This is the third in a three-part series sharing our tips for creating your unified communications roadmap. Check out the first installment – “UCaaS roadmap starts with deep assessment”, and the second installment – “UCaaS roadmap continues with process analysis”.
Auditing your hardware and mapping your processes form the foundation of a transition to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). But there’s one more step you cannot afford to neglect: securing stakeholder buy-in for transition.
Stakeholders can be a variety of people in your organization—top executives, middle-managers, team leads, clients, and external vendors. Getting them excited about unified communications can encourage adoption of the technologies and win over skeptics who are resistant to change.
Here are five ways to help secure stakeholder buy-in for UCaaS:
1. Educate your staff on the benefits of the new solution
Start in the executive suite. Even if they approved your new UC solution, leadership might need an extra round of persuasion to encourage everybody who works for them to embrace the new services. If they get excited about UC, the solution stands a much better chance of catching on with everybody else.
Have another demo ready for managers, outlining the specific benefits for their teams and the new work processes. Point out intuitive features and advanced processes that help people collaborate. Make it easy for all leaders to get their staffs excited about UC.
2. Provide formal training
Everybody needs an opportunity to learn how the system works before it goes live. Tailor your training to specific roles. Your warehouse staff probably doesn’t
need the same depth of training as your customer-service reps. Your UCaaS partner should have all the tools, resources, and documentation to support your training efforts.
3. Make sure everyone can access training materials after implementation
Your team will discover the limits of their training the first day on the job. The primary limit is their natural tendency to forget what they’ve learned when the system goes live.
Make sure everyone knows where to access training and resources. Make sure your vendor has a guide that includes lessons from training and step-by-step instructions to walk employees through all the new features. And make experts available for a few weeks to help people who feel stuck.
4. Clarify any changes to working practices
A cloud-based UC system allows people to work anywhere with an Internet connection. That gives you an opportunity to create work-at-home options for your staff. Will this option be available to your staff?
5. Think beyond your workforce
The collaborative features of UC can streamline your work with vendors, partners, suppliers, and clients.
Set aside time to bring them up to speed on features like text messaging, video conferencing, and integration with CRM software. The last thing you want to do is allow a technology transition that alienates your core external audiences.
Everybody needs to feel invested in your new UC tools
Your cloud-hosted UC system can help you unleash innovation in every corner of your organization, and extend it to all the people who make your business possible. Stakeholder buy-in for UCaaS is pivotal to making it happen.
CBTS engineers have put together a guide to unified communications in the cloud. Download our Guide to Start Your Cloud Communications Journey and start your transition today.
