Siemens Enterprise Communications is banking on the idea that when it comes to unified communications, one Tweet is worth a thousand words. That’s why the communications vendor, as expected, has added social media functionality to its OpenScape UC platform.

The effort utilizes Twitter as an information tool in Siemens‘ unified communications and contact center offerings. The OpenScape Fusion Social Media Integrations for UC and Contact Centers integrates Twitter (to start) in the GUI to enable companies to respond to direct and indirect customer queries immediately.

For instance, say someone Tweets that they’re having trouble connecting a particular brand of DVD player to an HDTV. The OpenScape Contact Center with the social media integration at the DVD manufacturer detects the Tweet and routes it to a customer service agent, who then Tweets back to the original Tweeter the information he or she needs.

In the unified communications realm, users have Twitter functionality embedded in the user interface, enabling them to send Tweets to their contacts with a mouse click. The interface also displays the users’ full Twitter home timelines, as well as Tweeters’ presence, and enables them to initiate conferences in Twitter.

Siemens has actually been fooling around with social media integration for about a year, and last November demonstrated the proof of concept with Twitter at VoiceCon San Francisco. In March, the vendor also demonstrated integration with Google Latitude during VoiceCon Orlando.

Now that Siemens has broken the social media barrier, so to speak, it’s only a matter of time before other UC vendors also incorporate Twitter et al into their solutions. And such a marriage makes sense, especially in the customer service realm. Solution providers can point this out as one more compelling reason why it makes sense for companies to adopt unified communications.

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