GENESYS IMPLEMENTATION

Overview

Phase Zero Partners has managed multiple Genesys implementation projects since 2021. These implementations include an on-premise implementation for a WA-based credit union, an implementation of Genesys Cloud for a CA-based credit union, and a migration from the soon-to-be end-of-life on-premise platform to Genesys Cloud.

Execution

In all of these implementations, Phase Zero has been the point project manager responsible for managing all timelines, internal resources, and multiple vendors. A Genesys project can be hugely impactful for a credit union. Successful planning of the implementation, training, and managing the testing process are key to your success. Vendor management adds another level of complexity. Depending on your specific implementation, you could be managing your Genesys integrator, core systems vendor, chat vendors, and any number of other third parties involved in ensuring you offer the best employee and member experience.

We have found success in implementing Genesys by focusing the team on several key areas sequentially.

  1. The first area is on the initial system design. Building your IVR (interactive voice response) system and phone options tree is an exercise that crosses multiple teams in your organization. Ensuring that every possible stakeholder is engaged, participating, and approving your design before your system build starts saves your costly changes later on if key team members are missed.

  2. The second item we focus on is UAT planning and execution. We create a UAT team that is a sample of all of the different team members that will be utilizing the Genesys system. Discussing UAT team assignments and roles early in the process helps us create an environment where we have engaged testers that are able to prioritize UAT testing along with their normal duties. The most successful UAT programs we have been part of were with teams that started executing their UAT plan and kept to a planned pace for completion.

  3. The third thing we focus on is training. Your basic implementation could go flawlessly if your team does not know how to utilize your system day one. We make a strong effort to keep our trainers and subject matter experts engaged in the project process and planning. Training is a balance between having enough time to effectively educate multiple groups of team members while not completing your training so early that nobody remembers what they learned on Go Live Day.

  4. Finally, we believe that having a solid go-live plan and communicating that plan to the entire user base is key. We build plans that start from 12–8 weeks out from Go Live and document all key activities. In the two weeks prior to going live, this moves to a day-level resolution. As soon as conversion/migration activity begins, we move to hour-specific planning. Our communications follow a similar pattern. We communicate plans and progress weekly up to the Go Live date; at Go Live, that switches to daily, using a combination of real-time (MS Team, Slack, etc.), email, and daily open progress calls for team members.

Lessons Learned

Over the course of multiple Genesys implementations, we have implemented multiple learnings as part of our execution process. I would summarize them as follows:

  1. Ensure all of the possible stakeholders are actively participating in the design phase.

  2. Identify a UAT team that covers a wide range of disciplines and can dedicate the time to UAT testing day 1.

  3. You cannot overcommunicate.

If you are looking at implementing Genesys or a similar system and would like to talk further about how we have managed these projects in the past, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

We would be happy to chat.