New System Hang-Ups

You’ve survived all of the planning, internal politicking, and hand holding required to get a new telecommunications system up and running. Initial bugs in the technology have been ironed out, and employees have been calling, e-mailing, or Web conferencing with few hiccups. Congratulations flow like cheap champagne among the installation project team and its sponsors.

But soon, less cheerful reports start trickling in. People are confused about how to use a new unified voice-and-data messaging system. Staffers are having trouble getting through to the 800-number help desks of equipment manufacturers and wireless carriers. Web hosting services aren’t performing as promised. Suddenly, all the backslapping begins to feel premature.

Whether you’re transitioning to voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) technology, upgrading to a new high-speed wireless data communication network, or simply changing cell phone service carriers, ensuring that you’ve got the right service support and user training in place after the sale can make the difference between a successful telecom implementation and one that gives the organization a lingering black eye.

Know Your Service Options

It’s easy to forget service and training issues while you’re focused on purchasing or deploying new telecommunications technology. And even when you prioritize those issues, sorting out the levels of network or end-user service support available through increasingly merged telecommunications companies—and the proliferating number of agents and partners that represent them—requires some doing.

National voice or data carriers and Internet service providers typically offer service level agreements (SLAs) that detail the vendor’s responsibilities in the event of network failure, commit them to specific response times for customer problems, and cover other areas of post-sale support. But most wireless and telecom companies don’t offer SLAs, which tend to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

That’s why it’s important to ask questions at the point of sale about what level of customer service you can expect after implementation. La-Von Dennistoun, vice president of customer operations at Integra Telecom, a telecommunications provider in Bloomington, suggests that you ask service providers about who will be available to answer service-related questions after the sale, how easy it will be to reach them, and what levels of technical or service expertise the company possesses, along with other important questions. If training is available, what will it cost? Dennistoun also suggests getting a sample of a monthly bill to assess how easy it is to read or understand. The point is to get these questions answered before products or services are in place.