Fuze last week announced the general availability of Global Unmetered Calling, in what it's calling its latest move to revamp communications and collaboration. The plan provides unmetered calling to customers in more than 100 countries, free calls between Fuze endpoints, and a "more localized calling experience at a predictable cost," Fuze wrote in a blog post.
The plan sounds gravy to me! What's not to like? But what interests me most about this bit of news is how it fits into the company's mission to transform connectivity and collaboration through a focus on the end-user experience, a path it set off down when it rebranded from ThinkingPhones to Fuze this past February (see related post, ThinkingPhones Takes on Fuze Identity).
Focusing on providing an excellent user experience seems like a great way to better ensure user adoption. Because really, when it comes down to it, what's the point of investing in collaboration solutions if your employees don't adopt? Robin Gareiss, president and founder of Nemertes Research, and Eric Hanson, VP of Marketing and Strategic Initiatives at Fuze, tackled this subject in last month's webinar, "Guarantee User Adoption of UC: 3 Steps to Amplify IT's Business Impact " (view the webinar, sponsored by Fuze, and hosted by Enterprise Connect and No Jitter, on-demand).
During the event, Robin shared a lot of great data showing how all the change taking place in the business communications -- specifically cloud migration and digital transformation -- has created a new IT staff and shifted enterprise strategies. User adoption is core to these modern business strategies, as seen in the slide below. For without it, organizations won't be able to get the budget necessary to invest in new technology aimed at fueling that exceptional employee productivity everyone is seeking.
One of the key ways of ensuring user adoption is marketing IT internally, Robin said. Marketing new solutions to employees will interlock workers with technology, facilitating digital transformation for the organization and providing job security for IT. According to Nemertes survey data, 55.9% of businesses do market IT to employees, while 41.2% said they do not. Businesses with a marketing group within IT were found to be the most successful, and further, Nemertes's research also shows that businesses with a formal marketing initiative were 59% more successful at getting the word out about new IT services.
When it comes to how businesses inform employees about new technologies, email is used most often, followed by intranet postings, lunch and learns, and newsletters. But as Robin told webinar attendees, her research shows that newsletters and digital billboards (like lobby monitors for example) correlate the highest with success. Having had the pleasure of moderating the webinar, I encourage everyone to view the webinar on demand for more of Robin's insight and Nemertes data on using internal marketing and training as means to guarantee user adoption. Get her data points, for example, on user satisfaction as the top determinant of IT success.
During the webinar, Eric explained how Fuze is focusing on the user experience in efforts to put "the YOU back in YOUnified communications."
Offering a strategic approach to guarantee user adoption, Eric provided the following three steps:
Eric provided a plethora of use cases and success stories as well, highlighting companies including trucking and distribution company Interstate, global technology consultancy ThoughtWorks, and local commerce leader Groupon. View the webinar on demand now and explore how narrowing your focus on user experience can positively impact your business.
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