Top reasons for VoIP dissatisfaction

A couple of weeks ago we asked you to respond to a short survey if you were displeased with your VoIP implementation. This week we’re going to share some of those results.

As a bit of background, we decided it was important to examine this issue after we found that a small yet significant percentage of respondents to a more extensive survey were not happy with their implementations. We were particularly curious as to the reasons behind this lack of satisfaction because we wanted to see whether any of these problems could be addressed easily.

Two factors clearly accounted for the majority of dissatisfaction, with well over half of the respondents choosing them from a list of possible factors. The first of these is “Took more staff time/effort than anticipated.” Clearly, undertaking a VoIP implementation takes some planning effort. Were these people misled by their suppliers? Or did they simply not understand what they were getting into? Based on the comments we received, there was a bit of both. The comments indicated that a significant amount of the time and effort revolved around QoS issues, especially for the initial implementation and pre-assessment.

The problem with managing the implementation on an ongoing basis is further exemplified by the second factor cited, “Troubleshooting was more difficult than anticipated.” This seemed to be especially painful for the implementers who had problems with making the transition from separate voice-centric and data-centric staffing to a converged staffing approach.

The bottom line is, not surprisingly, the biggest problems encountered can, at least in part, be addressed by implementing better tools for managing the VoIP network. And if you’re interested in more information on how these management tools are being offered, check out the links below.