Questions asked to Teltek from a nonprofit in Alexandria, VA when they were looking to upgrade their AT&T Spirit Phone System in early 2010.

Baltimore, Maryland – February 6, 2010

I recently received an email with several questions regarding a proposal that was presented to one of our prospective clients. I thought the questions they asked were very well thought out and were worth sharing to other businesses currently shopping for a new telephone system. The questions and answers listed below our prospects background information should help you evaluate your current system and what you will need to consider in purchasing a new phone system for your business.

 Background on the prospective client:

• Client is a smaller faith-based nonprofit in Northern, VA with seven administrative staff members.
• Have not purchased a new phone system in over 20 years.
• Currently have an AT&T Spirit Phone System they are looking to have replaced.
• Phone and internet service provider is Cox Cable.
• Basic/minimal technology needs:
• Have five phone lines coming into the building.  One is dedicated to the Internet and one is dedicated to the fax machine.  The remaining three incoming lines are for voice.
• Looking to replace six phones and add one to two additional phones.

 Background on the systems proposed by Teltek:

• Offered them two system options:
• NEC DSX 40 kit (3 phones and CPU) with a voicemail upgrade
•  Avaya Partner Small Office Edition kit (4 phones, CPU and 4-box voicemail)
• Most cabling will be reused
• Interested in keeping their existing service provider – Cox Cable.

Questions Asked:

•  Q. We currently have six [phones] that we are interested in replacing and want to add one more.   Six of the seven instruments, including the new one, will be in relatively close proximity to one another – within the span of four side-by-side offices.  They would be desk phones.  The new addition would be a second instrument in an office where there is already one instrument.  That new instrument would require a short run of new cable to the second desk.   The seventh instrument would be a replacement for an existing wall-mounted phone that is located in a kitchen area some distance away.
  • Seven desk phones have been included in both proposals; we have also accounted for eight hours for the installation – this should cover the time required for the cabling, but we do price our installations hourly as your facility is not new construction. The cost of materials for the one new wire run was not included in the price (estimate about $35.00).
• Q. We use Cox as our phone and Internet service.  We currently have a voicemail capability when no one answers and voice mailboxes. 
  • That scenario could most certainly be used on the new system but it would limit some functionality of what a voicemail integrated into your system could offer (i.e. auto-attendant options, voicemail transfer, announcements, operator assistance, etc.). Please contact me or reference the particular system voicemail documentation to learn more
     
• Q. We want two new features:  Caller ID and the ability to transfer a caller directly to an individual’s voice mailbox.
  • Both features are available as long as an integrated voicemail system is purchased and Caller ID is requested from your service provider (additional costs may be incurred).
•  Q. Yours was the only proposal that mentioned a monthly maintenance fee.  Is monthly maintenance required or recommended for this proposed system?  Why is it necessary?  If we don’t take it, what “dangers” might we face with the reliability of this system?
  • Maintenance is not required, but recommended; the maintenance agreement offers you a single point of contact for all issues that may arise (i.e. cabling issues, hardware replacement, problems with your phone/internet provider, scheduled onsite visits, discounts, free remote programming and help desk support, etc.) Oftentimes while proposing a new system, we will discount the purchase price of a new system if maintenance is elected so you will receive the first four to eight months of maintenance for free.
• Q. Does the system come with a basic parts and service guarantee (1-year)? [If so,] what standard warranties are provided for the system? 
  • Yes, even if a maintenance agreement is not purchased with a new system, our standard warranty is one-year parts and labor: if any piece of hardware breaks you will get an advanced replacement (including labor) for up to one year beginning on the day the system is installed on site. Additionally, with our IP based system you will receive unlimited changes in programming and user training for free for the first 30-days following the installation. We provide this training to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new phone system and that everyone knows how to use it to its maximum capacity
     
• Q. [Would the] processor be installed at our phone junction box?  Is the voicemail (VM) system contained within this device or is another device required?  Is all the necessary VM equipment included in your proposal price? 
  • The system’s CPU would be located at the location where your current AT&T Spirit System is to prevent additional cabling. We do this because all of the existing telephones and incoming lines are currently run to that point and can be reused. If you do not like the current location, the system can be moved fairly easy and without having to run all new cabling by installing one larger cable to relocate it to a new location. If this is elected, know that you may still have a splice point where the cables connect at the old location. Additionally, if your computer cabling is ran to this point there are additional items that must be considered as computer cabling cannot be spliced like telephone cabling can.
  • Yes, the voicemail unit is contained within the CPU of the telephone system and the pricing provided includes all of the necessary voicemail equipment and labor time for installation.
•  Q. Specifically, can a caller be transferred directly to an individual’s VM box without redialing?
  • Yes you will have a voicemail transfer button which will enable all phones to transfer a call into another user’s voicemail.
• Q. Six (6) people will share the three (3) active phone lines.  A call to a busy line will be rotated to a free line, correct?
  • This is a feature called roll over or hunt group and is offered by your service provider; it would need to be activated (or verified that it is active) prior to the installation. All new systems will support this feature. Traditionally, a roll over group is established so that the numbers will hunt in consecutive order (i.e. 1, 2, 3), but it stops there. One thing to consider is that if all three of your numbers are being advertised (or given out to your clients/members) and someone dials directly to line 3 – the next person that calls that line (when it is still in use) would ring busy because a roll-over path is not established from line 3 back to line 1 – this must specifically be requested to your service provider when establishing roll over functionality. *If you are using telephone numbers that are outside of your local exchange area (i.e. Foreign Exchange (FX) numbers) there are additional items that need to be considered)

Also, consider which number will be displayed on caller ID when you dial out: most service providers will offer to display your main number for all of your lines if you like so that your clients/members will always have the option to dial back in on that number.  This option will help prevent the call clashing (described above) from happening.

• Q.  For the seventh phone in the remote kitchen area, what would be the charge to also install a cordless instrument at that same location?
  • The cost of the NEC cordless phones is $432.00 and there would probably be about an hour of additional installation/programming time required. Note: this would require a separate extension to be utilized because two phones cannot share the same extension number. This should not limit any functionality but would require an additional digital station port to be used. Alternatively, a wireless headset could be used in place of a wireless phone which would work off of the same hard-wired phone.
• Q. Does your system enable Caller ID or is that a feature we would have to get from our [service] provider?
  • Caller ID is included on our system but as for any system would require activation from the service provider (Cox); check with them directly because you may already be paying for it and you just are not aware of it.
• Q. What training events would your company provide for our general staff users?  What training for system administrators?
  • For the smaller systems we install (less than 15 phones), we typically complete training on the same day as the system installation. We can offer group training via demonstration and PowerPoint, individual one-on-one training or a combination of both. Administrative training is typically for one or two people that will be accessing the system, the “administrators”.  They will be given instruction on how to make the most common programming changes through the system administration’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) on a computer. User guides will be provided for each staff member as well as complete system documentation. Additionally, if you would like training prior to having the system installed we can leave a demo system on site for you and your staff to get familiar with prior to the installation. We see time and time again that businesses invest large amounts of money into a telephone system that they barely know how to use and administrator. We take great pride in the training that we offer and will cater to the learning styles of each one of the members of your team.   
• Q. How long would installation take?
  • Depending on any additional options that you elect, we are anticipating about four to eight hours – typically we can minimize complete downtime to about 20-30 minutes as most of the programming will be completed at our office in advance.  

Teltek is a second generation, family owned company that has been in business since 1997 and is an established authorized Avaya Business Partner/NEC Dealer.  Serving Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other surrounding areas, trust Teltek to coordinate your next phone system repair, cabling project, telephone system installation, or  office relocation.

Contact Information: 

Chris Nicoli, CEO
www.myteltek.com
sales@myteltek.com
1.866.9.Teltek
410.552.6580
236 East Main Street
Westminster, MD 21157

 For additional information on how to purchase a telephone system, please contact a member of the Teltek Team.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:36 am by Chris Nicoli and is filed under Teltek News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.