Over the last decade, email has become second nature to people all around the world. For businesses too, e-mail has been one of the primary means of communications for many years.

But today, email simply is not enough. Users and businesses altogether have been looking at complementary ways to communicate. Instant messaging, social media platforms, and think of just how much are employees starting to use their personal devices for business communications. This search often results in embracing state-of-the-art Unified Communications (UC) solutions.

Often overlooked, or without much importance-attached, is the fact that you need to train your employees on all the new ways to communicate. Teaching them on how to use presence, instant messaging, conferencing and many more UC features is essential in achieving ROI for your company. Implementing such technology however requires a fundamental cultural shift in order for your employees to embrace the change. You may think that this change from traditional ways to communicate all the way to VoIP, advanced PBX functions and communication-enabled-business-processes is all about technology and only the IT department should be involved. Yet, you are only partially right because it’s us, humans who use all this technology. And if not properly understood, its benefits explained and adoption rate tracked, our old human habits take over. We are just not that willing to change and an expensive UC system implementation will fall flat on its face.

So how will you engage your company in adopting the Unified Communications solution? Here are some ideas:

1. Involve everyone. To implement UC successfully, you need buy-in—from the entry-level call center agent who will rely on it for customer service to the CEO who will act as a beacon, leading the change. As such, all of your department leaders need to work together, learning about the UC vision your company has. They should be informed about the opportunities UC will bring to their day-to-day lives such as increased revenue, more-timely interactions, and even CAPEX/OPEX savings. To get your company on board, seek feedback from all the different stakeholders within the organization prior to choosing your platform.
2. User acceptance testing. Department leaders should also be involved in the piloting phase, when user acceptance testing takes place to make sure the software can be used in real world situations; don’t only use your IT department. You can hold demo sessions for key executives, so they can provide feedback for enhancements to the UC solution. It’s important to be open-minded to everything they have to say. Also, to learn from them what is blocking their operational processes and working flows, so that you can find an appropriate UC solutions that better accommodates their needs and serves your business objectives.
3. Grant access to necessary resources. Because there are so many features to learn, your employees may be all over the map during the training phase. Some will need a thorough primer on audio conferencing platform while others will need to focus on advanced PBX functionality. During training, make sure to have subject matter experts on hand—including key personnel from your UC vendor, if applicable, to ensure each employee receives comprehensive specialty training for the system.
4. Explain the unique value added. The vendor should also help walk your employees through every hidden feature, specifically pointing out how to use each to attain maximum ROI for the company. For instance, do your call center employees know that they can leverage UC solutions to quickly ping an available expert when they don’t know an answer for a customer rather than having to transfer a call? This new capability can pay huge dividends for your company in the long run, helping retain customers.
5. Measure, measure, measure. It’s an old adage but often overlooked. Perhaps everybody is tired going through this change. Perhaps no one within the company was appointed to this task, whatever the reason, if you are not going to measure the adoption rate, all effort will amount to naught. Measuring the rate periodically allows you to identify the “pockets of resistance” and help those people directly overcome whatever obstacles they have in using the new technology.

So there you have it, the big 5 steps that you should follow when deciding to bring all your employees on board of a brand-new Unified Communications system.

For more information on cloud-based Unified Communications, check out our platform.