You’ve got lot of choices these days with business voice communications vendors.
And you’ll get a lot of data companies who’ll say they can install your business phone system. But often they don’t have the expertise, experience or relationships needed to handle this mission critical application called voice communications.
To help you find the best voice vendor, we’ve put together these 5 questions you must ask to determine if they’ve got what it takes to win your business.
1. Telecom Consultant
Ask This Question
Are You Able to Match Technologies to My Requirements and Not the Other Way Around?
A good voice vendor is a consultant. He understands that every client has different needs and often no one hardware manufacturer or carrier will do the job. He’ll offer a full line of products that covers every crazy requirement you might have.
A typical data vendor on the other hand, will provide only a single manufacturer choice, a one-size-fits-all approach. He’ll try to match your requirements to whatever he product he represents.
2. Parts
Ask This Question
Does you have a local stock of replacement parts?
In the data world, it’s acceptable to have parts and components shipped overnight, so data companies typically don’t stock parts.
Voice vendors stock all major components. So if a part fails, they can get your critical voice communications restored in record time.
3. Carrier Services
Ask This Question
Which Carriers Do You Recommend and Why?
Voice vendors have daily contact with voice and data circuit providers. They’ve established relationships with carrier engineers and know who to call to get things done. In the carrier world, relationships and understanding of process matters greatly.
Voice resellers also know what carrier services to avoid and which perform at the highest level. Again, the intimate knowledge of the communications industry pays dividends to the customer.
4. Complete Solution
Ask This Question
Can you provide a complete solution?
The building blocks of creating a total communications solution include the PBX, cabling, voice circuit, back-up circuit, power-over-ethernet switches, voice-enabled router and more.
The integration of all of these components requires both technical and coordination skills. The vendor must orchestrate this myriad of diverse elements. Practicing this art on a daily basis, the specialized voice provider has perfected the process.
5. Premium Equipment
Ask This Question
Which Premium PBX equipment Do You Sell?
The larger premium PBX manufacturers usually require substantial financial commitments, spare parts inventory and technical certifications of their resellers.
For data companies that don’t specialize in voice and only sell the occasional PBX, premium vendor resell relationships are out of reach. That’s why you’ll see data companies sell only second and third tier manufacturer’s products.
But voice providers, by the very nature of their business, sell a much higher volume of PBX gear than a like-sized data vendor and are able to establish robust relationships with the biggest PBX vendors.
Conclusion
Bottom Line: Voice is a mission critical application that you don’t want to trust to any old data vendor. Specialization, experience and relationships matter.
If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to ask the 5 questions, call TeleDynamic Communications. We Get It. Call (800) 729-2310