Digital Engagement among verticals

Amit Bathla

June 25, 2018

What Government, Higher Education, Transportation and Healthcare Are Doing

Digital transformation will be a key area of focus for enterprises throughout next year. In fact, according to industry analyst firm IDC, enterprise spending on digital transformation is expected to be exceed $2 trillion in 2019.

If you’ve read our previous blog posts on changing customer expectations due to the sharing economy and how enterprises are exploring digital engagement, this staggering statistic from IDC should come as no surprise.

The blog posts were based on an eBook we commissioned by Wainhouse Research entitled “Using the Cloud to Attract, Engage & Retain Your Customers: From ‘Communications Platform as a Service’ to Digital Engagement.”

Our previous blog post in this three-part series introduced four key verticals that are leveraging the cloud and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), including government, education, transportation and healthcare.

Today we’ll look at use cases on how each vertical was able to use the cloud and CPaaS to enhance its customer engagement.

Government
As discussed in the eBook, many may be surprised to learn that many government organizations have been working on digital transformation for some time now, especially as it relates to citizen communications. Major initiatives have included using technology to get closer to citizens, improving disaster awareness communications and in building smart cities. Here are two interesting use cases:

Location-based services: If a citizen witnesses a flood, they can send an image to the local government agency and the government agency can issue alerts to other citizens in that area.

Citizen engagement: It can be difficult to connect elected officials with citizens, so large-scale online conferencing tools can be used for town halls to get the voices of more citizens heard.

Education
Digital learning is a key topic in many learning environments today, making mobility and security a priority for educational institutions. But digital learning and its requirements come with challenges for schools with outdated infrastructure and many are needing to do more with less. Still, there are some interesting use cases:

New student services: The cloud enables text, audio, video and location-based service to help new students get acquainted with a campus or call for help if they’re in trouble.

Enhanced campus safety: The cloud, along with data from traditional sources and IoT sensors can enable student calls for safety alerts, a sensor detecting water a leak, or video surveillance signaling an intrusion, and more, all enabling quicker communication between the appropriate staff for triage and resolution.

Transportation
Transportation users come from all different backgrounds and technical preferences and the transportation industry must keep that in mind when considering new or updated communication services. In addition to this, there are increasing physical and digital security demands on transportation services, making even simple communications projects especially complicated. Some interesting use cases include:

Special services: The cloud can enable easy communication for a disabled passenger that books travel and needs assistance. After check-in and arrival, travel staff can be notified to arrive on time to help the passenger board.Lost baggage: For a traveler unsure of where to pick up his or her baggage, the cloud can enable text alerts on where to pick up the baggage. If further assistance is needed, an agent can join via video chat to help locate the baggage.

Healthcare
Much like transportation, healthcare users are diverse, but demand for mobile and distributed communications is growing. Even for aging patients, many doctors are interested in technologies enabling mobile communication with these patients. Some key use cases include:

In-hospital care: The cloud enables nurses to have quick access to patient data, schedules and more to improve care and reduce costs.

ALE Hacking Health Camp: Using Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™, ALE created an internal social network for healthcare providers to share information and collaborate, all while keeping patient information safe.

Every industry is seeing an opportunity to better engage and communicate with customers through digital transformation. While implementing the necessary technologies can seem like a daunting task, the use cases above and more in the Wainhouse Research eBook show the great benefits that each industry can experience through digital engagement via CPaaS.

For more information, download the full eBook here.