9 Steps to Selecting and Implementing an IP Business Phone System

9 Steps to Selecting and Implementing an IP Business Phone System 2011, GWI

Introduction: GWI has written this whitepaper in an effort to provide our customers with an overview of the process of identifying, selecting, purchasing and installing a new IP business phone system. It has been organized into easy to identify sections that will support you in selecting what sorts of questions to ask in order to choose exactly what features your installation package will require. It is our desire to support you in meeting your specific phone package needs for optimal success. 1.) Determining Need and Budget Before you begin the process of selecting a system, it's naturally important to understand the reasons you're looking for a new system, and what your financial limitations are with respect to buying a new one. There are a few questions you should be asking yourself at this stage, including: Is your current system meeting your needs? If not, could it be made to do so with minor modifications? Is your current system fully depreciated? Does the current system need regular service calls? Are you paying a provider to make frequent add-ons, moves and changes to the system? Is it easy to use? What is your current monthly expense for phone service, and phone system leases, repairs, service contracts, and other related expenses like IT staff? Are additional dollars available for purchase or installation of a new system? 2.) Identifying business processes and critical features and functions required from a system. When making the determination for specific service needs, the best approach is to break down the user processes in your company. This includes both internal user processes and customer processes. Discovering which questions to ask leads to the discovery of exactly what features are needed most. User Processes For most companies, the best approach will be to segment the workforce by job type, and consider the calling habits and requirements of each one. What do sales people do? Are they mobile? What about customer service people, production, accounting, and management? Each has different needs and will likely require different phones with different feature sets. Users who are frequently away from the office, for example, might need find-me follow me service, which automatically routes calls anywhere in the world an employee may be, whereas a user in an automotive parts department may not need that feature, but be best served by an IP phone with a cordless handset or headset that lets them walk around the parts department to check inventory. Customer Processes 2011 GWI Page 2

Another powerful approach to understanding requirements is to go over the steps each client must go through to interact with your company to receive the service or product you have to offer. This critical step will help determine costs and can flush out ways to smooth and support your client-company interactions and give you an opportunity to improve on some of these processes when adopting an upgraded hosted call-response system. Hosting companies offer packages including voicemail, end user administrative and management web portal options as well as call management controls, in and outgoing unified messaging- in addition to the mobility options discussed above. Developing a thorough understanding of how both internal and external stakeholders will use the system will help you determine which features really matter, and which are just fluff. This is a vital component of making the right choice in a new system. 3.) Identifying the type of system required: Premise or Hosted? Once you understand your economic drivers and the features you need, the next step is to determine if a Hosted PBX phone system is indeed the right choice for your business or if you would be better served by a premise based system. Voice-over IP technology has gone supernova recently by making a broad array of new choices in phone systems available. IP phone systems like traditional manufacturers such as Avaya, or server-based IP systems using the Asterisk platform -- even proprietary software and Hosted IP-PBX solutions that come from telephone companies, ISP s and other service providers are in on this expansive delivery of packages. We've developed this list of nine questions to help you make this decision: 1. Is my existing phone system at end of life? Phone systems typically last 6-8 years, but if yours is still functioning well and meeting your needs, why take on the added expense of a new system 2. What features exactly do I need in a new phone system? Installed IP PBX systems and Hosted PBX systems have different feature sets, and both offer a bevy of features your old system doesn t. 3. How large is my business? Large businesses enjoy economies of scale: They can spread the purchase price of their central phone switch across a large number of employees. They also frequently have in-house staff to support their system, and can spread those costs over a large number of users. 4. Are my employees centrally located, or do I have multiple offices? Older phone systems use private line connections, tie lines, and other expensive telephone company services to connect systems at your main and satellite offices together. Newer systems usually use IP connections for this, but may still require you to purchase a dedicated switch for each office. 5. Do I have staff working from home? Because Hosted PBX systems use the cloud to connect the phone to the central system, phones can typically be connected to any internet connection and function just like they would in the office, with full access to features, attendants and voice mail systems. This may or may not be true of premise based systems. 6. How much time do my people spend on the phone? Most Hosted PBX systems charge a fee per phone or seat on the system which includes the ability to handle up to two simultaneous calls to or from the user s phone. Since the dial-tone is included, you 2011 GWI Page 3

don t have the one-many concentration of phone lines to phones that you get in a traditional phone system. As a result, a Hosted PBX usually makes the most sense for businesses that have a high ratio of phone lines to phones in their traditional system. 7. Do I require detailed contact center reporting and management? If you are running a call center with multiple agents taking calls and need detailed call reporting to help you manage your staff, perhaps a premise based system is best. Most Hosted PBX systems lack these features or have very basic capabilities in this area. 8. How does my phone system factor into my disaster recovery plan? How much business is lost by being without phones for an hour, a day, or longer due to an outage in your power, phone, or internet service? 9. Am I most concerned with up front capital costs or operating expenses? If you re buying a premise based phone system, you ll need to come up with several thousand dollars for the base system, plus a couple of hundred dollars for each phone. Voice mail may or may not be included within the base price, you may need to allocate additional dollars for voice mail. Armed with the answers to these questions, you ll be better equipped to make the right choice amongst the wide variety of systems available 4.) Determining Network Readiness Readiness of Your Internet Connection All users of hosted or premise-based systems are required to have high speed internet connection. To ensure high call quality and delivery, it's important to ensure that the Internet connection at your primary office(s) are engineered correctly to deliver a quality call. A competent local vendor should be able to help you with this. Here are some guidelines to help you with this process: In order to utilize the voice-over IP service (VOIP) the ideal speed is 72kb per simultaneous caller. To determine the speeds your company needs, you will use a formula such as; 72kb's is the speed needed for each simultaneous caller. With a 5 phone system you will multiply 5 phones by 72kb (360kb's). This is the uploading speed you will need to manage your average rate of simultaneous calls. Some companies will have easy to access speed test links to help you make these determinations to measure speed connection to their network. The best Internet connections for VoIP services provide service level assurances that protect call quality. Most Service Level Assurances cover network latency, packet delivery and jitter. Your packet delivery should be assured-- with assurances on service levels for network uptime. These services should cover ALL customers in order to be of highest quality. Some companies offer to supply your broadband access as well. In some cases, your hosting provider may also provide Internet access. In such cases using your hosting provider's Internet connection for phone service delivery generally ensures the necessary service levels are in place and avoids "finder-pointing" between your Hosted VoIP provider and your ISP in cases of poor call quality. Readiness of Your Local Area Network (LAN) 2011 GWI Page 4

Another important step to take before installing a Hosted PBX phone system is to verify that your internal network is capable of delivering quality VoIP calls. This generally involves: Confirming that your network routers will support Quality of Service QoS tagging within your network. QoS gives priority to real-time voice traffic in order to protect call quality while limiting the bandwidth that can be used by less critical processes. Confirming that network switches are up to date and functioning well. Installation will be simplified if these devices support Power ove Ethernet (PoE). Confirming that network cabling is sufficient to meet your needs. In most cases, you'll need a Category 5 cable and jack for each phone added to the network, although in most cases phones will be able to share a connection with the user's PC. Confirming that servers and workstations within your network are in good health and not generating excess traffic that causes congestion on the LAN. Local Hosted IP PBX dealers may have technicians that can come to your office to perform this readiness assessment (or site survey). If you're working with an out of state company that does not have local technicians, you may want to engage an IT consultant to review your network readiness to ensure a positive experience upon conversion. 5.) Writing an RFP A Request for Proposal, or RFP is a document that you will distribute to vendors that will be bidding on your system. Its purpose is to ensure that all vendor requirements at least meet the minimum standards you've worked so hard to define up to this point. You should list the number of users in each user group you've defined in step 2 and list the features each of these users require. In addition, you should list any and all system-wide features you desire, such as auto-attendants, hunt groups, paging, and music on hold. Also take care to mention specific hardware requirements like headsets, speakerphones and cordless devices that you required. Use a careful, detailed approach to this step. 6.) Selecting a Vendor Finding the right vendor can be determined by doing a competent services provision search of the current forerunners in the hosting PBX market. Checking on the quality and completeness of each company s Service Level Assurances can help in this decision making process. High-quality hosted PBX services are co-located in big data centers. These companies make use of browser-based administration which compliments ease of use processes management and updating of common features. The features offered should include things like phone templates and moves, additions and changes as well as speed dial keys, 911 service access and more. These features should be so easy to use and access that it feels as though it is part of your own phone system network. More comprehensive companies will have a variety of packages to accommodate the different styles and sizes of company phone network system needs. Other features to watch for when choosing the right vendor include the ability to perform moves and to use intuitive interfaces making it easy to add or change things within the system. These features can be extended to the customers as well. 2011 GWI Page 5

7.) Procurement of Phones/Equipment Typically, phones and other equipment you'll use in your Hosted PBX deployment will be ordered from your Hosted PBX provider. These may be sold to you, leased, or provided as part of the service, depending upon the vendor's service delivery model. In some cases, you may have the option (or requirement) to buy phones on your own from a list of models certified as compatible with your hosting provider's servers. If you are buying your own phones, ensure that you shop around and use both distributors and credible web sites to source equipment, paying careful attention to whether equipment is new or refurbished and what warranties are in place. 8.) Configuration and Installation of Phones/Equipment Pre-configuring Devices As a rule, phones will be configured by your hosting provider before they arrive at your office. Based upon the feature sets and configurations you ordered you will usually have the ability to make minor adjustments to the phone's configuration. This simply means the addition of feature buttons and speed dials, after the phone arrives. Competent vendors use automatic configuration software that feeds the phone its configuration from a central location. These servers allow you to make these minor modifications via a web GUI, and also allow your vendor to make more significant changes remotely upon your request, without the need to send technicians to your office. Installation of Phones and Software Installation of the hardware and software for your Hosted PBX can be completed by either your company or the provider. Since every company will fully program all phones and equipment before delivery, the actual installation of the phones is often plug and play and it is certainly possible for your business to self install a system if your provider offers this option. This can offer cost advantages. With that said, contracting the installation through your provider offers a number of functional benefits including: A professional LAN readiness assessment (see step 4) Installer upgrades and changes to device configurations to accommodate user preferences Installer conducted initial training for your staff If your provider does not provide installation services, bear in mind that important service installation information is provided in the installation guides provided. If your installation includes a desktop console or toolbar software that is installed on PC's-- then licenses are usually required. Some examples of the potential steps you may need to make during a self-installation include: Connecting the phone to your LAN, and most often your PC to your phone Connecting a power cable, if your LAN is not Power over Ethernet (PoE) equipped Making adjustments to phone configurations as needed to meet user preferences Making adjustments to the auto attendant, voice mail, and hunt group configurations to ensure a working system 2011 GWI Page 6

Training users on the use of their phones (see below) For any company in the installation process, it helps to remember that 24 hour phone support is always provided to new companies and that these companies always have user websites with comprehensive information to guide you. The company has your best interests at heart because they seek repeat buyers, upgrade users and referrals from satisfied buyers. 9.)Training of users Using the new system begins with installation. A general outline of the training process is outlined here, and when training new users each system, each company department and each department's unique usage of the new system will require some review and attention paid to these changes caused by the installation. This means folks will have to be shifting some behaviors, and learning some new actions in order to adjust to the new system. A locally based provider may provide much of the training for you If you've purchased an Hosted PBX system from a local firm that will be sending technicians on site to install your phones, these technicians will very often provide some basic training on the use of the phone and the web portal, and leave hard copy or electronic reference guides to aid your staff in acclimating to the new system. Gearing up to train on your own On the other hand, if your phones were shipped to you by an online provider, you or a member of your IT staff will most likely need to provide this training. If you do develop your own raining, remember to keep the different functional groups you developed in step 2 in mind. This will help you ensure that you cover the features that are most relevant to the user. A few other tips to bear in mind during this process are: The online provider's web site will very often have FAQ's pages and training information provided for new users. If you train department heads first, you can make the process a bit more streamlined. Once the behavior changes are identified, then you can cascade the information down through your organizational leadership through your companies standard training program. Most HPBX supplement information usually includes photos and graphs and easy to identify step by step processes that are backed up by phone support, installer support and websites providing every stage of support information. Closing thoughts In this world of intensely competitive markets and uncertain financial gains for newer companies, these new hosting systems have added advantages that cannot be under estimated. For anyone doing research on behalf of a user company who needs to upgrade, save and expand all at the same time-- this approach in technology upgrading will be your solution. Thanks to the fast pace of the high tech industry-especially where automated phone and internet are concerned-- there is no better solution. 2011 GWI Page 7

Choosing the best company with the right package of services for your individual company's needs is really the only complicated work involved. We hope this article will take even that piece of difficulty out of the choice making process for you. 2011 GWI Page 8