Buying a Phone System – Part 2
October 28, 2009
Part 2 – Initial Discovery
So you’ve thought about it, now what?
You’ve conducted your interviews, you’ve chosen the partner that has your best interest in mind and you have an outline of what business objectives you’re trying to accomplish – now what? This phase in the process, called Initial Discovery, is typically the tipping point for some vendors. I call it the “tipping point” b/c during this time in the early evaluation process either the customer or vendor is going to try to tip the project in their favor and hope that the outcome is favorable (for the customer: requesting everything under the sun for little or no money. For the vendor: Pushing their agenda, not doing the right thing for the customer.) In most cases the project goes dead and no one succeeds. To avoid this there must be open lines of communication, expectation setting, and established trust (this goes back to choosing the correct vendor for your business – step 1). It is on both the customer and vendor to establish this critical communication connection.
I mentioned in a previous blog, the evaluation process is 6-9 months in length due to finding out exactly what needs to be accomplished, why and how all of that is going to happen, and what the expected outcome is – all in detail.
In part 3, I will dive into the detailed portion of the Discovery Process. What questions to ask your vendor, why and more importantly, what those questions can and will mean to the future of your business.
Buying/Evaluating a phone system?
October 27, 2009
For starters interview several vendors and “partner” with the one that you want to do business with. This is an important first step as most reputable manufactures (Avaya, Interactive Intelligence, Siemens and Cisco) all have similar products and depending on the size of your company all will perform well. This is why it’s important to find the correct vendor for your business and make sure that they understand what you do, how you do it and what goals you’re trying to accomplish – not just how many phones you need and what the “flavor of the week” is in terms of the technology. It’s not the technology that solves problems, it’s the people; the technology is the vehicle in which the problem is solved. Also, try to find a vendor that will educate you on what is available in the market place and also represents several manufactures. This will enable you to make the correct decision that is right for you – empower yourself. The sales cycle is typically 6-9 months (give or take) because there is so much that goes into the evaluation process. Most legitimate best in class business phone systems range in price from $8k to over $100k depending on applications and complexity.