What else could possibly go wrong if your phones go down?

Most problems are not apparent until they happen and cause chaos. Phone systems are not immune to failure, and when they do, an emergency may quickly ensue. Some credit unions are still relying on old, outdated phone systems. If they fail to have a  redundancy option for the phone system in their Business Continuity Plan, it is a recipe for disaster. When any system fails, the workflow is impacted, especially when your system for communication fails. Here are some impacts a phone system failure could have on your credit union in the event of an outage:

1. Member Faith – After members fail to make contact with you, their faith in your ability to handle their most important assets is impacted. Members want their credit union to be stable and secure and will lose faith if your means of communication fails.
2. Transactions Delayed – When loans and mortgages are being processed it’s a very collaborative, back and forth process. If members are right on the verge of getting approval and your phone system fails, finalizing their deal can be detrimental. You can only imagine how they would rate their experience working with your credit union.
3. IT Costs – When your IT team has to neglect other projects to service the phone system failure, or you must outsource the service, you may be faced with large costs to get back up and running.
4. Employee Productivity  – Your MSRs or help desk rep’s means of communication has failed, which ultimately stops their workflow.
5. Equipment Replacement – If your phone system fails and IT is unable to recover, you may have to pay an up-front costly expense to replace the necessary equipment, or make a quick decision without the proper research. This could aggravate your board members, and budget for this could be difficult to come by.
6. Helpdesk – When members suspect fraud or don’t recognize a debit or credit that is showing up on their history they want immediate reassurance or help from their credit union. If members can’t get through to your helpdesk in their time of need, their frustration and panic will only increase.
7. Reputation – Members will quickly correlate your failed phone systems to failure of your credit union. Even if the outage is obviously not your fault, the lack of a seamless backup solution presents a poor image.  Members are your biggest advocates and are the lifeline to potential new business.  By implementing a solution that provides business continuity, you ensure your reputation among members and their communities will be maintained. 

Just as you have backup and recovery plans in place for your data network in your Business Continuity Plans, so should you consider your voice network in Disaster Recovery Planning. A SIP Trunking solution is low cost and allows you to have a separate Voice over IP Solution that can be used in the case of a carrier outage. Or, a complete transition to SIP Trunking can move your CU off expensive PSTN calling plans, using them only in the case of failover. There are plenty of scenarios and things that can go wrong if your phone system goes down and AltiGen Communications has the advice and solutions you need to ensure that never happens. Learn more about how AltiGen works with thousands of banks and credit unions to provide advanced Unified Communications solutions HERE.