So, your organization has finally decided to update the old telephone system, you have a big project on his hands and looked at the first things you need to do to plan the Beast. Well have no fear because I was on the planning, design, implementation and support side of the VoIP business for 10 years and provides an overview overview of what the next 3-12 months will be with you in mind.
The first thing you need to know is what are the reasons for the deployment. It is important to keep the reasons for the upgrade in mind when planning and selection of the new system, not to be drawn into the reasons less important in the process. Here are the most common reasons that we encounter:
* The old telephone system is failing or falling all the time.
* People complain about the age of the telephone system.
* It is possible monthly savings by switching to SIP trunking.
* You will hear from improving the productivity of other companies with Voice over IP systems.
* There are many new features that you need.
However, there are also other advantages for the modernization of the existing telephone system have not thought of that and in the process:
* Your old data network receives an upgrade in the cost of the new telephone system.
* The opportunity to improve business processes exists.
* There are many ways the interactions of the service consumer and provider can be improved.
* Moves faster handset, additions and alterations.
This guide assumes that you get us an idea of Voice-over IP phone system. The other options to get an acceptance on the traditional PBX or hosted VoIP system will not be discussed because they are a small part of the market at this point.
Planning to upgrade VoIP
So, where do I start? Well, this is the first step in evaluating your current telephone system and data network. You have to know what the current skills you are what people like and dislike about the system on the system as and above all as the people, the heavy users of the PBX to the customer interaction and help desk side with the existing system and improve it to.
From the perspective of computation, which means that you have a lot of things you need for each location:
* How many analog and digital phones have. With what analog devices can be low-end IP phones (usually all of them) to be replaced.
* How many outside lines do you have in the form of T-1 voice and analog ports
* Number and type of T1 data at each site. (A T1 can be used for voice, Internet, WAN or a combination).
* Wide Area Network on the bandwidth and site usage.
* LAN switches, quantity and location, the quantity of ports used by cabinet.
* Any special requirements of the ACD, IVR, call recording, paging, handset and application integration.
If you financial support for what to get you what your monthly charges pending get grip. Current monthly expenses include the costs for each location:
* Internet and network connection costs.
* Rates PBX.
* The monthly service fee PBX. The average cost for additional PBX service on a monthly basis.
* The cost for mobile phone, there may be some of them covered with Single Number Reach.
* Our monthly conferences.
* The monthly maintenance and support for all network hardware and software that can be replaced.
Once you have determined what will your monthly expenses, you are ready to determine what the budget for the new project. The best result for the new project would be the new monthly costs are lower than your current cost per month, after taking account of new services to install and everything on the new phone system instead, if they are over a period of 3 to 5 years with the purchase of a dollar at the end you have financed the new system. They can be found during this planning are necessary to get the new phone and amount of network connections in order to achieve the desired return on investment, make sure to reduce your costs and your monthly circuit of funding equipment, maintenance, and a separate system .
Select suppliers and reseller VoIP
There are two ways to make the next. An election is the manufacturer of the new phone, you want to buy to determine, is the other option to a local vendor to do the installation design and support to choose the new system. To the best price and best service on the new system you should go in a certain way. Customers in many cases it is best to do get a phone system from a manufacturer that good local dealer, the proper installation of the system in a smooth way, so do that all the functions it has, and they constantly support it. The size of the dealer, you will probably want to work with depends on the size and needs of your business. I recommend that the dealer is large enough is to run your business work, but will not be overwhelmed by it and is small enough that your business is important to them and they will lean back, take care of you .
So how do you find a dealer who has good size for you? Here you can connect the phone system manufacturers back to get a few options. The leading provider of phone systems are the best source for finding local dealers. The leading provider of Voice over IP systems, are at this point, Cisco Systems, Avaya, Mitel, ShoreTel and Digium Switchvox. If you connect these sellers online or through their local provider, you can for a recommendation of its three dealers who do a good job asking for you. After receiving the names of suppliers distributors tried his recommendation that you get to really work, then call the dealer and the other two. At this point you should have three suppliers of equipment, three dealers for these suppliers and nine great opportunities for a local company who do a great job for the VoIP upgrade.
Note that once you start the process of contacting providers will start to receive calls, because people know you are interested. Well, that may be a way you know who the most interested, can be your business but it can also give you guidance to the providers are more aggressive. Be be very clear, what is your schedule if you take your time and choose the best provider plan, and if they bug you enough to put them on the bottom of your list. By the way, you should begin this process at least six months before you want a new phone system in operation. Next, you will choose suppliers 2-3 months, another month to determine pricing and financing, and there when you say go, it takes about two months to get the hardware, and then in a month full scope to implement and reduce the new telephone system.
Expectations of the seller
What you should expect from these sellers is that they want to work with you to determine your needs, a step by step from your existing systems and find you have special needs. Then try some special features that their system is that no one else was and try to sell a demonstration of their system to see. I recommend you see the demo of their system, have to buy into any of their special features are exclusive, then ask them a list of reference customers about your size and needs, you can call and talk to see how things went.
Certainly call this reference customers and see how the dealer has in the design phase, the price competitiveness has been, as they did during the installation, and that their support was like after the sale. During this part of the commitment, if you have the most impact, and you can get most things for free. By all means take the time to get a good meal and get to know people who go potentially to know to work for you. Besides the fact the installation for you if they come from outside the state, or whether they are on site and available to support after installation. Do not be afraid to ask this question because it is completely valid and will definitely affect the results of the project and should be a deciding factor for you.
At this point you should proposals for each of your suppliers and you can begin to compare. Some vendors of PBX systems will try to give you a monthly fee for a summary description of the parties say, then, hey that’s how it works. Like most VoIP providers are on the side of the business data they expect you to miss a quote and a cost line. You can then decide what you want to fund or not. If you do not get the request in the price of online articles and the specific part and model numbers of the devices and a complete evasion, that the annual maintenance costs.
Annual maintenance is divided into three zones. Annual maintenance products, support and hardware replacement and software upgrade maintenance costs, which allows you to change applications, and a contract with local providers offering support. The three areas of maintenance are valid. The first two are very important and must be purchased in almost all cases, and a support contract must be purchased locally, if you do not have a qualified person to operate the equipment after it is installed.
Since this is a Voice over IP, you have to expect that you will be able to use the system to a new data network and not on a separate network that you are running in parallel to get there. This means that the company should voice applications over IP phone system have an excellent network capabilities and to prove that the quality of the service, the development of network equipment to differentiate between different understanding data types, and then prioritize voice traffic . It is easy to do on a LAN, a little difficult to do in a WAN, and difficult to do more firewall to connect to the Internet. If you are looking to secure SIP trunking that the seller to enforce quality of service on all roads SIP voice says.
Take a VoIP phone system decision
So at this point you should take your suggestions command line with prices, have included all the installation and maintenance, have seen the demos and got a chance for local suppliers to meet and communicate with their customers reference and asking some basic questions. Step back and asked real basic questions at this point. Ask the seller if you are missing something. Ask the seller if the parts are changed. Ask the seller if not the best price and then go further and ask the dealer if there is a way to get a better price to the seller. Sometimes there is an end of the quarter or next year and it is possible to take a few extra discount points or other concessions thrown
During this process, you probably have excluded certain suppliers of the test, because you tried your list of nine suppliers to narrow about three. For these six suppliers can call and eliminate them a good reason for them to finally know why they are out of the race and what they are doing about it in the future with other clients. For the other three, so they know they made the short list and give them a timetable for when you perform the evaluation and decision.
Go through the process of decision making used by your organization and to a single supplier. As you go through the contract negotiations with the supplier, the other two on the short list who did not call you will not stop if you let them know that you made the appointment with someone different, and they are out of the race. This is a small industry and there are not many companies that a good job in this room do I recommend you follow them to know that they do not make the cut in a manner pleasant and professional as you all appreciate the efforts it in their behalf have made. Sometime in the future, you can call for help, and would like to assure you that you have separated on good terms.
Finally, as you begin the installation with your supplier of choice, be sure to get close to her team of project management and all the information they need as quickly as possible. To ensure that your installation will go much smoother, faster and more successful.
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