7 Best Ways to Install Cisco VoIP Phones in Companies
Upgrading your company’s phone system to Cisco VoIP phones brings substantial benefits like cost savings, mobility, and advanced features. However, successfully deploying the new Cisco VoIP phones across your organization involves careful planning and execution. This comprehensive guide covers the most effective practices for installing Cisco VoIP phones within companies of any size.
1. Get Your Network Ready
The foundation of any good Cisco VoIP phone system is the network. Before deploying devices, audit your wired and WiFi networks to ensure ample capacity, security, resiliency and adequate QoS controls. Fine-tune VLANs, subnets, firewall policies and bandwidth allocation to optimize traffic for crystal clear voice quality. Strong wired connections are best for desk phones, while WiFi works for softphones and wireless headsets.
Slow or unreliable networks hamper call quality and quickly frustrate users. Adding dual Ethernet mode to support both IP traffic and legacy voice on separate ports for each Cisco VoIP phone can also isolate critical traffic. Traffic shaping allows the prioritization of voice and video streams. Alternate wireless connections over LTE provide resilience. These network preparation steps will minimize issues down the road.
2. Develop a Thorough Implementation Plan
Mapping out all the details in advance is crucial for smoothly installing Cisco VoIP phones. Outline the timeline and phases, inform stakeholders, order all the necessary hardware and licenses, allocate resources and assign responsibilities. Adhering to the roadmap minimizes service disruptions during the cutover. Be sure to build in time for training, testing and post-implementation support.
3. Choose the Right Phones and Licenses
With Cisco’s huge portfolio of IP phones, mobile clients and headsets, selecting models that match each user’s needs ensures adoption. Basic, affordable units for call center agents contrast with sophisticated executive video phones. Allocate mobile and common area licenses as warranted while factoring in future growth. Carefully evaluate accessories like stands and mounts as well to provide exceptional user experiences.
Aligning phones with roles prevents over or under-allocation of capabilities that impact the price per seat. Receptionists, assistants and help desk agents require intuitive call controls, numerous line appearances and productive features like an intercom while working predominantly at their desks. Road warriors operating purely on soft clients just need mobility and ease of use, like extending calls across devices. Get these essentials right, and the Cisco VoIP phone rollout will proceed far smoother.
4. Gradually Deploy in Phases
Avoid service disruptions and overwhelmed technicians by gradually deploying Cisco VoIP phones across logical user segments over several weeks. Allow contact centers, executives and other early adopters to pilot the initial wave. Gather feedback to refine training and onboarding procedures prior to organization-wide implementation. With sites progressively upgraded in structured phases, organizations assimilate the communications transformation smoothly.
Technical teams have ample bandwidth to monitor systems, address incidents and refine large-scale configuration and rollout tooling for subsequent deployment waves. Employees also adjust better to new communications without sudden changes. There’s no need for risky, big-bang cutovers with carefully planned incremental tactics.
5. Monitor Performance Closely
Actively monitoring voice traffic and device metrics enables IT teams to proactively optimize networks and rapidly resolve issues with Cisco VoIP phones. Deploy IP SLA probes, scrutinize SNMP traps, QoS markings and syslog error trends using tools like Cisco Prime Collaboration. If call quality degrades, automatically reroute media flows while troubleshooting the root cause. This vigilance safeguards positive user experiences.
Watching the dashboard early prevents having to explain outages later. Alert thresholds tailored to service level agreements enable automation like dynamic QoS and call rerouting to transparently counteract emerging problems before staff stare at silent phones. Remember that overburdened administrators overlook preventative maintenance. So tuning systems for self-healing and graceful degradation is essential.
6. Solicit User Feedback
While technical indicators reveal network health and device functionality, regularly soliciting end user feedback exposes the real-world experience. Do administrators struggle configuring advanced call flows? Are sales reps hampered by sporadic mobile app crashes? Structured surveys and anecdotal observations highlight rehabilitation opportunities. Continuous improvements incrementally boost satisfaction while demonstrating responsive IT support.
It’s easy for technicians to get tunnel vision optimizing systems for peak efficiency. However, a phone system’s main function is to facilitate business communications. Regular pulse checks via brief support or HR distributed user surveys uncover process or tool barriers limiting productivity. Feature utilization metrics also highlight training gaps to shore up. Keep an open dialogue with users and tweak environments to facilitate workflows.
7. Refresh Strategically
While basic Cisco VoIP phones maintain functionality for years, advances in ergonomics, video collaboration, AI and workflow prompt more frequent executive phone refreshes. Budget for systematic company-wide upgrades every 3 or 4 years to steer clear of support headaches from aging models. Prioritize units with heavy usage, like reception and call center desks. Assign older units to light duty like lobbies, spare offices and work-from-home backups.
A 3-year refresh cycle for Cisco VoIP phones balances innovation assimilation with fiscal prudence. Assign next fiscal’s budget allotment for lease renewals and selective upgrades. Move nice-to-have features from executive wish lists into pilots that build business cases for increased user productivity.
Conclusion
Migrating businesses to Cisco VoIP phones might seem straightforward, but it requires coordinated efforts across infrastructure, endpoints and people for smooth operation. By following these proven best practices, IT organizations can minimize disruptions while unlocking the full benefits of IP telephony for productivity and competitive advantage.
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How does the Cisco VoIP phone work?
As the name suggests, the VoIP phones are designed to use voice over Internet Protocol technology (VoIP) technology to send and receive phone calls over an IP network. It’s a hardware or software-based telephone. VoIP phones are commonly known as IP phones, which include features and capabilities different from those found in traditional analog phones. The major reason why IP phones are different from traditional analog phones is their additional performance because the phone calls are placed over the internet instead of traditional switching.
The working of VoIP phones is very simple. But, yet, many people are confused about the same and thus, they maintain a distance from them. They prefer using traditional phones and conventional technologies, both at home and office. Sometimes, people think VoIP phones might create problems for them if anything or any function goes wrong.
In this post, we will discuss the working of Cisco VoIP phones in detail and other important information. We picked Cisco because it’s one of the reputable manufacturers of VoIP phones. And people prefer Cisco over other brands.
Working of Cisco VoIP phones
Through Cisco VoIP phones, the voice calls are converted into digital signals or packets of data that are transported through IP networks such as the internet. These phones work on several protocols to facilitate the delivery of voice communication over the internet.
Using VoIP technology, you can call landlines or cell phones. Other than this, you can call computer-to-computer, where both parties can speak using a computer microphone and listen through computer speakers or headsets.
The best is to make or receive calls using landline phones by connecting an analog telephone adapter to your network. If you want good voice quality and the best security, you should use Cisco VoIP phones on a private IP network.
Is it worth spending on CISCO VoIP phones for your business?
Cost-saving ideas are always welcomed by business owners. And VoIP technology is one of them.
If you integrate VoIP technology into your business, you will reduce costs, improve productivity and enhance collaboration.
By having one network to manage instead of two, you and your business can save money. Adding, moving, or changing extensions and locations will become easier, saving your money and giving you more flexibility.
With Cisco VoIP phones, communication for your workforce will become easier as they will be able to communicate from home or on the road. If the phones used in your business are wireless, your employees can access data and communicate from anywhere and everywhere only after they are permitted.
Cisco VoIP phones are best used by small business owners because their capabilities are beyond expectations. The phones help small businesses in enhancing collaboration. The workers can easily collaborate through voice, video chat, web conferencing, and instant messaging. The employees can collaborate individually or simultaneously from a single, easy-to-use interface.
These are the reasons why investing in Cisco VoIP phones is worth it for your business.
How are Cisco VoIP phone systems different from traditional phone systems?
One of the biggest differences is that the Cisco VoIP phone systems rely on IP networks and not on the physical wiring to cellular networks in traditional phone systems. This makes communication easier and better, benefiting both parties. Accessibility becomes great due to IP network connectivity.
Even if deployed on a similar scale, the Cisco VoIP phone systems cost significantly less and come with additional features beyond calling. It’s said that traditional analog phones can never lower upfront costs. Also, the traditional phone systems are costly to support and integrate with communication applications. The major cost-effective reason to use Cisco VoIP phones is that they offer less expensive long-distance and international calls because the calls are charged at the local rate of the call’s destination.
If the internet connection is good, the performance of Cisco VoIP systems is amazing. The phones offer greater mobility and scalability than phones. In case you are moving to a new location, you don’t need to acquire new phone lines, unlike the traditional phone systems. With this technology, you or anyone is not tied to a physical location like in analog traditional or hard-wired phones.
Last and most important, the Cisco VoIP phones easily integrate with other business applications. You can integrate your company’s CRM software with VoIP phones. This will help you view call records and analytics for different customers and sales leads. Other than this, the integration will help you to make phone calls straight from CRM applications.
Are all Cisco phones the same?
Now, you have very well understood how Cisco phones work, how they are beneficial for your business and how they are different from traditional phone systems. So, we hope you are ready to invest in them.
Here, people often get confused about which model to pick for the best performance. Many people think that all the models are the same and they can pick any of them. But, truly speaking, different models of Cisco phones come with different features. If you pick them randomly without considering any factor, the performance will not be great and the investment will not be worth it.
Before you buy a Cisco VoIP phone, you should know your requirements. Based on your requirements, you should analyze the features of the different models. You should pick the one that fits your requirements the best.
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