulation, external wall insulation, under-floor insulation (on the ground floor, or in upper-floor rooms above unheated areas), pipe insulation and loft insulation. It is estimated that a £450 installation of cavity wall insulation could save around £140 home-energy bills annually.

Insulating hot water tanks and radiators through lagging and insulation behind radiators can mean less money spent heating water up, and hot water staying hotter for longer (in the tanks).

Upgrade Doors and Windows

As part of the overall insulation of a home, upgrading to new double or triple glazed, ‘A-rated’ doors and windows could retain heat in the home and save around £75 per year and 330kg of carbon dioxide (Energy Saving Trust data).

Take Draught-Proofing Measures

Some areas of the home are typically sources of draughts, for instance around doors (internal and external) and windows, chimneys, skirting boards, and loft-hatches. Draught-proofing is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to save energy and money. For example, Energy Saving Trust figures show that draught-proofing windows and doors could save £25 a year and draught-proofing your chimney (when you’re not using it) could save around £18 a year.

Use Energy-Efficient Lighting and Appliances

Using LED bulbs and only buying home appliances (e.g., white goods) that have good energy ratings are also useful ways to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint.

Looking Ahead

With governments needing to turn up the heat on meeting carbon emissions targets, the climate emergency high on the agenda, and the prospect of rising energy bills, now is the time for homeowners to take a serious look at some key ways to make their homes more energy-efficient, reduce individual carbon footprints, and save money in the longer term. The government will need to help more with (and incentivise) some of the larger, more expensive changes (e.g., boilers to heat pumps) but making these changes in our homes will contribute to a better, more sustainable future, lower bills, and warmer, more energy-efficient homes.

News

Why Software Can Help Reduce The Carbon Footprint Of Commercial Buildings

In this article, we look at how software can be used to reduce the contribution to climate change of commercial buildings and the interaction with the building of its occupants.

Reduce Greenhouse Gasses

With non-residential buildings generating 6.6% of greenhouse gas emissions, finding ways to decarbonise industries and economies is of vital importance. Technology now plays an important part and software is a vital tool in the fight for sustainability and tackling the climate crisis.

Examples

Three examples of software-based/linked methods and systems for reducing the environmental impact and increasing the sustainability of commercial and industrial buildings are:

BEMs

Building energy management systems (BEMs) refers to software applications that can continually monitor and analyse a building’s energy use. BEMS connect to the existing build management or building automation systems but are focused on tracking and reducing the energy consumption rather than the overall performance of a building’s systems. BEMs can typically monitor how much energy is used by lighting, heating, and cooling, plus security systems. Owners and managers of buildings can use software dashboards to view energy use and analyse key performance indicators.

Smart Meters

Smart meters, such as those installed by EP&T can undertake a ‘digital energy audit’ every 15-minutes, rapidly analysing over thousands of data points per day to identify energy-saving opportunities. These meters and the Edge software platform have, for example, within 17 months of operation at the Swindon Designer Outlet, been able to deliver a 30 per cent overall energy reduction and 1,640 tonnes of avoided CO2 emissions (equivalent to an incredible 988 return flights from London to New York). Software systems linked to smart meters and sensors, such as EP&T’s, can help make these big energy reductions by (for example) identifying faulty sensors and actuators, optimising flow and return temperatures, optimising automatic lighting control systems, plus the continuous optimisation of HVAC set points to minimise heating and cooling conflicts.

Digital Twins

The use of digital twins is one important way that the environmental impact of industrial buildings can be reduced. A digital twin is an accurate virtual model of a physical object (in this case, the building) that uses data gathered from sensors on the physical object to run simulations, study performance issues and generate possible improvements that can then be made to the object and its systems.

IES, for example, offers its ICL Digital Twin, which integrates physics-based simulation with the 3D model, real-time operational data, machine learning and AI to help create energy and water-efficient plans, meet zero-carbon and healthy building targets, or ensure buildings operate as efficiently and comfortably as possible. This involves using data analysis from physical and virtual sensors, real-time optimisation and fault detection, as well as community energy and renewable integration. Design and retrofit to zero-carbon standards can also be helped by allowing users to test what difference options like new glazing, heating, and cooling systems and adding solar panels, would make to the energy usage of a building.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

Using software systems linked to sensors and smart meters and using digital twins to test and develop improvements are now proven ways for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and make cost savings, although it may take a few years for the installation/set up cost of BEM system to pay back. Although software can provide the insights to spot faults and make improvements, keeping a building’s physical systems and hardware up to date and taking a more holistic view of facilities management are also necessary. This requires specialist human experience, skills, and knowledge. The use of software to help reduce a building’s carbon footprint, however, can give valuable, almost real-time insights that it wouldn’t be possible to gain using traditional means and, with climate change and targets now high on most agendas, businesses may decide that the value delivered by these software systems is well worth the financial cost and, importantly, they can really help to reduce the environmental cost of business.

News

Google Maps Suggests Routes To Navigate More Sustainably

Google has announced the introduction of three new features to Google Maps that will enable users to make greener travel route choices.

Help Cut Transportation CO2 emissions

The new features, which were unveiled at the company’s ‘Sustainable With Google’ event are designed to help tackle the problem of 75 per cent of transportation CO2 emissions being one of the largest contributors of greenhouse gasses worldwide (International Energy Agency).

Three New Features

Based on a new sustainable routing model, the three new Google Maps navigation features are:

Eco-friendly Routing. Google says that AI and insights from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have helped it to design an entirely new routing model for Maps that not only gets users to their destination as quickly as possible, but also optimises for lower fuel consumption.

In addition to showing the fastest route, this new feature (which is already live) will also show the most fuel-efficient route, even if it isn’t the fastest. Eco-friendly routing also gives users an ETA for each option, thereby allowing users to make their own sustainability choices while taking into account their own travel needs.

Google estimates that this feature could prevent over one million tons of carbon emissions per year, which is the equivalent of removing over 200,000 cars from the road!

Lite navigation for cyclists. Based on the statistic that biking directions on Maps has dramatically increased in cities around the world (by up to 98 per cent), this feature is designed to make cycling safer and easier for the growing number of urban bike users. With cyclists citing having to constantly look at a screen-on phone and use turn-by-turn navigation as a problem, Google’s Lite Navigation instead give users an at-a-glance snapshot of the route and includes real-time ETA update and route elevation details. Lite navigation will be live on Android and iOS in the coming months.

Bike and scooter shared information. This expansion of an existing feature now draws upon shared bike and scooter information from over 300 cities around the world and help from Google’s micro-mobility partners including Donkey Republic, Tier and Voi (Europe), and Bird and Spin (US-based).

With this feature, Google Maps users can find nearby stations, pinpoint how many vehicles are available at that moment in any of the cities, and even make sure there’s a place to park before heading to the station.

Criticism

There has, however, been some criticism of another of Google’s travel/traffic related sustainability projects. Google’s use of artificial intelligence to optimise traffic lights in a scheme at four locations in Israel has led to some critics voicing concern that Google may not know enough about traffic engineering to be extending the scheme (as it plans to do).

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

With the climate crisis now high on the world agenda, big tech businesses, many of which have been involved in sustainability projects around the world for some time, are now using their tech skills and their communications reach to highlight and compete using sustainability innovations and product features that users can share and understand the value of. AI is a key technology that is driving many of these sustainability features and is now beginning to really prove its value in helping to tackle some of most difficult challenges to businesses, governments, and the world. Some businesses involved in transportation of passengers or goods in city centres e.g., food delivery, couriers, and others, may find these new features from Google useful, and these features along with other sustainability efforts by Google e.g., water stewardship at data centres represent valuable good publicity as well as delivering environmental benefits.

News

Google Joins Other Tech Giants With ‘Water Stewardship’ Sustainability Pledge

Google has matched water use pledges by Microsoft and Facebook by announcing a ‘water stewardship target’ to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030 and to support water security in communities where it operates.

Stewardship

Google says that through focusing on water stewardship at office campuses and data centres, ecosystems in water-stressed communities, and by sharing prediction technology and tools, it can replenish 120 per cent the water it consumes.

Water For Data Centre Cooling

Data centres have traditionally been big water users as part of cooling process. For example, back in 2019, it was reported (from public records and online legal filings) that Google requested/was granted, more than 2.3 billion gallons of water for data centres in three different states. Also, in 2020 in early 2020 in Red Oak, just south of Dallas, a legal filing indicated that that Google may have needed as much as 1.46 billion gallons of water a year for its data centre by 2021.

Criticism

Google is not the only big tech company that’s needed lots of water for data centre cooling, often in hot locations where others are urged to conserve water. The practice has led to criticism that tech companies may have been taking away critical resources away from water-scarce communities as well as consuming vast amounts of water at a time when there is a strong focus on the environment and climate change.

Office Campuses

Google has stressed that its water stewardship pledge, as part of its broader carbon-neutral plan, is a journey that it has been on for some time. For example, Google’s water stewardship announcement highlights its plans to look at how it can utilise more on-site water sources (collected storm-water and treated wastewater) at its office campuses for landscape irrigation, cooling and toilet flushing, and the company has already developed drip irrigation, using watering systems linked to local conditions for its San Francisco Bay campuses.

Prediction Tech

Google’s latest announcement also highlights how it has already partnered with organisations including United the Nations Environment Programme and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), Global Water Watch, and OpenET to help Communities, policymakers, and planners with need tools to measure and predict water availability and water needs.

Sustainable Water Management at Data Centres

In Google’s 2020 Environmental Report, a year before this latest water stewardship pledge, the company highlighted its work on sustainable water management practices and new cooling options at its datacentres in Finland, Belgium, Ireland, and Douglas County, Georgia.

Facebook and Microsoft

Back in August, Facebook announced its commitment to replenishing more water than it consumes in its global operations by 2030 by improving water efficiency in-house and investing in water restoration projects. Also, in September, Microsoft pledged to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030 on a global basis.

Innovative Solutions

Examples of innovative solutions to data centre cooling that Microsoft has tried in recent years include sinking a data centre to the ocean floor of the coast of Orkney for 2 years (retrieved and hailed a success in 2020) and using liquid immersion cooling at datacentre on the eastern bank of the Columbia River.

What Does This Mean for Your Organisation?

Climate change, a growing world population and increasing industrial development have all contributed to a water crisis that requires innovative moves to reduce the amount of water humans use to operate economies and societies. The huge growth of the Internet, the big move to the cloud, and closer scrutiny, particularly about water requirements in data centres (often in water-scarce communities) have put pressure on the big tech companies to make public pledges and work harder to find more innovative and sustainable solutions to their resource requirements, and to communicate these to stakeholders. Although tackling a growing water crisis is a challenge that requires a global effort and changes at individual as well as enterprise and government level, big tech companies like Google are keen to highlight ways that show they are doing their part and in doing so, maintain a positive brand image, as well as compete effectively on environmental credentials.

News

Featured Article: “Your call Is Important To Us”

In this featured-article, we look at the traditional frustrations that occur when customers encounter (some) phone systems and how technology is helping to bring better experiences.

Spending Time On Hold

Being put on hold and spending time waiting has long been known to frustrate customers, cause stress, and lead to them hanging up. Even though it costs money and can lead to lost business, many companies continue to do it even though, from a customer’s perspective, it may feel like the company really doesn’t care about them. Despite messages that their call is ‘important,’ many customers feel that these experiences on hold are more for the company’s convenience, rather than that of the customer.

There is also an argument that from the company’s perspective, losing customers (from putting them on hold) means that the business loses opportunities to gain insights from the calls that could feed into creating a better service and a better experience for customers moving forward. It can also lose opportunities to gain information about competitor activity which is often mentioned in customer calls.

60 Seconds … to Lose 60% of Customers

There is large body of research to show that customers h-a-t-e being put on hold, but really like human engagement. Research from Volaro (2012), for example, showed that waiting on hold for 60 seconds results in almost 60 per cent of customers hanging up, and 63 per cent would prefer a call-back option.

A Sense of Progress Is Valued

A 2007 study (Munichor, Nira, Rafaeli, Anat, Journal of Applied Psychology), where one-third of callers were given music, one-third were given music interrupted by messages apologising for the wait, and one-third were given punctuated by status updates (i.e., “You are the fourth caller in line… You are the third caller in line,”) showed that those who received the status updates were the most satisfied. Even though they waited the same amount of time, it was the sense of progress that they valued and found comforting.

Human Engagement Is Important

Even in this virtual age, human engagement is still very much valued by customers. A CGS survey (2019), showed that 86 per cent of consumers prefer interaction with a human agent rather than a bot or a recording.

Also, research by Shell and Buell (Harvard Business Review – 2019) made the point that when people feel anxious, it is human nature to turn to others for help. Many companies, however, funnel nervous customers to self-service technologies. The research, based in the financial service industry, found that when people had the ability to connect with another person (an expert or a peer) the deleterious effects of their anxiety were offset. The researchers concluded that anxious customers left to fend for themselves may be less satisfied with their choices, and less trusting of the company with which they are interacting. The researchers found that simply offering access to talk to a person is enough to restore customer confidence, improve trust in the company, and even strengthen long-term relationships.

Not In Supermarkets?

Interestingly, despite lessons learned in past (e.g., adding human interaction points to please consumers at deli counters, fish counters, meat counters), UK supermarkets now appear to be moving towards favouring shop-floor technology and reducing human interaction (self-service, or even zero checkouts). Although this may bring them in line with some overseas supermarkets, cut overheads, and deliver operational efficiencies, it remains to be seen whether customers will begin to miss human interaction.

Dos and Don’ts

Developing hold systems for the phone that stop customers from hanging up has become a science in itself where there is much research and where technology is now playing a major part.

For example, findings published in “The Psychology of Telephone ‘On Hold’ Programming” by Dr. Jim Will (2005) highlighted certain points to remember when creating an on-hold experience for callers. These include:

– A primary cause of caller discontent involves the concept of “perceived time” on hold and adding music is effective in the lowering of perceived time. The music, however, should be upbeat, should be created differently in type and instrumentation, and should not include songs that don’t evoke negative associations in the mind.

– The length of the overall message-on-a-hold program is also an important factor in reducing potential anxiety. Longer, less repetitive on-hold message program formats are more effective at reducing caller anxiety.

Also, an optimal “message on hold” program consisting of music on hold and verbal presentations should:

– Incorporate a variety of information genres to maximise interest and cognitive functions, placed in a structured manner.

– Have longer message formats to minimize “wearout”.

– Have upbeat and personable verbal information delivery.

– Have information with no background music or interference (which could divert attention).

– Offer lower perceived time and provide structure to the holding period.

Outsourcing To Call Centres Offshore

The outsourcing of call centres offshore by companies may make sense financially and in terms of increasing capacity, but it has been a contentious issue. For example, back in 2018, BT pledged to bring all its call-centres from offshore locations such as India and the Philippines back to the UK and Ireland after the use of foreign customer service staff was identified as a major complaint by BT’s UK customers.

Some of the reasons some customers dislike speaking to call-centres that have been outsourced include:

– A feeling that their problem isn’t important enough to be dealt with by the company directly, and a perception that the only reason for offshore customer service is to save money.

– Feeling uncomfortable about language difficulties and communication problems, and how this can complicate solving their problem.

– A reliance on scripted conversations by some offshore call-centres can frustrate customers.

– Customers want to talk directly to the company, particularly for services that are personal and involving finances (for example), rather than what they perceive to be ‘go-betweens.’

– Customers are looking for quality service more than fast service and consequently, customers are more likely to recommend a brand based on good service experience.

– From the company’s point of view, poor customer call experiences and negative perceptions can damage the marketing efforts that the company has spent time and effort on and could lead to customers switching.

New Technology

Despite the faults from the point of view of some customers, on-hold messaging services are likely to remain an important part of customer service for some time yet. Examples of how technology is being used to improve these services include:

– Tailor-made music to suit specific customer demographics.

– Systems that can update recordings with the latest promotions.

– Auto-attendant and IVR for automatically routing calls.

– AI-powered voice recognition technology (IVR receptionists) that lets callers state the purpose of their call and their expectations in their own words.

– Google’s AI secretary (‘Hold for Me’) that waits on hold for phone users and notifies users when the call is picked up, thereby leaving them free to put the phone down.

– AI call transcription that can transform call recordings into text documents.

– Using AI-driven analytics in VoIP business phone services to gain better insights into call metrics, caller-behaviour, and the performance of individual company agents.

Chatbots

In the wider sphere of customer service and information provision, bots have become a favoured tool. Bots provide a way for businesses and organisations to reduce costs, make better use of resources and communicate with customers and enquirers 24/7. Examples of how bots can make a positive difference include:

– Lancaster University’s ‘Ask L.U.’ chatbot. Built on Amazon Web Services (voice), it delivers a voice interface that interacts with users, and can be accessed via the iLancaster App on mobile phones and tablets, or by asking “Alexa, Ask L.U.” on any Amazon Echo device. The service, based on the most popular 300 student queries gives students a way to get information in a fast, easy, and convenient way, 24/7.

– Marriott International’s chatbot, ChatBotlr, available to users through Facebook Messenger and Slack, enables Marriott Rewards members to research and book travel to more than 4,700 hotels.

– During the pandemic, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) bot on WhatsApp became a trusted information source and alert delivery tool for the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The phone is still an important way for customers to make contact with businesses and organisations. How those calls are handled, and the customer’s experience of the interaction is vital to retaining customer trust, and the positive perceptions that have been built-up, with considerable investment, over time. Using a system and a supplier that enables customers to get what they want quickly (without hanging up) and allows the business to get the insights and information it needs to feed into improving its marketing are important considerations. Websites, social media, and technologies such as AI and the use of bots may have reduced the reliance on the phone system, but where customers have to use it, the most important part of a good customer experience is actually having the problem solved effectively in a reasonable amount of time.

News

Tech Insight : WAP … WEP … What ???

In this tech insight, we take a brief look at the WEP and WAP security protocols, and what happened to them.

What Is WAP?

Developed by Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and Unwired Planet, and introduced back in 1999, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was a security standard for devices with a wireless Internet connection on a mobile network. It was designed to create interoperability between WAP equipment e.g., mobile phones that used the protocol, and WAP software e.g., WAP-enabled web browsers and network technologies.

Used A Gateway Intermediary

WAP worked in a similar way to the traditional client-server model but had a WAP gateway that sat between the client and server. The WAP gateway:

– Translated the WAP device requests from a mobile browser (micro browser) into an HTTP URL request and sent it to the server over the internet.

– Processed the response by sending the webpage to the WAP mobile device as a WML file that was compatible with micro browsers.

Why WAP?

Some of the benefits of WAP were:

– It gave wireless network and mobile phone operators an opportunity to improve their services while enabling the introduction of new apps that didn’t require phone or infrastructure modifications.

– It created the potential for third-party developers to write apps (in WML).

– End-users had better security when accessing online services like online banking.

What Happened To WAP?

WAP was not widely adopted around the world and by 2013, due to HTML compatibility in mobile phones, it had largely disappeared.

What Is WEP?

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), which was developed in the late 1990s, was a security protocol for wireless networks that encrypted data transmitted over the WLAN using a static key with the RC4 stream encryption algorithm. The idea was to use WEP to give wireless networks the same level of protection as LANs which also benefitted from physical protection.

Protection From Unauthorised Network Access

Whereas wired networks can only be accessed by users with physical access network access points, wireless networks needed protection from threats such as people gaining access to the WLANs via the radio waves that connect to the network.

What WEP Provided

WEP provided privacy by using a data encryption key (128 or 256-bit), an initialisation vector (an arbitrary number used alongside the secret key), data integrity due to the use of a CRC-32 checksum algorithm (a string of letters and numbers acting as a fingerprint file), and authentication. This authentication could be either Open System Authentication (OSA) or Shared Key Authentication (using a multi-step challenge-response algorithm).

WEP Weaknesses

Unfortunately, WEP was found to have had several critical weaknesses such as:

– Weaknesses in the encryption and RC4 algorithms.

– The inability to authenticate individual users because all users shared the same key.

– The use of the protocol was optional and, therefore, it wasn’t always activated when new devices were installed.

What Happened To WEP?

WEP’s weaknesses and the introduction of the better Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protocol meant that WEP was replaced by WPA2 in 2004. WPA2 offered stronger encryption and integrity protection. The current version is WPA3 (introduced in 2018).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With most of us now using mobile devices for our work and home life, particularly with the shift to remote and hybrid working over the last year, it is clear to see why security protocols for mobile networks are so important. WAP and WEP represented important steps in the evolution of network security and encryption, and lessons learned over time have led to the much more secure protocols that we use today.