Telephone Systems
IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!
DO NOT BUY A NEW TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
The great news is that there is no longer any need to pay thousands upon thousands of pounds for a new telephone system.
When we set up our office our telephone system, call recording and CRM integration cost in excess of £16,000.
Today, I could have the same set up for less than £2,000 – £3,000 at a push.
The problem is that most traditional telephone system providers are used to the revenues from these sales and are very creative at retaining these revenues.
Always, always, always talk to the market place no matter how long you have been with your current provider.
The world has changed dramatically.
IS ISDN BEING WITHDRAWN?
Yes, there is an element of truth in it. However, it is not something that is happening now or any time soon, the alternatives are far superior and much less expensive.
This means that at some point in the future, when its convenient to you or your lease runs out for your current equipment, there are now much better less expensive alternatives.
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO ISDN?
There alternatives to ISDN are all a variation on a theme. They all carry your traffic across a broadband connection instead of expensive ISDN lines. This eliminates the need for physical lines and paying for expensive call charges. They are collectively called VOIP, the two most popular varieties are SIP trunking and hosted IP telephony.
This means that for the fraction of the cost of a legacy telephone system and connectivity, you can have access to far more sophisticated solutions.
WILL I NEED TO PAY FOR UPGRADED EQUIPMENT?
There is no longer any requirement for you to lease or buy new equipment. If you negotiate well enough, most companies will include the equipment that you need in exchange for a three year agreement.
Do not be tricked into making large capital or considerable monthly investments to facilitate these upgrades. It isn’t necessary.
Stuart owns a small MOT station and motor repair business.
He received a call from his telecom provider informing him that his ISDN lines were being withdrawn and that he needed to make some changes to the set up that he had.
The proposal from his company was to replace the telephone system that he had nearly completely paid for, install a new system with the ability to accept SIP connectivity and then wait until the ISDN lines were stopped before making the switch to SIP trunks.
What this actually meant was £16000 of extra expenditure over another five years. Not only was it expensive it was completely unwarranted.
Fortunately Stuart spoke to us.
We did not sell him a telephone system as he did not need it. We did not make ant changes at all.
All because he is in a contract and any changes would have attracted
expensive termination charges.
DO I OWN THE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT AT THE END OF MY LEASE?
The equipment that you have leased is owned at the end of the lease by the finance company that you made your payments to. In the majority of cases, at the end of your lease the ownership of your system is signed over to the company that sold it to you. They secure ownership of this equipment by paying the lease company a small payment called a put option.(Normally the equivalent of one months lease payment) In some cases, the ownership reverts to you for the same payment and sometimes the lease company retain the ownership.
This means that if you have not planned exactly what you are going to do at the end of the lease, you may end up having to pay twice for the same equipment. You must establish at this point who owns the equipment at the end of the lease.
If you find yourself in the situation where you have reached the end of your lease and you have made no plans, it is normal for the people that sold you the equipment to come to your premises to deinstall and remove it.
This is very often just a tactic to force your hand into either buying a new telephone system or reselling you the equipment that you should already own. Do not buy a new telephone system.
HOW DO I FIND OUT WHEN MY LEASE ENDS?
You should have a lease document on file for the equipment that you use. If you can’t find your copies, you can get copies from the company that sold you the equipment or the lease company themselves.
This means it is fairly simple to get the information. When you have the information, you should put a date in your diary to start planning what you are going to do at your contract end date 12 months before the end of your contract.
The owner of the equipment if it isn’t you will turn up on the last day of the agreement to deinstall the equipment.
We work very closely with a small group of care homes in the south of England.
We had a really panicky call from them one day, they said that their current telecom provider were at one of their homes threatening to de install their telephone system because their lease had ended for the equipment.
The scary thing here is that the company threatening to de-install the equipment actually had a right to do so because the wording of the initial contract that our customer had signed with the telecom provider delivered an ultimatum to our customer, either sign a new agreement for the equipment that they had already paid for, buy the equipment outright for six thousand pounds or they would de- install it there and then.
Not the best of situations I think you’ll agree.
We were able to install a hosted solution on their existing broadband the next morning, divert their calls numbers to mobile phones that we loaned them while this happened and within 24 hrs had everything back to normal.
In the process we managed to halve their monthly telecom spend.
DO NOT BUY A NEW TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
The great news is that there is no longer any need to pay thousands upon thousands of pounds for a new telephone system.
When we set up our office our telephone system, call recording and CRM integration cost in excess of £16,000.
Today, I could have the same set up for less than £2,000 – £3,000 at a push.
The problem is that most traditional telephone system providers are used to the revenues from these sales and are very creative at retaining these revenues.
Always, always, always talk to the market place no matter how long you have been with your current provider.
The world has changed dramatically.
IS ISDN BEING WITHDRAWN?
Yes, there is an element of truth in it. However, it is not something that is happening now or any time soon, the alternatives are far superior and much less expensive.
This means that at some point in the future, when its convenient to you or your lease runs out for your current equipment, there are now much better less expensive alternatives.
WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES TO ISDN?
There alternatives to ISDN are all a variation on a theme. They all carry your traffic across a broadband connection instead of expensive ISDN lines. This eliminates the need for physical lines and paying for expensive call charges. They are collectively called VOIP, the two most popular varieties are SIP trunking and hosted IP telephony.
This means that for the fraction of the cost of a legacy telephone system and connectivity, you can have access to far more sophisticated solutions.
WILL I NEED TO PAY FOR UPGRADED EQUIPMENT?
There is no longer any requirement for you to lease or buy new equipment. If you negotiate well enough, most companies will include the equipment that you need in exchange for a three year agreement.
Do not be tricked into making large capital or considerable monthly investments to facilitate these upgrades. It isn’t necessary.
Stuart owns a small MOT station and motor repair business.
He received a call from his telecom provider informing him that his ISDN lines were being withdrawn and that he needed to make some changes to the set up that he had.
The proposal from his company was to replace the telephone system that he had nearly completely paid for, install a new system with the ability to accept SIP connectivity and then wait until the ISDN lines were stopped before making the switch to SIP trunks.
What this actually meant was £16000 of extra expenditure over another five years. Not only was it expensive it was completely unwarranted.
Fortunately Stuart spoke to us.
We did not sell him a telephone system as he did not need it. We did not make ant changes at all.
All because he is in a contract and any changes would have attracted
expensive termination charges.
DO I OWN THE TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT AT THE END OF MY LEASE?
The equipment that you have leased is owned at the end of the lease by the finance company that you made your payments to. In the majority of cases, at the end of your lease the ownership of your system is signed over to the company that sold it to you. They secure ownership of this equipment by paying the lease company a small payment called a put option.(Normally the equivalent of one months lease payment) In some cases, the ownership reverts to you for the same payment and sometimes the lease company retain the ownership.
This means that if you have not planned exactly what you are going to do at the end of the lease, you may end up having to pay twice for the same equipment. You must establish at this point who owns the equipment at the end of the lease.
If you find yourself in the situation where you have reached the end of your lease and you have made no plans, it is normal for the people that sold you the equipment to come to your premises to deinstall and remove it.
This is very often just a tactic to force your hand into either buying a new telephone system or reselling you the equipment that you should already own. Do not buy a new telephone system.
HOW DO I FIND OUT WHEN MY LEASE ENDS?
You should have a lease document on file for the equipment that you use. If you can’t find your copies, you can get copies from the company that sold you the equipment or the lease company themselves.
This means it is fairly simple to get the information. When you have the information, you should put a date in your diary to start planning what you are going to do at your contract end date 12 months before the end of your contract.
The owner of the equipment if it isn’t you will turn up on the last day of the agreement to deinstall the equipment.
We work very closely with a small group of care homes in the south of England.
We had a really panicky call from them one day, they said that their current telecom provider were at one of their homes threatening to de install their telephone system because their lease had ended for the equipment.
The scary thing here is that the company threatening to de-install the equipment actually had a right to do so because the wording of the initial contract that our customer had signed with the telecom provider delivered an ultimatum to our customer, either sign a new agreement for the equipment that they had already paid for, buy the equipment outright for six thousand pounds or they would de- install it there and then.
Not the best of situations I think you’ll agree.
We were able to install a hosted solution on their existing broadband the next morning, divert their calls numbers to mobile phones that we loaned them while this happened and within 24 hrs had everything back to normal.
In the process we managed to halve their monthly telecom spend.
