The decision to replace a legacy contact center platform rarely comes at a convenient moment. It is usually triggered by a vendor in distress, a support contract running out, or a growing awareness that the current system is holding the organization back. By the time the procurement process begins, the pressure is already on.
That pressure is exactly what causes enterprises to make avoidable mistakes. Martin Taylor, Deputy CEO and Co-Founder of Content Guru, has seen the same patterns repeat across organizations of all sizes. Taylor explained to CX Today five of the most common mistakes buyers make and how to avoid them.
Mistake 1: Writing an Overly-Prescriptive RFP
One of the most common issues is that organizations begin the procurement process by defining requirements around their existing environment rather than their future needs.
"They might be seeking to replicate an existing service, not just what it does but how it does it,” Taylor said.
“They may not be considering the new capabilities that modern cloud technology could bring. They're trying to make modern technology work like 1990s technology."
The result is a procurement process that filters out modern, capable vendors and selects for whoever is best at mimicking an outdated architecture. A well-constructed RFP focuses on outcomes, not on replicating the past.
Mistake 2: Underestimating the Task Ahead
At the other end of the spectrum is an organization entering the purchasing process without a clear idea of what it needs to procure. Taylor cited a particularly vague recent procurement that elicited so many clarification questions from vendors that the organizations halted the process. “They concluded that they didn't really know what it was they wanted. And I'd imagine we'll see them come back to market in a couple of months,” Taylor said.
Enterprises often underestimate their current platform and the likely migration costs.
"It's almost a given that they will underestimate the cost of running their existing service,” Taylor said. “They will just leave out whole slabs of cost. The people involved, the cost of telephone lines, how much power they are consuming, the square foot cost of the server room."
"Without that baseline, you can't really compare what's being proposed or build an ROI case when you're not quite sure what the cost was before."
And by not thinking broadly enough, leaders may not consider opportunities to make additional sales or reduce customer churn.
Mistake 3: Not Getting Executive Buy-In Early Enough
Leadership teams need to be clear on the strategic objectives of undertaking a migration program.
"If the requirement has been prepared too low down in the organization, it's not really addressing strategic objectives. The bids come in, but they don't go ahead with any of them because it's too expensive or the CEO doesn't really understand what it's for."
Without executive alignment on the strategic case, even a technically sound procurement process can fail at the point of decision.
“You can't just focus on the cost of a license and the feature set. The question should be around how cohesive the technology stack is. Is it a single architecture, or has it just been assembled from multiple sources or acquired through piecemeal M&A over time, and no one really understands the architecture? Are the different channels only connected at certain points?
Mistake 4: Migrating Bad Data
A collaborative approach to managing data migration can help enterprises to avoid the cost and complexity caused by migrating bad data.
“Very often the customer doesn't have much by way of data specialists in the business. The data has been built up over many years, and people aren't quite sure where it came from or whether it is important,” Taylor said. "We always make a point of working with the customer to cleanse their data before migrating it.”