Should you Install a new Cloud Phone System at the same time as a new Call Center Software Application?

Your company is planning on replacing both your phone system and your call center software. Does timing matter? Should you stagger the installations or do them both at once?

In this video, I cover some downsides of staggering and 3 factors that you should consider before switching.

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

Your company is looking to replace your phone system and your call center software. Probably because you have an on prem phone system and your call center software is attached to that phone system. It’s made by the same manufacturer as the phone system. That happens a lot like Cisco or ShoreTel. Things like that. But you’re wondering, should we replace both of these solutions at the same time? Our phone system and our call center software? Or should we stagger the installation and maybe install one solution now? And then the other one, maybe the call center software in like six months to a year, Which is better? What must most companies do? I’m Mike Smith. I’m the president of Aerocom. Let’s put our heads together on this.

My Recommendations

But first, if you like my recommendation on the best vendors, your company should be quoting for your cloud phone system and your cloud contact center software. Reach out, send me an email or give me a call (714.593.0011). Send me an email. Give me a call. This is what I do. And I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. I represent all the major vendors out there. I’m a broker for all of them. I will help your company make a lot better vendor decision in a fraction of the time. More information on that at the end of the video. And here’s a hint it won’t cost you anything. So definitely reach out. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any of my feature weekly videos that I put out. And if you like the video, as always, hit the like button, ring the bell and leave me a comment. I was polite. Almost every single comment that I get, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you liked about the video, what other questions you have and all that good stuff.

Downsides of staggering

Okay, well, should you stagger the installation of your phone system installation and your call center software installation? Should those be two separate things that you push maybe six months of time in between those? Or should you do them all at the same time? Well, by staggering them right away, you’re putting yourself in a little bit of a disadvantage there. Some problems there. Obviously, doing them all at the same time is going to create a little bit more work. Yes, you’re right. It’s going to make it a little bit more chaotic. But if you separate them, there’s also going to be some problems.

the first problem is, is a lot of times if your cloud call center software today is part of your existing on prem phone system, you’re going to have to keep running that phone system and the phone lines attached to it to keep the call center software running. So you’re going to have that cost. It’s going to cost you more because you got to keep that system up and running along with the phone lines. You can’t scrap it like you would be able to do if you converted both of them at the same time.

The second issue, which is sometimes the bigger issue, is that if you install a cloud phone system now and you wait for your cloud contact center software later and you’re running your existing cloud contact center software, those two applications are not going to be able to see one another. So things like presence, employee presence, like their status of if they’re on the phone or not or transferring calls back and forth is going to be really clunky, if not impossible, between two totally separate applications.

3 Factors to consider

So which way should you do it? Well, it really depends on three factors. The first today as it stands is your phone system and call center software on the same platform. Are they are they one in the same? It’s the same brand. If they are, then you’re going to want to install your new stuff at the same time, your phone system and your call center software the same way you have it today, at the same time together. If they’re not if you’re using two separate platforms today, then yes, you might want to consider staggering by one install, maybe the cloud phone system first and then the cloud contact center software later. But remember what I said earlier, that you’re going to incur a higher cost and the two aren’t going to communicate that well. So that is a factor to take into consideration.

The second factor is how complex is your current cloud call center software? If it’s very complex, you have a very complex setup, meaning that you have skills based routing set up, you have a lot of different call queues, you have maybe some eyes, maybe have omni channel setup to where it’s integrating web chat, text messaging calls, email, social media all under the same platform. As if that’s your current setup, then yeah, that’s more complex. So you might want to stagger it.

How complex are your call center applications?

Maybe you want to stagger it at least a month in between the two installations, between the phone installation, phone system installation and the call center software installation. If your current setup today is very simple, it’s like, hey, it’s just calls, it’s just call cuz we have a couple of call queues and we just need some statistics on it, like real time hold times and thresholds for that and some historical reporting. Super simple. Install them both at the same time.

the third factor is how complex are your future solutions going to be? So maybe your current solution isn’t that complex, but you’re moving to a very complex, very detailed call center solution with all those things I mentioned, like omnichannel and A.I. and skills, base routing and workforce management and quality management, all that good stuff. All those are super cool, but they’re pretty complex and they take some time. So if you’re moving to a complex future cloud call center software, maybe you do want to stagger them a little bit. Maybe like I said, maybe a couple of weeks or a month or so, maybe not too far apart, but stagger them a little bit. And if your future system is simple, obviously install them at the same time as the phone system solution.

Still confused? Reach out and contact me

So that’s my opinion. I’ve done a lot of these installations, obviously over the 20 years that I’ve been a broker, so I have some insight on there. Hope that was helpful. If you work for a medium to large sized company like 50 or more office employees using the phone system and you’d like my recommendation on which cloud phone system vendors and which cloud call center contact center vendors your company should be coding. Reach out, send me an email or give me a call (714.593.0011). I’d love to help you with that. Send me an email. Give me a call. I’ve been a broker for all the major vendors out there for over 20 years, so I represent hundreds of different vendors and they’re all unique based on your company’s requirements. And then on top of that, some have very good reputation, some have bad reputations. So you definitely want to be working with someone like me who’s been around a long time. He knows the inside information on all these vendors. You don’t want to just Google it and start picking random vendors. You probably end up with the wrong one. So reach out, send me an email, give me a call. I will ask you a few questions about your companies requirements and then I’ll introduce you to the best 3 to 4 vendors that your company should be quoting or introduce you to

Which call center software vendors are the best?

the best salespeople to work with at those vendors. I’ll help you get a demo set up. Also oversee the coding process to make sure you get the best pricing possible out of the vendor of your choice. Because I quote them all the time. I know where their pricing flaws are at. And on top of all of that, I won’t charge your company a dime for my services. The service providers actually pay me my broker fee so your company doesn’t have to pay me anything. So there’s no excuse not to at least reach out and see what I have to say. The reason why I do this video. So send me an email. Give me a call. I’d love to help you with this. I could talk about this stuff all day. As you’ve seen from the hundreds of videos that I have online about it. All right. Well, again, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any of my future weekly videos that I put out. And if you’d like to video, hit the like button, ring the bell, and I will catch you on the next one. Thanks for watching.