[VoiceOps] Experiences with VoIP and 100+ seat sites

[Carlos Alvarez]

It seems that a lot of you are willing to let the customer's employees
drive the attitude and acceptance of a new technology (phones, computers,
anything).  This is a completely wrong viewpoint and attitude.  Never
entertain negativity, and most importantly, never introduce it.  I caught
one of my guys apologizing to a customer about making things harder but
saying it will get better.  NO NO NO!  There is nothing to apologize for,
and your attitude must be one that you are 100% helping them be more
effective, enjoy their jobs more, and save money/time.  If a customer asks
me about a key system feature that we don't support, I just positively tell
them why they don't need that because we accomplish the same business
function better by doing it in 'X' way.

So number one rule is, drive change with no apology and with the attitude
that change is always good.  Most people are followers and will listen to a
confident leader.

For training and planning purposes you will segment your users into three
groups.  The owners/partners/c-level, the middle managers, and the minions.
 The c-suite cares about the bottom line and that their direct contacts are
happy and efficient (his assistant, his direct reports).  For those people
you talk efficiency and overall savings (not just dollar savings on a phone
bill).  Most of my customers at this level have a middle or low end phone
and their assistants have the phones with a button panel and more features,
and they understand why I recommended that.  These people care about
mobility, privacy, and convenience so I stress the features that help them
there, like concurrent ringing, and being able to hide their CID when
making calls from their cell.

The middle managers care about their budgets and their area's efficiency,
and somewhat about the happiness of their minions.  Talk about how to make
them more effective, IE, do more in the same amount of time.  These people
also care about being like the chiefs so I talk to them about convenience
features too.

The minions want the least impact to what they do every day, and always
think they have too much work whether true or not.  Address them with
things that will make their lives easier.  "Hey, we're going to ring the
CEO's cell phone at the same time as his desk phone, so you don't have to
make multiple calls."  Explain how things will work faster with the PBX.
 And always treat them like THEY own the phone system, which is mostly true
since they drive the processes and call flow.

Never respond to a feature request with a no.  Explain how you will work
around it, or tell them that you'll investigate the situation and get back
to them, then explain how you will work around it.

Create your own reality with absolute confidence, and 98% of people will
follow.

-- 
Carlos Alvarez
TelEvolve
602-889-3003
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