inrich consulting

Gathering telephony requirements using surveys

Gathering requirements for a new telephony solution is a time consuming task. Usually a project sponsor will have a good idea of what is required, however often specific requirements of the various users within a company need to be teased out.

Workers at remote sites, corporate head quarters, contact centres, reception areas, those who travel frequently, and those who need voice recording all have very different telephony needs. Often the best way to get this detail is through face to face surveys.

An example survey for a 500 user organisation, two sites, and 60 user call centre is available on our resources page, http://inrich.co.uk/resources/, in Microsoft Word format. This customer (customer name removed in the example) needed to replace their ageing PABX. In addition to capturing their current requirements they needed to make sure nothing was missed when evaluating future solutions.

The survey was emailed to key user representatives to stimulate thought. Then the information was gathered face to face to make sure all concepts and the true drivers behind each requirement were understood. Enaging users in this manner has an added benefit of building user support for the selection process.

Perhaps this survey will help provide some guidance for your own telephony project.

Entry Filed under: ip telephony, unified communications