relocation

 

 

Small businesses thrive when employees are exemplary at wearing many hats, it’s a necessity in that environment. Relocating a small business is a full-time job. Employees don the wizard hat, coordinating the move and embracing a new adventure.

We help our customers during this process to figure out their communications needs during this time and our piece of the puzzle, though one piece, really is tied so intricately to others. After witnessing numerous failures, we present our top 5 crucial steps to avoid skipping during this process.

Real talk here, no super technical jargon. These are the most common things customers say to me that are WRONG!

#5 – “We will just unplug the phone stuff, load it in my SUV and plug it back in the same way.”

Whoa there! Everyone knows this is NOT a great idea while relocating and it still happens all the time. We get calls where someone has attempted this and failed. Plan ahead to minimize phone downtime and avoid entering crisis mode.

#4 – “Our new office has cables everywhere, they will work.”

Some offices do still come with cabling in place from the last tenant. You may see jacks on the walls all over the place, and a room full of cables. None of this means that it’s ready for you to reuse. When you remove the wallplate, you find no cable attached. Sometimes, only a portion of the cables are terminated there, and it’s likely not the part you need. Sometimes, someone cuts that giant bunch of cables in the data room, but it remains unseen.

You should plan to provide a floorplan marked up with where your furniture will go so that your vendors can ensure there is a working cable that terminates back to the correct data location. This will help you avoid mistakes and costly add-ons while your relocating.

#3- “The electrician is running all new low voltage cables for us.”

No offense to electricians but often there are huge portions of a low voltage cable job that they are not including in their bid. 

We often show up to move the phone system and find there are no cables ready for us, and the finger-pointing begins. For you, it means downtime, delays, no way to work on your computer or answer calls, and typically it’s for hours to days!

#2- “I just called to move my phone lines and they said it will take at minimum 30 days.”

Calling the vendor that you get the bills for your telephone lines from should be at the very top of your to-do list. They drive the bus when it comes to relocating. 30 days is pretty standard but depending on the carrier, type of service, and where you are moving to you could be looking at 60, 90 days, or even more.

The wizard hat cannot fix this situation if they have planned all other vendors to move on the 15th and your lines won’t be there until the 30th. Everyone else has to fall in line behind the carrier’s date.

#1 “Our old phones have worked for 15 years, we’ll just move them, now is not the time to make a change.”

That is a lie, this is the best time to evaluate your communications. Even if that old phone has worked for years, it will not work forever. When you are planning a move we have the opportunity to tightly schedule the implementation of new systems with your Go Live Date, and can often have the new equipment working in your office before your move, allowing for low to NO disruption of service.

Often that old equipment does not fully survive a relocation. Those old parts that have been running for years sometimes do not come back up after being off for long times. No business wants to have an outage that could have been prevented.

THE SOLUTION is smart planning. Get your vendor involved early when your planning on relocating, and if you don’t have one reach out to us! You hire movers for your stuff, you should do the same for your communications equipment.