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The Top 23 Questionsto Include in a Voice and Unified Business Communications RFP in 2016

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Today, everything about the way we work has changed. Your employees, customers, and extended ecosystem have greater expectations than ever before, and the voice and unified communication solution you select is one of the most important decisions you can make toward a collaborative, connected, and productive workforce.

This list gives you some of the most important questions to include in an RFP this year, as well as key insights about how these will play out for your business.

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How does your voice and unified communication system allow employees to communicate from anywhere and on any device?

Why it matters: Today’s employees expect to work how and when they want, on the devices they love. And when they need to talk to their coworkers, they want to be able to do that on any device as well. Your business communication solution should give them the freedom to call, meet, or message from any desktop or mobile device. It should also provide employees with the ability to seamlessly switch conversations between their phone and desktop.

43% of U.S. workers will work remotely in 2016.SOURCE: GARTNER

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Why it matters: Modern teams expect to be able to share and collaborate on documents while communicating in real time. Integrating your voice and unified communication tools with the world’s best productivity tools allows them to get work done faster.

How does your business communication system (e.g, video, messaging, meetings) integrate with email and productivity/collaboration solutions, such as Office 365 or Google Apps for Work?

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Does your business communication solution allow your company directory to sync with user’s devices? If so, are there any limitations on which devices they are allowed to use?

Why it matters: Integration into the core directory of your business is critical. No matter where they are, your employees should have the ability to search and reach out to anyone in the company. Furthermore, this process should be seamless and simple to administrate.

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60% of Fortune 500companies use Dialpad

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Why it matters: Today, there is a wealth of important information on social sites such as LinkedIn that can provide meaningful insights into the people you communicate with. Sales, customer service teams, and virtually every business unit can find concrete ways to connect with colleagues, customers, and partners to forge stronger, richer relationships.

How does your business communication solution provide additional context to employees while engaged in conversation? Does it integrate with popular social networks such as LinkedIn?

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Does your business phone solution support predictive pricing models? What are the ongoing fees that will be required to keep the system running? Are there upgrade, licensing, integration, or installation fees? Does the solution require third party contractor help or union labor?

Why it matters: Your business phone solution should not only help you save costs without sacrificing quality, it should also help you build a predictive cost model for growing your business. If your current business phone system has too many variables to consider, you can benefit greatly from the predictability of modern, cloud-based solutions.

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Why it matters: The cloud has won. In fact, 50% of all business enterprise productivity seats are already in the cloud (2015 Bitglass Report). Security and performance advancements have given the world’s largest companies the confidence in transitioning to the cloud. The cloud has also given the smallest companies the ability to compete with the largest. In fact, for many organizations, digitizing the workplace is an imperative to avoid disruption. Cloud-first companies are able to move faster, integrate with more systems, and ultimately reduce IT costs. The same holds true for voice, messaging, and conferencing solutions. There’s a big difference between a company that’s fully focused on a cloud solution and one that is just trying to catch up, so make sure you get a sense for how focused their teams are on cloud solutions.

Do you offer a cloud solution for voice, messaging, and conferencing? What percentage of your development efforts are focused on your cloud product?

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By 2017, 33% of all new/updated procurements for VoIP, unified communications, and contact centers will be cloud-based.

SOURCE: Gartner

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What costs are associated with upgrading to your next generation solution?

Why it matters: Modern business communication systems should allow you to automatically take advantage of their next gen system without the need for expensive and complicated upgrades. Make sure you are aware of hidden fees or consulting costs that force you to re-implement an entire system.

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Why it matters: Just because someone doesn’t work at headquarters doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get all of the perks and benefits of working at your company. In fact, modern communication tools break down silos of geography and build stronger, more integrated teams. Your telephony and unified communication solution should make employees feel as connected as the desk next door.

How will your voice and unified business communication solution connect our remote workforce?

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Why it matters: It goes without saying that security is a top priority for every business out there. Here’s a short list of the key security requirements your voice and unified communications solution should provide:

• Media is processed in Tier 1 data centers with ISO 27001 and SAS-70 compliance

• Customer data is stored in an encrypted manner

• Administrators have the ability to set the time frame for when data is retained

• Third parties periodically audit the security of the platform

• IP-based signaling and media are encrypted

• Signaling is encrypted using secure websockets (SSL) and media is encrypted using Secure RTP (SRTP)

• Recordings are stored and encrypted using AES-128

• The platform is eTrust certified

What types of security does your business communication solution provide?

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Why it matters: Today, data privacy is more important than ever, and the voice and unified communications solution you select should make it easy for you to comply with international laws. At a minimum, the solution you select should adhere to the principles of the Safe Harbor Framework, as developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce in consultation with the European Commission.

How is your solution compliant with international privacy regulations?

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How does your solution support document and unified communication storage requirements?

Why it matters: Companies are sometimes required by law to store and maintain communications records for a given period of time. Your telephony and unified communications solution should make it dead simple for administrators to control this functionality.

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Why it matters: This is the question that will help weed out the true VoIP and unified communications players from among the riskier solutions.

Why it matters: Today, employees don’t want to carry around multiple devices they expect to work on the device of their preference. To keep up, your voice and unified communication solution should be able to support all the devices your employees know and love.

What’s the largest VoIP and unified communications deployment you have?

How do you support a BYOD workforce?

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Do you integrate with Salesforce?

Why it matters: Integrating your voice and unified communications with Salesforce can have a dramatic impact on the productivity of your sales team. By enabling click-to-call for any number on the web or providing social insights during calls, you can provide sales with the flexibility and context they need to win the hearts and minds of the front line.

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Why it matters: Your conferencing solution should make it easy to record meetings. But it shouldn’t stop there. Everything should be just a click away, including call transferring, three-way calling, and voicemails. Here’s a list of some of the core features that most people expect these days.

Tip:Having the longest list of features for your voice and unified communications solution isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, the majority of features that most solutions provide go unused due to complexity or fringe use cases. Understand the business use case and look for a solution that delivers reliability and simplicity.

Can employees record their conferences? What other functionality differentiates your solution?

• Call recording (unlimited storage)

• Individually mute call participants

• Lock a conference to prevent unwanted callers

• Dial-out to participants

• Receive a detailed call summary after each call and links to shared files

• Enable a linked user to access your account and schedule conferences

• Call in details are easy to copy and share

• Eject participants from call

• Mute all call participants

• Allow calls to start without the admin on the call

• Instant message callers

• View callers social profile (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)

• View past calls and call details and upcoming calls

• Call scheduler enables scheduling without an external calendar

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Why it matters: How many times have you scrambled to find your pin or re-enter it after you missed a number? The good news is you can now find conferencing solutions that free your entire workplace from pins.

Do you require a pins or access codes to start or join a meeting?

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Why it matters: Modern solutions should never require a download to connect with someone. Look for solutions that utilize WebRTC technology, which enables callers to share their screen or join conference calls directly through their browser.

During online meetings, can participants share their screen with no download required?

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Why it matters: In addition to global data centers, your voice and unified communications solution should be easily accessed outside of the U.S. At a minimum, it should provide 50 international dial-in numbers for callers outside of the U.S. to join the conference call. Again, your voice and unified communication solution should also adhere to the principles of the Safe Harbor Framework as developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce in consultation with the European Commission. Finally, look for data centers spread out across countries and continents.

How do you support international offices?

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Why it matters: In addition to delivering a better user experience, modern voice and unified communications solutions can save between 40% to 60% on monthly phone costs†. Legacy hardware systems can be completely eliminated in most instances.

†Potential savings based on internal Sprint market research on average IT spend for hardware investments, monthly costs per person, integration, ongoing maintenance and support costs for an on-premise PBX phone system by leading service providers. Actual savings may vary.

How does your solution reduce local and long distance telco resource requirements and costs (e.g., 800 numbers PRI, DID, POTS, Centrex, FX)? Does your solution require desktop phones?

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Why it matters: There is an incredible amount of often unnecessary complexity when it comes to business phone and unified communication solutions. At a minimum, you’ll want to get a sense of how simple or complex this will be for your team to deploy, manage, and keep up to date. How much time and what resources will it take to make sure it’s running smoothly?

Does your solution require installation other than the deployment of the desktop and mobile apps to end users?

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Why it matters: Again, it’s important to get a clear understanding of the complexity and resources it will require to properly implement a solution. The time, staff costs, primary rate interface (PRI) costs, software maintenance, upgrade requirements, and interoperability are all important considerations to bake into your decision process.

Do you have the knowledge and expertise to deploy this on your own? How much will it cost to get the solution properly implemented? Is the vendor pushing you to a VAR (Value Added Reseller)?

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Why it matters: Giving your employees the ability to quickly check the status and availability of colleagues is a game changer for productivity. Make sure the voice and communications solution you select gives everyone the ability to naturally reveal their status.

Do you track and show presence for voice and unified communications? For example, can you show user status (e.g., Do Not Disturb, On a call, Online)?

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Why it matters: When it comes to your business calls, high quality audio is crucial. It’s important to have a clear understanding of the platform’s audio codec. For quality VoIP experiences, the Opus audio codec is key because it’s the only widely accepted, standardized codec that’s optimized for Internet telephony.

Do you leverage a next-generation audio codec to enable high quality audio, even in low-bandwidth situations (e.g., OPUS)?

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Dialpad is communications for the modern workplace, delivering an experience that employees and administrators love. Available on any device, anywhere, Dialpad includes voice, video, group messaging, SMS, MMS, mobile VoIP, conferencing, screen sharing, document sharing, and integrations with Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps for Work. A pure cloud solution, Dialpad enables a new office communications system to be completely up and running in a matter of minutes. Learn more

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