Business VoIP Featured Article

VoIP Training Critical for Migrated Users

December 31, 2015

By John Casaretto, Contributing Writer

There are few things that rank worse than a fully deployed technology project that is affected by poor adoption. All too often, the reasons behind these situations come back to a lack of communications, poor training, and general knowledge transfer. For the end users, the biggest problem would definitely be training. Such is the case when it comes to business VoIP migrations. End users are typically well-accustomed to the technology that they have been using and new systems come with some degree of learning curve.


VoIP technology is one of those tools of business that is supposed to serve an ultimate purpose. If it should happen that VoIP technologies are not utilized, then it truly serves no purpose. That is precisely why training users before, during, and after a VoIP migration is vital to the success of the project. All the technical delivery excellence in the world will not amount to much if nobody uses the finished product.

User training

The process can start with a simple project awareness campaign which tells people that improvements will be made to the existing voice systems, and further explains the reasons why. The campaign can tell users the dates during which improvements will be made, what they can expect when the migration is happening, and who to contact if they have questions or something goes wrong. Prior to the migration, a training plan should be enacted. This can be a web-based training session, or it can be in an interactive conference situation which allows questions. A pilot group of migrated users or employee leaders are great resources to lean on. The members of this group can be assigned or trusted to share the features and functionality of the new VoIP systems to people that need help. This sort of plan will aid the helpdesk support team in delivering support throughout the organization. Training sessions can then be extended to all users of the new system prior to their migration date. Finally, it is important to stage helpful information where users can access it if they need it after the migration takes place. It might come in the form of a webpage, recorded training session, automated phone systems, or through the accessible assistance from the helpdesk team.

Companies like Nextiva put support at the forefront of their services. Nextiva is a cloud-based VoIP leader that is dedicated to delivering total enterprise solutions. This includes training, customer information and absolute support around the clock. The fact is that a cloud-based VoIP deployment could be the best solution for business continuity, training, and support that an organization needs.

Knowledge exchange

When the job is done, it means that somebody has to keep things going. That is another pain point that organizations have to deal with. The transfer of information that takes place between responsible teams is a critical step to maintaining the environment reliably and securely. Aspects of configuration, networking, resources, contacts, escalation procedures and other critical points of information are the type of information that must be established and exchanged prior to going into a production state. So to answer the question of training in a VoIP migration, it is an essential step across the board.




Edited by Maurice Nagle

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