News Feature | November 23, 2016

Inadequate UC Monitoring Impacts End-User Adoption, Training, And Problem-Resolution

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Managed Services, Backup and Recovery, And Networking News From October 2014

Study finds end-user satisfaction remains strong, despite unreliable training and support from IT.

There is an unexpected but positive disconnect between IT and Unified Communications end-users, according to study published by Unify Square, a provider of software, consulting, and 24x7 cloud managed services for Skype for Business. The State of Unified Communications (UC) Adoption polled 150 IT decision-makers and employees at organizations that have already deployed (or are pilot testing) a UC system and found one quarter of end-users are ‘very satisfied’ with their organization’s UC system, compared to only 1 percent of IT respondents who believed satisfaction would be that high.

According to Unify Square, while end-user adoption is IT’s greatest challenge to ensuring UC success for both IT and end-users, many IT organizations are not monitoring the UC system or the end-users well enough to optimize usage. In fact, 70 percent of end-users reported they have never been surveyed by IT on their UC system satisfaction. This disparity is in part due to a lack of proper monitoring tools and visibility into the user experience, and IT’s lack of UC system monitoring then has a subsequent impact on the disconnects between end-users and IT.

“Deploying enterprise UC has turned into a case of IT perception versus end-user reality,” said Scott Gode, VP of Product Marketing at Unify Square. “If IT isn’t taking the pulse of both system and end-users on a regular basis, how are they supposed to effectively train end-users or spot issues? The silver lining is end-users are enjoying their UC experience and want to continue with the platform. By not looking deeply enough into UC system health and user satisfaction, IT is acting as their own worst enemy. But lucky for them, visibility is easily attainable and can fast-track UC ROI.”

The study also found:

  • When it comes to usage and satisfaction, high satisfaction ratings by end-users validate the significant productivity gains promised by UC, with 80 of end-users reporting that their productivity has increased after UC was deployed, which is more than IT expected (72 percent).
  • A similar disconnect exists for training (or the lack thereof). Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of IT respondents ranked UC adoption programs and training as high or very high importance in ensuring UC ROI, with IT believing that there are more UC training opportunities and resources available to end-users than end-users actually perceive. Just over one third (35 percent) of IT respondents said their organization offers instructor led training, but only 15 percent of end-users said they’re aware of this option. And startlingly, more than half of end-users (52 percent) said either their organization does not offer training or that they didn’t know if training was available.
  • Less than optimal training leads to inevitable technical issues. Respondents reported when end-users come across a UC problem, nearly half contact the IT Help Desk for resolution, one third (32 percent) try to fix it themselves, while 24 percent turn to alternative communication applications and 21 percent just ignore the issue altogether without any action. This flies in the face of IT perceptions that a majority (85 percent) of end-users will notify the Help Desk at the first sign of trouble and just 10 percent will try to fix it themselves.

The full report can be accessed here.