Getting users to adopt UC&C to its fullest requires training them on the tool basics plus advanced capabilities.
Remember the famous line in the movie "Field of Dreams?" -- "If you build it, they will come." Well, that might be so for baseball diamonds in the middle of cornfields, but it's not true for communications and collaboration systems.
Many businesses are not utilizing their UC&C systems to their fullest extent. The reasons vary: They are too complex and users don't understand how to use them properly, they don't provide the features and capabilities previously available to users, or users simply don't want to make the change to a new system.
One of the main reasons UC&C solutions fall short of their full potential is that employees don't know how to use many of the capabilities available to them. One company I spoke with found that its workers weren't doing video conferencing because they didn't know how to use the function. Even UC salespeople aren't immune to the challenge. In speaking with a UC salesperson about his experience using a new UC solution, I asked how he liked the system's mobile capabilities. He replied, "What mobile capabilities?"
We tend to think that because something is supposed to be user friendly and intuitive that it doesn't require any end-user training. This simply isn't the case. Just because you can pick up an iPhone or an Android phone and use it without training doesn't mean that businesses should expect the same with business-class communications tools. Today's UC&C solutions have so many features and functions that it's hard for end users to know how to use them all. In order to increase user adoption, training is essential.
A while back I surveyed end users at an organization that had recently deployed a UC solution. Some of the end users went through training immediately after implementation while others received the training several months later. The UC solution is intuitive enough so that everyone was able to get started using it without training, but during our interviews the participants told us, without exception, that they felt the training not only was worthwhile but also provided a great deal of value. Those who had been using the system for a while prior to being trained on it said they learned about capabilities they hadn't known about and that their UC usage increased after the training.
As one person noted, "I found the training very helpful -- and I was a power user before. It would have taken me longer to learn how to use features and I would have bothered more people, asking more questions."
You have many options when it comes to selecting training programs for end users. For example, UC resellers like Dimension Data, Enabling Technologies, and many others offer training. The important thing is not to overwhelm end users with too much training. With that in mind, I recommend providing initial training of the core UC solution and features upon deployment, followed a couple of weeks later by a round of training focused on more advanced features. This lets the users get comfortable with the basic functions, and then move on to enhanced features. In this way, users will not get overwhelmed initially, and are more likely to remember and use the more advanced functions.
Training can be presented in any number of ways -- in a classroom setting, during brown-bag" lunch sessions, or via online sessions with video demonstrations that the users can access at their leisure.
In order to increase user adoption, users need to understand how the UC tools work, what capabilities and functionality are available, and how to best utilize these capabilities. Better training leads to greater user adoption, which leads to better value from your UC investment. So the moral of this story is, if you deploy it, they will come -– but provide end-user training first!
For more on this topic, attend Enterprise Connect Orlando, taking place March 16-19, and sit in on Blair's presentation, How to Drive End User Adoption of UC.
Follow Blair Pleasant on Twitter and Google+!
