by Steven Fitzgerald, CTO, Consistacom
You probably aren’t expecting enough from flattening your voice network. On top of maintenance cost reductions you can also realize a smaller switch administration staff, consistency of incoming call handling, transparency of administration processes and faster time-to-market for new call flow programming.
Maybe flatten isn’t the word you use but vendors tell me over half their large networks have been consolidated with VoIP. Before flattening you need accurate documentation of the old network. Get it in days with automated tools and technical staff will be thrilled they don’t have to do it manually. It will also take months off the timeline and keep new system documentation up-to-date.
The next step should be changing the tools and processes used to build up the new switching systems. Your vendor-supplied tools are probably 20 year-old technology with some cosmetic updates. They don’t make the grade in maintaining the huge switching systems in flattened networks. Using them alone ensures more of the pre-flattening issues: high labor costs, slow time-to-market, lots of errors and an impenetrable fog surrounding the processes. The first new tool needed is an automatic audit trail of switch administration activity. Managers will have better facts and technicians will gain a valuable resource for break fixing.
Does the flattened network have more than one telephone switch to service the large call load? Insist on automatic synchronization of common call flow programs across them all. You probably use a standardized order entry system in all centers for reasons of cost, consistency, and flexibility to move the work around. The same principles apply to the programs delivering your callers to an agent. You should only have one version but sometimes they are different in each switch, which is simply indefensible.
Changes in roles and responsibilities are just as important. You can reassign some very talented people to tasks which more directly contribute to success of the enterprise. The technicians left working on the flattened system will have new tools, less drudgery and greater responsibility. Don’t miss the great opportunity for change that flattening has given.
Contact the author at tooltalk@consistacom.com.
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