ACE Network: My Calls are now HD Video with the Cisco Jabber Client

It used to be that a video call meant going to a special room for a high-end video conference or putting up with the small webcam image on a laptop. Today, nearly all of the calls I handle at my desk are video calls because of the mid-range but very portable video meeting experience in the Cisco Jabber client.

Cisco Jabber Clients use the same video engine from Cisco Jabber Video for TelePresence (Movi). I use Cisco Jabber on our internal ACE network, where Cisco IT has been testing it as a new product before supporting it in production.

Being able to join a high-definition video call instantly, without having to schedule and wait, is more than just a convenience. It is becoming a necessity to conduct business these days and sometimes it’s the only way you can reach some people.

A recent study showed that users who use Cisco Jabber for video calls (primarily our Cisco sales force) say that it saves them time, almost 12 minutes per day. This really got me thinking that if we went back and applied this number to ALL of our salespeople, this would work out to a US $108 million productivity gain for Cisco each year!

More than time savings, using the client means that when I talk to other people who also use Cisco Jabber, all my voice calls are now high-definition video calls. If this sounds good to you, continue reading to learn more about how some of our senior technical sales leads are contributing to our time savings numbers and helping us achieve such high productivity results.

With Cisco Jabber, I can connect to many different types of video endpoints, from the video display on the Cisco Unified 9971 IP phone to a room-based Cisco TelePresence system. And because Cisco Jabber takes advantage of a high-definition webcam, the clear picture makes it even easier for me to have a meaningful conversation with the person on the other end.

My colleague John LaRiviere, a Cisco senior sales engineer, says: “Video is limited only by your imagination. The Cisco Jabber video client has certainly changed the way I conduct business and now I can truly connect from anywhere. For example, it has allowed me to join a team video meeting while using the broadband connection in a hotel and to take a customer’s spontaneous video call, made via Cisco VCS Expressway, over my mobile hotspot.”

Another colleague, Bob Simon, also a Cisco senior sales engineering manager for collaboration, notes: “When I have video conversations, all communications and objectives for the call are understood with much more impact. This allows me and my team to be more efficient in getting our work done more quickly and typically with better results.”

I use the Single Number Reach feature to route calls to my desk phone first, then to my Cisco Jabber client. If the inbound caller is using a video endpoint, then we have a video call. If not, the client handles the call as audio only.

Our salespeople like video calls from their laptop or mobile device because they can provide that very important “personal touch” during customer calls—without the hassle of finding, booking, and going to a big TelePresence room. This convenience and the quality video experience have led many ACE users to rate Cisco Jabber as the most useful product on the ACE network.

Correct marking of the video tags is important so that the video stream is delivered with reasonable quality. Cisco IT has defined multiple tiers in the video queue to prioritize which types of video calls will receive lower transmission speed when the network is congested. The Cisco Jabber sessions are the first to receive lower bandwidth, but the client adjusts the video quality automatically to provide the best call quality that is possible under the current network conditions.

Video calls aren’t the only way that I communicate with Cisco Jabber. Read my separate post about how I also use the client to handle voice calls and instant messaging (IM).

This post is part of a series about the Cisco IT ACE Service Introduction Network. You’ll find more information in these related posts:

Cisco ACE Network Overview

ACE Network: Making Voice Calls Easier with Cisco Unified Mobility Single Number Reach

ACE Network: Testing Desktop Virtualization for Mobile Employees

Are you currently using Cisco Jabber Video in your organization today? Share your thoughts below.