Making the Case for Rip-and-Replace for Small Businesses

To answer one of mankind’s most pressing and highly debated questions, Queensland researchers conducted a study to determine whether removing a band-aid was more painful when done quickly or slowly. Rest easy—the fast tug takes less time and is less painful. The same can be said for updating an out-of-date communications platform. The regular failings and service interruptions associated with an outdated system are much harder to manage—and more memorable to customers—than rapidly upgrading to a new and better platform.

Have No Fear, a Better Communications Platform Is Here

A modern rip-and-replace process differs from the costly, risk-laden upgrade project you may have in mind. In fact, it’s simple enough that even an intern (or two) can do it.

Consider Vivonet. Having felt the negative effects of their outdated system, they ditched it and set up service with the Genesys® Purecloud® Voice internet-based telephony service, plus WebRTC softphones. And because they only had one help desk specialist on staff, they hired interns to manage the migration.

“Using two interns with no hands-on experience to set up a test environment, onboard our entire contact center staff and go live within four weeks of sign-off was truly remarkable…. From a bottom-line perspective, fast adoption means a faster return on investment.”

Vivonet also cites that the PureCloud Voice platform added to these benefits.

“I trained our interns on the PureCloud Voice system in an hour and they were able to set up our phones within a couple of hours…. This included assigning and porting DID numbers and setting up voicemail. This would’ve taken about five days with most other products.”

It’s important to find a VoIP interconnect provider that lets you easily port in existing numbers as well as purchase numbers directly in the user interface and instantly activate them. This eases your migration efforts as well as the time it takes to deploy and provision communications.

Feel Secure in Your New System

Negate any lingering fears by educating yourself on what to look for in a replacement system. In the case of internet-based voice, look for vendors that use versatile, low-latency and high-quality audio codecs, like OPUS. Your vendor should conduct a voice-readiness assessment prior to implementation to ensure sufficient voice quality. The service should leverage multiple back-end carriers (for voice resiliency and fallback) and data-optimized routing to make voice calls more reliable. The underlying infrastructure should also span multiple availability zones for failover protection.

Inaction Is Costly

Staying with an inherently flawed system isn’t just inconvenient, it can hurt your business and draw resources away from areas that need them.

  • IT teams suffer. Under the labor-intensive burden of an outdated voice infrastructure (upgrades, maintenance, MPLS complexities, etc.), your IT resources are stretched thin and can’t be reallocated to other projects.
  • Communications stagnate. An out-of-date platform makes scaling communications difficult—disincentivizing business growth and limiting potential.
  • Costs become prohibitive. Supporting and managing peak call volumes on an outdated system requires complex capacity planning and additional expenses to prepare for seasonal spikes.

Take the Plunge

Yes, change can be scary, but so is staying with a communications platform that limits your potential. It’s time to rip off the band-aid—replace your outdated platform before it hurts your business. Check out our eBook, “Recognize the Warning Signs of an Unhealthy PBX Relationship,” to see if you’re dealing with a communication lemon and learn how to get ahead of it.

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