Recently I have volunteered for the upcoming Product Camp in NYC and have been asked by the committee to reach out to a list and personally invite some senior product manager’s to the event.  Going through the usual phone system tree – many have the usual attributes and it is very easy to locate the person I’m looking for, but one company in particular in NY had a phone system the obviously was not tested from an end-user perspective.  I will not include their name as to remove the embarrassment but when you do not test your phone system what else are you not testing from an end-user view? 

Anyone reading this should run through their phone system to test the directory tree and make sure that the number selection terminate to the correct person.  What happens if you press zero for help? Randomly use the system to locate some specific employees by keying in their name.  Does it work?  So, going back to the company’s lack of testing that sparked this blog article, I was calling for the VP of Product Management and I had the specific name.  The phone system did not allow me to key in their name and when I pressed “3” to speak to their receptionist all the system did was ring and say “test 3” with no way to leave a message.   So, I probably did what anyone else has done using that poorly executed system – just dial random extensions.   How many potential sales were lost because the prospect could not get through?  What was the opportunity cost that was lost? 

Years ago I worked for a company that through mergers and acquisitions had to incorporate three companies into one and anyone reading this realizes the logistic pain that causes.  We actually had a team that met to work out the new phone tree to make sure that everything would be set up correctly.  We actually went through a test process where we asked a segment of our client base to call in and test to the system in order to gain knowledge directly from the folks that would be using it.