Build a Customer-Centric IT Team

shutterstock_134102588IT personnel are an integral part of businesses and are instrumental in making sure processes run smoothly by monitoring and ensuring the health of the company’s networks and applications. Until recently, IT professionals primarily performed an internal role, providing services to employees but having little to do with external, customer-facing assignments.

However, that dynamic is changing. As network functions become more integrated with customer-service functions, companies must ensure their IT teams are ready and able to provide customer-facing IT functions. Attracting and retaining IT personnel who can deliver both the critical internal IT service and the customer-facing services necessary in today’s environment can offer a competitive advantage.

Break Away From the Typical IT Mold

When looking for IT personnel who will work well in customer-facing processes, consider candidates who deviate from the typical IT stereotype. IT personnel tend to be introverted and more comfortable working with code than with people.

When identifying internal or external candidates for customer-focused IT roles, seek a different personality type than the typical IT employee. Consider candidates with different skills and personalities that can expand the IT team’s capabilities. Outgoing, passionate, socially focused people will typically function better in customer-centric roles than quiet, shy individuals.

To identify and attract such candidates, examine hiring processes and develop a strategy for meeting the company’s core customer-service requirements. It’s important to show candidates how their contributions will be valued and offer flexibility and opportunities to grow and advance.

Offer Customer-Focused Opportunities

Many IT departments have adopted systems that streamline interactions with the IT department but also tend to eliminate interpersonal interactions that are critical in customer-focused processes.

In order to regain customer-facing skills, companies can offer opportunities for internal IT employees to interact with customers. This might mean visiting customer operations or shadowing customer-facing employees. In addition to sharpening customer-service skills, such opportunities can help IT staff better understand customer needs, requirements, and the relation to the company’s IT systems.

Address Company Culture

While attracting and training customer-focused employees is important, making sure the company’s culture and reputation reflects strong customer-centric values is also critical. Potential candidates are likely to be attracted to companies that are stable, innovative, and willing to take risks. Clearly demonstrating how employee contributions affect customers can motivate candidates to become a part of the team.

Customer-service values should not just be presented to outside candidates but be embraced by internal IT teams, contractors, and business partners. Emphasize the value of both the internal and external customer as well as the critical role the IT team plays in both areas.

Finding, hiring, training, and retaining IT personnel capable of providing traditional internal IT services and customer-facing interactions is a likely key to success. For a successful and long-term fit, companies must not only find the right candidate for the job, but also demonstrate why they should want to be part of the company.

SIP Trunking: A Compelling Choice for Improved Collaboration

shutterstock_66093994Traditional voice services have had their heyday. Today, developing technology trends are shaping a new future for business communications. Automation, the Internet, mobility, cloud, and more are triggering shifts in new services that meet changing customer demands. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking is emerging as not just an option but a compelling choice for the modern business.

Focusing on the benefits

Even as voice converges with text, image, video, desktop, mobility, and social media technologies, many network administrators still fear the unknown. Their priority is to maximize and protect their investment so it’s understandable that many proceed with caution. However, in order to steer their business forward, network managers should consider what could go right.

For instance, SIP Trunking has many benefits if best practices are observed.

  • Savings. In an SIP environment, IT managers start realizing savings when they phase out costly infrastructure. SIP Trunking eliminates Primary Rate Interface (PRI) and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) rentals. Businesses can also save costs by using centralized public switched telephone network (PSTN) access. This can eliminate costs for maintenance, operations, and unused services.
  • Scalability. SIP eliminates the problem of having too many channels when they are not needed and too few channels when more are needed. It can be scaled up or down on a per-channel basis to suit specific business needs. It also enables businesses to add trunks as demand dictates.
  • Flexibility. As a Unified Communications (UC) package, SIP offers significant flexibility with an array of collaborative options. End-users can enjoy web, voice, video conferencing, instant messaging, chat, voice traffic re-routing, and mobility options.
  • Reliable disaster recovery. Security and recovery can be major fears. SIP Trunking features reside in the IP provider’s network in multiple sites, not in the customer’s premises. Should a disaster occur, businesses are assured of timely disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity. This allows calls to be redirected to locations not affected by the disaster, ensuring a recipient for each incoming call.

Hurdling the obstacles

While SIP is a versatile technology, moving to an SIP model has its own challenges. The most common one is interoperability issues. Different vendors interpret SIP specifications differently. This can create complications when integrating legacy systems with the SIP provider network. A good provider should re-evaluate the customer’s existing architecture and suggest modifications that can support the new services.

Bandwidth capability is an important consideration for SIP connection. Bandwidth determines the quality of calls. The wrong amount of Internet bandwidth and such issues as latency, packet loss, and jitter can result in echoes, garbled messages, and call disruptions.

Connecting to the Internet exposes any network to security threats. Brute force and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks are common issues that can cause entire networks to crash. Solid firewalls, session border controllers, and other security devices can help ward off such attacks.

For IT executives, transitioning to SIP Trunking is a critical decision. Decision-makers should consider an SIP deployment that can support present business needs and easily adapt to unforeseen collaboration services well into the future.