Philippe Hulsmans, Country Manager Avaya Belgium & Luxembourg gives some 2015 predictions. First one is about “Generations Y&Z make video imperative”. We will follow with “Next generation networks come of age” and “Midmarket communications move to the cloud” this afternoon. Tomorrow morning will be about “Wearables gather momentum in customer service” and “Social media in the contact centre”.

I believe that the trends we’ll see emerging in 2015 will be driven largely by the enormous changes that have occurred in the relationship between customer and organisation over the past few years. The impact of these changes on businesses will become un-ignorable in 2015, making it the year of the customer. Consumers will continue to gain power, while companies that haven’t caught on yet will need to adapt their processes and underlying infrastructure quick sharp.

In terms of technology, I foresee five major trends that will enable this ‘year of the customer.’

1. Generations Y&Z make video imperative

As consumers have become accustomed to communicating via video, businesses have increasingly been offering video chat to their customers. In 2015, the growing spending power of Millennials will continue to fuel this trend – research shows that Generation Y typically prefers not to use the phone, while Generation Z shies away from email too, making video often Millennials’ first choice communication method.

I also expect to see video enabling deeper customer engagement in specific areas like healthcare, financial services and distance learning where it can make an important face-to-face impact. The midmarket too, which typically has found customer-facing video prohibitively expensive will take advantage of lower-cost solutions.

WebRTC technology will have a key role in creating widespread video support in 2015. This open source standard that allows users to communicate with each other by voice and video directly through a Web or mobile browser, without the need for extra software or plug-ins, is now starting to be implemented in customer service applications. The ease of use it provides will ultimately have a massive impact on the adoption of video as a customer engagement tool.