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If you are shopping for a new office telephone system, good luck! Most systems these days are quite complicated, and every salesman will tell you their system is the best. But, there a couple of things you can do to make the process a little less painful. First, talk to the users and make a list of the required features. Usually, this is quite a short list as they will not know about many of the advanced features available on the modern systems available today, but nevertheless, this is the place to start.
Then study the offerings of the various vendors. I content that a technology purchase should be a financial decision, not purely a technology decision! I know this flies in the face of what you will be told by your IT staff, but I really believe this is the best way to go.
Let me explain further. Let's assume that you are looking at 3 systems, all with similar features. Now, look at how easy or difficult the system is to use. The conference feature and transfer features will be used a lot. So, get the salesperson to demonstrate how to do this when you go to see the system. You will find some are much easier to use than others. These functions will usually be initiated by pressing a Softkey. These are rows of buttons on the bottom line of the display that change labels depending on context.
Most cannot fit all the labels on the available keys at any time, so there is often a "More" key so you can access more features. Check this out! If you have to keep pressing "More" all the time, there will be a cost to the company. It may be only a few seconds every call, but over a year, this can mount up to a considerable amount of time. Over the lifecycle of the system, this loss of productivity may offset a much cheaper initial investment.
Take a look at the Personal Directory. How many entries can you store at each extension? Is there a Corporate Directory? Can you use multiple lines? Are you buying different models of handset to suit your different types of users?
After you have selected the brand of the system, you then need to determine who to buy from.
Most brands are represented by a number of resellers. I really believe that you need a long term relationship with your reseller, pick someone you are comfortable with. Make sure you check some references. Next make sure that you are comparing apples with apples. Do they guarantee next day repairs, 2 hours, or 4 hours for emergency support. If someone is way cheaper than the others, I would be wary. You can only continue to give good service if you remain profitable and continue in the business. Many cut-price resellers will not survive in the business long-term. Finally, if your reseller offers more than a single brand, chances are that they may be a little more objective, but most of the larger resellers do tend to specialize.
Finally, you need to factor training into the equation. There is considerable cost in a training program, but I can assure you, the costs of not doing training are much greater.
Don't forget that initial training has a limited shelf life. Over time, your staff will become experts in a few features and will forget how to do other things. New staff will join the organization and they will not reach full productivity without some training. "Train the trainer" can help here, but even your own staff trainer will forget some features if they do not personally use them. Consider regular refresher courses, or on-line video training.
Finally, if you have a large installation, insist on full project management. A full communications system refresh, or a new installation, is a complicated process. Cables will need to be run or tested, patching will need to be done, and there will be major programming needed. You may need to add switches or upgrade the backbone to cover the added bandwidth required. Good luck, take your time, and choose wisely!
Rob Carnell is CEO of Startap Pty Ltd, based in Sydney, Australia. He specialises in assisting clients to get better value from their communication systems by using his web based video training system. You can see their system at: http://www.startap.biz. Prior to this role, he was Vice President Enterprise Australia/New Zealand for Alcatel-Lucent.