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effectively train end users or spot is-
sues?” asked Scott Gode, vice president
of product marketing at Unify Square.
“By not looking deeply enough into UC
system health and user satisfaction, IT
is acting as their own worst enemy. But
lucky for them, visibility is easily attain-
able and can fast-track UC ROI.”
Satisfaction levels are somewhat
surprising when looking at percep-
tions versus realities in instances
where there are problems or issues
with UC components. IT departments,
for instance, believe that 85 percent
of end users will notify IT when they
need assistance, and just 10 percent
will try to fix the problem themselves.
In actuality, only about half of end
users will turn to IT when they need
assistance, while nearly a third of
users will try to fix matters on their
own. What’s more, nearly a quarter
of end users will simply “give up” and
turn to alternate applications or de-
vices at the first sign of trouble, while,
even worse, 21 percent will ignore
the issue entirely and not even try to
fix it. Further complicating matters,
more than a quarter of users admit
to using other communications apps
in combination with their UC system
more than half the time.
“This ‘dual use’ makes it easier to
give up on the UC system should things
not function as expected,” concluded
the study.
When assistance is requested, and
users are on the phone with IT help
desk, the disconnect continues, shows
the survey. IT executives surveyed,
for instance, believe that nearly half
of help desk calls are resolved within
four hours or less, but only about a
quarter of end users claim they expe-
rience such a quick resolution. And
nearly a third of users “have no idea
how long a resolution takes,” said the
Unify Square study.
The good news is, more than 40
percent of UC users say they never
encounter any issues that need to be
pushed up to IT troubleshooting.
It’s possible that rate could be even
lower if users took better advantage
of training resources, something both
users and IT departments believe is
directly related to healthy adoption. Yet
majorities of workers aren’t even aware
that various training opportunities
exist, show Unify Square’s survey.
“The silver lining is most organiza-
tions do have a myriad of training op-
tions,” said the study, “so the process
of simply connecting users to training is
a fairly low bar for IT and could lead to
large returns.”
It’s also another area where partner
providers seemingly could quickly help.
Perhaps most surprising, IT is
underestimating the extent to which
certain UC tools are utilized. Both
video and desktop sharing are being
used at higher rates than IT believes,
while voice and conferencing are used
slightly less than assumed.
“This shows that increased visibility
into how end users are using the UC
functionality could result in even more
dramatic usage and productivity suc-
cess,” concluded Unify Square.
Presented all together, Unify
Square’s findings should make IT deci-
sion makers reconsider the allotment
of resources and investments in UC. It
also seems to suggest they could use a
good UC partner.
o
Realities
Training Availability Awareness for UC Systems
Option
End User
IT
Don’t Know
29%
3%
Nothing
23%
17%
Online videos
21%
23%
Reference materials
26%
44%
Online tutorials
36%
45%
Instructor led
15%
35%
Source: Unify Square
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