The following article summarises a presentation made by the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) at QUESTnet Lite in 2025. AARNet would like to thank the UniSQ team for sharing their journey and learnings.

The need for change

In 2023, UniSQ launched a project to replace its ageing and sizable Cisco Phone Call Centre environment. The key criteria in the search included:

• cloud-based
• improved staff mobility
• simplified management
• reduced cost
• more powerful analytics

UniSQ investigated new solutions from vendors already widely deployed in their ecosystem, including Cisco, Zoom and Microsoft.

As part of the scoping, UniSQ identified the bulk of inbound phone calls were going to their contact centres, rather than to staff extensions. This meant platforms that offered strong contact centre capabilities were prioritised during the assessment phase.

Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center stood out for their ease of use, rich features, and cost effectiveness, including options for retaining the existing telecommunications carrier and a progressive transition of their existing handsets.

Rapid execution

Following assessment and budget planning in 2023, Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center were contracted by UniSQ in March 2024. The general migration to Zoom Phone along with focused migrations of UniSQ’s contact centres were completed on time within just 6 months.

With the Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center functionality already built into the widely used Zoom Client, the team were able to move quickly and focus on integrating BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) SIP circuits and migrating user extensions to Zoom.

Learnings and the future

The team reflected in hindsight, that porting to native Zoom Phone, rather than managing SIP redirections, would deliver a simpler, smoother experience for both users and support teams, and this is a choice that may be reviewed in the future. The 15 original contact centres were consolidated to just seven, with the reporting in Zoom Phone’s native call groups decreasing the need for full contact centres. The new contact centres utilised features like skills-based routing, live transcription, automated call summaries, and Zoom’s live wallboards enhancing workflows, which improved team efficiency.

In the future, the UniSQ team plans to explore the AI features of Zoom Contact Center, including AI Agent Assist and Virtual Agent Voice, with the potential to also examine in the future the integrated Zoom Virtual Agent chatbot.

The UniSQ team also acknowledged colleagues at The University of Newcastle, who’s experience and insight on Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center helped save countless hours and avoid potential mistakes along the way.

This project is a great example of leadership and collaboration amongst the Higher Education community.

AARNet Zoom advisors are here to help your team plan and adopt any of these features, as well as best practices, licensing optimisation, configuration options, and common Zoom integrations. Please contact us if you need help or more information.

Author: Geoff Lambert, AARNet Zoom Customer Advisor. This story is based on content presented by UniSQ at QUESTnet Lite 2025.

For more information about Zoom Contact Center, Zoom Phone, or Zoom in hybrid and online learning, please reach out to the AARNet team.