Cloud Phone System Checklist for Large Companies: Free Proof of Concept

A free “proof of concept” (PoC), should be on your large company’s checklist, when shopping for a new cloud phone system.

In the video below, I explain what a free PoC is, the parameters, and the benefits to your company.

Want my recommendations on the best cloud phone system vendors to quote, for your company? Click the button below and ask me today.

About Mike

Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

So your company… your “large company,” I should say, is looking into a new cloud phone system service. Well, I’ve got a video series that I’ve made on the best checklist that you should have if your large company is in the market for a new phone system. What are the checklist items that you should be thinking about? What questions should you be asking? What items should you be making sure that you cover if your large company is looking for a new phone system? So it’s a video series. There’s a lot of videos out there.

So, today’s video is going to be about a free proof of concept. I wanted to bring that topic up. It’s definitely an item that you should have on your checklist and it will really help you out in this process.

Ask me my opinion.

So before I get too far along, a quick plug, if you like the video, don’t forget to hit the like and subscribe button down below. That’ll really be a big favor to me in exchange for giving you this good information. That’ll really help me out.

And also, if you’d like my recommendations on the best cloud phone system service providers that your company should be quoting, you can watch this video. It’ll give you some great information, but just reach out and contact me. I’ll be happy to give you my recommendations. Shoot me an email, give me a call (714.593.0011). I’m a broker for these service providers, all the major ones in the world, and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. I’m happy to help. More information on that at the end of the video.

What is a Proof of Concept?

Okay, so your large company is looking into a new phone system, and I’m here to tell you that one of the things that you should be thinking about, it’s a big help to you, is called a free proof of concept.

So after the quoting process, so say you go out and you do a demo, and then you get a quote from a service provider and you’re starting to lean toward one or two service providers. One of the things I always recommend to my customers to do, if it’s available, is to do a free proof of concept with that service provider. Most of the large service providers offer this, and what it is is they let you light up like three to five fictitious phone numbers with their solution, with their platform for free.

What are the Parameters?

So you get a user assigned to yourself and maybe another member of the IT department, maybe a couple other people. So it kind of depends on the service provider, how many they allow. And they let you use the phone system for three, I’d say two to three weeks or something like that, depending on the service provider. A lot of times they’ll say one week, but it usually ends up being two and you get to use it for free.

So they give you fictitious phone numbers. So you get to call one another and just kind of play with some of the features and get to use it. So it’s a really good way for you to try it out and kick the tires before you go all in and invest in this new cloud phone system because as we all know, as a large company, this is a big undertaking. You’re going to be moving a lot of users over to this new cloud phone system and to just see a few demos and to get a few quotes, that’s a big leap of faith without ever having used the phone system.

Benefits: Understanding of Requirements

So, the first benefit of a free proof of concept number one is there’s no way the IT department, and you can attest to this, is going to know every single way every single user uses the phone system, every feature that they need.

I don’t care how many surveys you throw around the company, you’re never going to really know how everybody uses that phone system until they actually use it. So it’s great because it helps prevent major mistakes. So if you accidentally sign up with a phone system that is missing a few features and you sign to a long-term contract and you don’t know it until you install it, that’s kind of a big deal. That’s a problem.

So the free proof of concept helps eliminate that right out of the gate.

Benefits: Another Opinion

Also, something that it does is it helps give another set of eyes to this decision. As we all know, great decisions are often made if you allow multiple people to get involved. If it’s just you doing the decision making, it’s hard because everyone’s like, “No, you just handle that. You just handle that.”

But then they’re going to complain if something gets installed that they don’t like. So it gets more eyes on this project. So that’s another benefit of it.

Benefits: Buy-In

Additionally, the free proof of concept is a way for you as the head of the IT department to get buy-in from other departments. So sometimes it’s hard to get decisions approved. So people might be saying, “Oh, I like our existing phone system.” And the IT department knows, hey, it’s really time for us to get a better phone system solution out there, but to get the budget and to get the approval from the higher ups, it’s better if you have buy-in from other departments. So the free proof of concept gives you the ability to give these little free accounts to key people in other departments, like say sales for instance, who’s using the phone quite a bit, folks like that or operations.

So you kind of give out a free user account to a few different people, key people in key departments. And if they like the phone system, it’s easier for you to get buy-in when you go to present this project to your superiors and say, “Here’s what we want to do. And by the way, it was approved by so-and-so over sales and so-and-so over in operations and in marketing. They all agree with me that this is the service provider that we should use. They tried it, they liked it.” So it’s a good way to do that.

Benefits: Spread the Responsibility

Which leads me to the final benefit is it just gets the decision off of IT’s shoulders solely. So when you’re making this decision, as I’ve kind of alluded to throughout, if it’s all on your shoulders, it’s kind of hard to make that decision because if something goes wrong, then it’s all your fault and there’s just no way you have all that information.

So it’s a good way to just spread the responsibility around the company. And again, it’s absolutely free. The service provider offers it, but a lot of companies, I’ve noticed, a lot of my customers don’t even know to ask for it. So it’s a good step in the process. Again, after you do the initial demo, then you get a quote and you start to narrow it down, I’d say either do a free proof of concept with ideally the one company that you’re really leaning toward. That’s the best way to do it. And if you really have some extra time, do it with two companies if you can’t make a decision between two different companies. So free proof of concept, I absolutely recommend it to all of our customers. And I hope that video was helpful. If so, don’t forget to hit the like and subscribe button down below.

Ask me what I recommend for your company.

And hey, like I said earlier, if you like my recommendations, which you should, because I’ve been doing this for 20 years, if you’d like my recommendations on the best service providers that your company should be quoting for your large cloud PBX service. So for instance, like a hundred employees or more, hey, which service providers should we quote? Give me a call (714.593.0011), shoot me an email.

I’ll ask you a few questions, and I’ll quickly narrow down a small handful of service providers that I’d recommend to you based on my customers’ experiences over the years based on your company’s specific requirements. So I can also oversee the quoting process. I’ll introduce you to the correct salespeople at each of these companies, and I’ll help you spend a lot less time on this decision and make a lot less mistakes. And the nice thing is is it won’t cost you a thing.

The service providers actually pay me my broker fee, so you don’t have to pay me anything. So there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least try me out and see what I might have to say. All right, well, I hope again that it was helpful and I will catch you on the next video.