Hopeful for future potential, but it's a hard pass for now
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We changed phone systems for our large, remote, client services-based company in 2021. The new product, NICE, was supposed to have lessened our technical difficulties and made the client experience smoother but unfortunately, it did the opposite. We also used it for detailed scheduling such as lunch breaks, other daily breaks, time for education, and meetings. In theory, it could have been fantastic for us. It also allowed much more detailed monitoring of how we spent most of our time, and potentially needed more support.
Pros
- Detailed scheduling capabilities
- Easy access to many contacts
- Facilitates tracking and monitoring
Cons
- Connectivity: I personally ended up having to get a new laptop to support this, though my old one met all the supposed specifications.
- Reliability of connection: our IT crew spent an inordinate amount of time trying to connect and reconnect NICE to employees.
- Reliability of connection of calls: it went down constantly, usually in the middle of a call with a distraught client, which really hurt our customer service.
- Feedback/customer service: We had so many reports, calls, and meetings and they were unable to solve our issues. At the time I left that position in March, they were still unresolved.
- Inability to do a wide look/screen calls and messages: with our old system, we could always scan our inbox for urgent calls, and prioritize. At this time we are still unable to w/ NICE.
Return on Investment
- Positive: it helped supervisors track across the board in a much more efficient way to help see where more support was needed and helped set a schedule for all employees - though, with the type of calls we handle, the schedules basically went out the window on a daily basis.
- Negative: it sucked up most of our IT team's time, leaving them overworked and unable to help w/ other technical issues.
- Negative: greatly impacted our client services because calls dropped constantly.
- Negative: impacted client services because we were unable to scan and determine urgent needs. Every item came to us on a first-come first serve basis.
- Negative: though it was cool that there was a 'Request for call back' option, it meant that in the mornings we had to make phones ring as early as 3:00 AM PST to get through the queue.
Other Software Used
GoTo Connect, Moodle, Zoom, Google Meet
