How Does AVoIP Affect CX?
Hey, it’s November and we are back! It was great to see so many of you at Infocomm and wonderful to see some of the new solutions being rolled out by manufacturers. Although looking at all this new tech I started to think more about how the greatest tech affects our customers. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the fancy bells and whistles of some fresh off-the-shelf tech, but is it really affecting the way we support our customers? In some instances, absolutely! In others, not at all.
I feel like we have been talking about the takeover of AV over IP for way too long now, but I am now starting to understand that it is not whether AVoIP is happening, it is about people starting to fully implement it. When deployed correctly, with the customer in mind, these technologies can dramatically change the customer experience. The exception though is those that try to deploy these systems without putting the customer first. This often means you are focusing on the specific tech and not the overall goal/solution. I hear this almost every day when someone says “I want X brand because I can plug it into my network and it can do this and this.” Not to burst anyone’s bubble but there are a hundred different technologies that can do something similar. So instead, let’s focus on seeing what our customers need and want to be successful in the classroom. Then we can start building the solution, and hopefully, we can put it on the network so it is even easier to support. Let’s look at some reasons that implementing AVoIP can improve your customer’s experience.
Implementing technology that allows you to proactively monitor your technology is probably the number 1 reason you should consider deploying an AVoIP solution. The best way to solve customer problems is by never letting them happen in the first place. There are so many amazing systems out there that will run pre-checks for you so that all you have to do is keep an eye out for errors. The second reason is the ability to remotely troubleshoot and help your customers. Being able to intake a call from a customer and then immediately log into that space and change settings if needed is extremely helpful in shortening your SLA time and creating a great customer experience. The third and final reason I will be focusing on is the ease of future growth. By implementing an AVoIP solution, your devices are just another endpoint on the network. As long as the network can handle it, you can keep adding devices and finding creative ways to expand on what you already have installed. These reasons are great selling points when it comes to the value of your institution (it also helps with asking for budget). You are able to dramatically shorten your SLA time which means less class time wasted and customers can just focus on what they are there for. AVoIP also means signal can be sent just about anywhere so your institution has the ability to offer classes in more than one space (increasing headcount). Finally, you will be prepared for future growth which just about every institution is incorporating into their 5-year plan.
One of the main questions I hear about AVoIP solutions is “how much is this going to cost?” If I am being completely honest, it is not cheap. There are ways to supplement technology to bring the cost down, but it is important that you fully understand the return on investment with AVoIP solutions. The reasons listed previously are just the tip of the iceberg and there are so many great ways to use technology to better support your customers. We have been investing heavily in IT infrastructure for years because we know how important it is. AV is part of that group now and budgets need to be re-evaluated to account for its cost. I could talk about this all day and there are so many other reasons AVoIP is a great idea for improving CX, but I hope this was a good starting point for you if you are looking at taking that first step. As always, feel free to reach out and I would be glad to chat more!