A financial services organization and Fortune 100 company with locations worldwide reached out to our team to replace an outdated on-premises phone system and contact center solution. Our consultants carried out a comprehensive Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) evaluation encompassing various suppliers based on the client’s requirements.
Initially, the client showed interest in a solution our team knew wasn’t the best choice for a large enterprise with offices around the world, based on feedback from other companies and our experience with the software. We steered them toward a cloud contact center solution that aligned with their needs and assisted with supplier negotiations and deployment.
That story exemplifies the value of having knowledgeable consultants on your side to assist with choosing the right business software. Without our guidance, the client might have purchased a cloud contact center platform that wasn’t a good fit for a global corporation, which would have likely had a significant negative impact on the company’s future.
Selecting the wrong solution for your business can come at a high cost. Here are some of the top ways this error can hurt you, based on our team’s experience and observations and the CIO article “What a bad enterprise software purchase will cost you.” Note: This isn’t an exhaustive list.
1. Hours of labor needed to find a replacement.
The average business-to-business buyer devotes as many as 20 hours to researching solutions before reaching out to a sales rep, according to The New B2B Buyer Experience Report from Showpad. That means if a purchase turns out to be a bad fit for your business, someone on your staff will need to invest approximately 2.5 workdays investigating a replacement – and that’s only the beginning. After the initial research, you’ll need to meet with sales reps, attend demos, negotiate, and more.
2. Reduced productivity for end users.
If the new platform doesn’t have the functionality your end users need to fulfill their professional obligations, the subpar solution will slow everyone down and lead to delayed or abandoned projects.
3. Employee frustration and potential turnover.
If you deploy software that doesn’t align with your employees’ needs, they’ll be unhappy about the situation and likely feel less engaged at work. The situation could even spur them to search for new jobs: The 2019 State of Software Happiness Report from G2 found that roughly 25 percent of workers polled thought about seeking work elsewhere because they were dissatisfied with the software they utilized in their current positions.
4. Higher security risk level.
If you implement a solution that doesn’t align with your company’s cybersecurity and compliance needs, you’ll increase the odds that you’ll experience a data breach. That could have a huge impact on your company financially and otherwise: The global average total cost of a breach hit $4.35 million in 2022, according to IBM.
5. Reputation damage.
If you sign off on software that turns out to be a disaster, your team will likely question your judgment and potentially lose respect for you as a leader. While we all make mistakes, a costly error could hurt your career as well as the company overall.
Working with industry experts will help you avoid selecting the wrong solutions and suffering the costly consequences of not choosing the right software for your business. Our consultants leverage our extensive partner network and experience with cloud contact centers, phone systems, customer experience platforms, and other technologies to streamline shopping and find products and services that align with our clients’ requirements and objectives.
Similar to how we helped the Fortune 100 company mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry, we can ensure you find the best solutions based on our knowledge and access to objective side-by-side comparison matrices and exclusive reports and data. Once you’ve identified the right supplier and product, we’ll make sure implementation goes smoothly with our white-glove project management services.
Start today by calling 877-599-3999 or emailing sales@stratospherenetworks.com to speak to our consultants.
