We don't sell phone systems anymore, we charge monthly per handset, and
we retain ownership of the system. We sell it as 'Any hardware
problems, we'll replace it no questions ask' When they get the quote of
$10k vs our couple $100/month we usually win. Usually it's less than
what their AT&T Bill was. And then at least then we get recurring
revenue forever to deal with them. The terminology thing is a big
problem. 'Message' could = IVR or Announcement, or voicemail. And
don't get started on Hold vs parking, or Intercom. The last one I did,
the customer wanted stacked IVR's, he even knew what he wanted. But He
could never remember to hit # when he was done making the IVR
Recordings, so doing the recordings took about 4 hours.
On 1/6/2021 10:18 AM, Adam Moffett wrote:
I'm about fed up with phone systems. Back in the day, I didn't
understand why the phone system vendors charged $10k to install a
$1200 phone system, but now I get it. You can have tens of man-hours
invested in making the tiniest phone system work exactly the way
someone wants. I'm starting to think you have to plan on being there
in person for awhile so they can immediately tell you what they don't
like instead of stewing on it for a week. I also think when there's a
week of back and forth on these adjustments we think of it as spending
a week to make it perfect for them, but when they talk about it it'll
be the story of their phones being all screwed up for a week.
So My new thinking is that I can't go low on price. I have to go high
so that I can afford to be there putting time into it, and if I can't
afford that time investment then I should let somebody else handle
it. And if they don't want to pay high, then they can figure out
something else. Maybe I could go low if they would agree to a
recurring maintenance contract, but I think most of the time they won't.
It does help to have a conversation up front about how things should
work, how calls should flow, what the IVR should do, etc. After I have
that conversation I write up an outline and/or flow chart describing
my interpretation of what we just talked about and email it to them.
A lot of the time I think they just agree with the written form
without reading it because we STILL end up with confusion sometimes,
but at least we start out closer to the mark. It doesn't help that
there's a terminology that is often unfamiliar to them....they say
"voicemail", but they really meant an auto attendant or IVR or
something else.
Frankly, it's easier to just sell internet and let someone else be the
"phone guy", but for some reason people keep coming to us about phones.
-Adam
On 1/6/2021 10:51 AM, Nate Burke wrote:
I notice this mostly when I do phone setups. Try to get everything
configured the way the customer explains to you, then you install it
and tell the customer to test it and make sure it's doing what they
want. They say 'Yea, yea, it's fine' As they're putting on their
coat to leave for the day, since you made them stay an extra minute
later than they though. Then you don't hear anything more at all out
of them. Then about 6 weeks later you get a call "THESE PHONES ARE
JUST ALL BROKEN, THEY'VE NEVER WORKED RIGHT, YOU NEED TO COME FIX
THEM NOW!!!" Usually it's something stupidly simple like, 4
extensions are ringing for inbound calls, and only 3 should ring. But
suddenly it's a crisis of business terminating proportions.
Over the holidays a customer with an ancient key system with no
answering service wanted us to provide voicemail for any incoming
calls for the 2 weeks of the holiday. OK, no problem, setup the
voicemail, and it sent out via email, I tested it with the office
Admin before break started, and it was all working fine. Then the
first day of the holiday they wanted to change the email address it
was sending the voicemails, to one of the owners. No problem, but
they never bothered to test the new email address, voicemails were
getting marked as spam by their system, and they only keep spam for 1
day. After break, they ask where all their voicemails were. For 2
weeks, you were not able to check that it's doing what you want? And
it never occurred you that you didn't see any voicemail coming through?
These are all small businesses, for something that is so critical to
them why don't they check and make sure they're doing what they
want? Everyone has a cell phone they can use to dial in, it would
take them about 2 minutes to check, but they just refuse to.
Ironically, many of these are also the same customers that will
religiously run speedtest.net on the hour, every hour, and let you
know if that little number on the screen is less than the last time
it ran.
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