If it Ain’t Broke…Throw It Out Anyway
We’ve been in in the communications business for over 25 years, so we have many customers who’ve got very old telephone systems. When we ask them if they’d like to upgrade to more modern technologies, they say that they are quite happy with their old equipment and see no reason to spend money on a new system.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wrong.
What people don’t realize is that business voice communications have changed dramatically in the last ten years.
With Hosted PBX and SIP Trunking on the rise, old Nortel systems with analog PRI circuits are simply not cost effectiveanymore.
Nortel Conversion Client Profile – Niesar & Vestal, LLP
Recently, one of our old customers asked us to help them re-design their old Nortel Norstar phone system to better accommodate two subtenants. It had a bunch of analog lines to serve the three different tenants in their office. Over the years, we’ve found it harder and harder to provide value to them as their Norstar agent.
This time, we mentioned a Virtual PBX as a solution, but they were still hesitant because they didn’t want to spend money on a new phone system.
When we analyzed their phone and Internet bills, things get interesting!
We did a side-by-side comparison with the customer, and they were surprised and delighted about the savings that we could provide them.
BEFORE: They had been paying $1,100 per month for voice and data service. And they had to manage four separate vendors who were providing these services.
AFTER: We cut the providers from four down to two and the best part of all, the new monthly cost was $715, a $415 monthly savings. In addition, they enjoyed additional savings over time as they would avoid costly PBX re-design labor charges and maintenance fees.
In addition to the monthly cost savings, they would get a completely new state-of-the-art communications solution. Some of the valuable features for them were:
- DID (Direct Inward Dial) numbers for each employee
- Shiny new phones with high-quality speakerphone capability
- Elimination of fax machines
- Unified Messaging (voicemail in email)
You can read more about it in TeleDynamic Client Profile – Niesar & Vestal LLP
How You Can Save Money with Virtual PBX
This scenario described above is very typical. Here’s the pattern we see very often:
- Customer buys a phone system and it hums away for years
- They continue to pay their monthly phone bill and the phone company steadily raises their rates, but not so much that it creates a concern for the customer. Assuming a modest 5% annual increase, in ten years a $500 monthly bill grows to $814. (Actual annual increases are closer to 10% per year now.)
- Nothing is broken, so there is nothing to fix, everything seems fine and the phone company makes lots of money.
- A “moment” occurs that awakens the customer into recognizing that it’s no longer 2002, technology has driven down costs and there is much money to be saved and many wonderful new business benefits to be achieved.
Here’s hoping your “moment” occurs sooner rather than later, so you can jump into the modern world, save your company a pile of money and look like a hero.