Mobile-Friendly Call Center Applications
While desktop and laptop access still represent a large portion of digital media consumption, especially for business and healthcare uses, the trend towards mobile devices is becoming the predominant means of access. Mobile device usage, predominantly by smartphones, continues to increase. According to Statista, “adults spent 3 hours and 35 minutes on average every day on a mobile device in 2018” in the United States.
Healthcare is an example of an industry with an extremely mobile workforce. Physicians, nurses, and other care providers need to access applications and web content as they move throughout the medical facility. “90% of physicians already use smartphones at work,” according to Mobius MD. Mobile-friendly call center applications for smartphones and tablets are even more critical in the healthcare industry today.
The user experience when accessing content is quite different between desktop computers and mobile devices. The larger screen on a desktop computer makes it easy to view more information with minimal scrolling. The mouse and keyboard allow quick navigation and typing. This enables the user to view multiple screens with a large amount of content on each screen.
Mobile device users have much smaller screens, even with the ever-increasing size of smartphone displays. It’s not possible to present the same amount of information on a mobile device screen that can be presented on a desktop computer screen. Mobile users also have to perform navigation by screen scrolling and touch-clicking. Content needs to scale to be readable on a small screen, with easy scrolling with the swipe of a finger, and minimal menu selections and typing requirements.
When Amtelco first recognized the trend towards mobile-friendly call center applications in 2011, the result was the creation of the miSecureMessages secure smartphone messaging app. misecureMessages addresses the growing need for HIPAA-compliant messaging for healthcare providers. The demand for miSecureMessages continues to grow as the number of providers carrying smartphones continues to increase.
Amtelco has long provided web content to end-users in the healthcare and commercial markets, first with the Infinity Web and then the IS Web. Both of these web interfaces provided access to directories, on-call schedules, status, and messaging. The IS Web provided further access to reporting, scripting, and call log recordings.
The Infinity Web and IS Web were designed to optimize the presentation of content and application functions for desktop computer users. The content was organized into a series of screens selectable by tabs accessed with mouse clicks. The text size of the fonts used on the screens didn’t scale in order to be readable on mobile devices, forcing a mobile user to zoom into sections of the screen to read the content.
In 2016, Amtelco introduced miTeamWeb, a mobile-friendly web presentation for the miSecureMessages Contact Web and Administration Web, and an advancement of the IS Web. The key to these new presentations is a mobile-friendly framework that recognizes the type of device being used, and automatically adjusts the page presentation to optimize the font size, menus, and graphics to match the screen size. This allows the presentation to work equally well on desktop computers and mobile devices.
One of the key elements of miTeamWeb is the Home screen. When a user logs into miTeamWeb, the user is presented with a collection of widgets that provide access to all of the application functions and content that they need on a single scrollable screen. The widgets provide quick access to directory, on-call scheduling, status, messages, call log recordings, reporting, and more. Mobile users can access the widgets without the need for a magnifying glass since the content is automatically optimized for a mobile screen presentation.
Amtelco continues to focus on advancing the call center applications and web interfaces of our solutions to meet the changing needs of users. Users need an interface that is easy to read and navigate, regardless of the type of device they are using. miTeamWeb and miSecureMessages are two great examples of this focus. We'll continue to enhance these web interfaces and add new mobile-friendly web interfaces to our applications.