For many enterprises, the sudden need to prioritize work-from-home policies has caused some upheaval in cloud mapping plans. Those that didn’t intend to shift their communications to the cloud anytime soon may have found their timeline significantly sped up.

While there are a variety of benefits to cloud communications, including scalability, reliability, and cost savings, many enterprises find the migration process to be full of hidden costs or unanticipated fees. Take a look at some of the most common pitfalls in cloud mapping:

Taxes and Fees: Your sales representative for the provider may neglect to disclose that your fees and taxes may make up as much as 30% of the cost per user license. You may also be issued a cost-recovery fee, which is a fancy term for extra profit, baked into your price. It may be a challenge to obtain this information up front, so ask for a sample invoice before you make any final decisions.

DID Numbers: You need to know who owns your telephone numbers, and what happens to the numbers if you change platforms at the end of your contract term, because there’s potential for a battle here.

E911 Notification: Look in your contract for a clause that indemnifies the provider for mismanaged E911 calls, which can be problematic with remote or mobile workers. They may not be liable if there’s a problem; find out if the liability then rests on you. You need to ensure that there is a clear strategy in place for emergency calls, so that you are not vulnerable to a liability claim.

Deployment: The DIY approach offered by providers may be far different from the experience you remember from a decade or so ago. There are no longer dedicated project managers, trainers, or hand-holding in a standard cloud migration. If you prefer a more attentive provider situation, you’ll need to discuss those expectations and price them into your project. You should also have policies in place so that the assistance received is validated by mutually agreed-upon metrics.

Adding Users: Find out whether there are any fees associated with adding users, and whether there is a minimum revenue commitment. Most providers will offer flexibility and scalability, but you need to know if there are fees associated with changing the number of users.

SLAs: Your service level agreement (SLA) may not have specific uptime agreements like an on-premise solution, but when your system is down for several hours, you don’t want to be scrambling to explain the situation to your boss. If your performance clause doesn’t specify uptime, create an SLA that has teeth, with information about the consequences of downtime for your provider. If you do experience problems, document them in detail.

Auto Renewal: Your contract may have an auto renewal clause, and if you don’t discontinue within 90 days before the end of the term, you may be stuck with your solution. Instead, consider transitioning to a month-to-month agreement if you’re considering a switch while you evaluate your options.If your cloud mapping is suddenly taking a different direction than you had anticipated, contact us at Access Tech. We can help you identify areas likely to introduce hidden costs and fees and help ensure your cloud migration comes with few, if any, surprises.