This guide was developed by Greg Eicke who has 35 years of ‘feet on the street’ experience helping organisations implement the best and most cost effective telecommunication system for their individual needs.

In my experience, the nine most commonly confusing issues for phone system buyers are;

1. To bundle or not to bundle?

The rule of thumb is “bundle & beware”. Here are some important points to consider when it comes to bundling – they could save you thousands.

• Firstly, how much are the call rates and how do those rates compare with what you are paying at the moment? After all, you don’t want your phone bill to go up do you!

• Secondly, how long are you locked into those rates? (rates are constantly changing, good rates today are bad rates tomorrow).

• And finally, can you easily keep pace with technology during the contract term?

• What happens when the NBN rolls into my area?

2. Does your business need a Digital, VoIP, Hosted or Virtual telephone system plus will you require some or all of the suite of Unified Communications? It is important to understand the communication enhancements, productivity enhancements and cost savings you could realistically achieve with either solution.

Digital telephone systems

Provide, among others, these key benefits: best for single site enterprises; lower hardware costs; basic call handling; low IT literacy required of staff; analog equipment like domestic cordless phones and fax machines; DECT Cordless Phones for staff on the move; simple voice mail and multi button handsets.

VoIP Telephone Systems

Natively provide access to NBN Ready Digital phone lines or SIP trunks as they can be known as. Typically the small VoIP phone system has the same benefits of the latest smart Digital Key Telephone systems, utilsing the same feature set and multi button handsets.

Hosted Phone Systems

Are perfect for small SME’s and SOHO’s, usually up to 10 staff. The key benefit here is low entry cost coupled with VoIP call cost reductions.

Virtual Phone Systems

Is where a phone system manufacturer has developed their system to work successfully on Virtual Servers which is the latest generation of computing. The beauty of VM ware software and servers is the end users can be anywhere in the world to be effective.

Unified Communications

If on the other hand your business is more sophisticated and requires a more advanced communications solutions it is likely that you will benefit more from a Unified Communication (UC) solution. Some of the key benefits of UC include; support for multiple branch offices; access to key staff regardless of their location – teleworking; web collaborative conferencing; advanced call management; user presence information; mobility; graphical user interface software (GUI); increased staff efficiencies and productivity; in house administration; central telephone operator for multiple sites; instant message across your enterprise; video conferencing… just to name a few.

3. Does the telephone system meet your primary needs? Is the sales person trying to baffle you with techno babble and sell you on features that you don’t really need and will rarely use?

• A telephone systems vendor in Brisbane has stated that 92% of telephone system features are rarely if never used.

4. What about business continuity (redundancy) and disaster recovery? Just think about the recent natural disasters in Brisbane… many telephone systems in Brisbane were destroyed. Many businesses simply couldn’t recover and have had to walk away.

• What’s your disaster recovery plan?

5. Have ALL of your communications needs been considered? Changing, upgrading or modifying one communication component can potentially impact your other communication means.

• So have you considered all aspects including landlines, data and IT networks, mobile (voice and data), broadband, etc?

6. Have you overlooked the advantages of combining your mobile phone into your office communications? Telco’s have conditioned us to believe that we need more and more devices to communicate, usually as many as they can sell us.

• There are many better and much smarter ways…

7. Will you get sufficient training on your new system? Let’s face it the initial training on your telephone system is likely to be quickly breezed over by a technician (not a teacher) and rapidly forgotten.

• How will you make sure that you get the best value from your investment.

8. Are you purchasing on price alone? If you are chances are you won’t be buying what you really need for your business. The great news is that you can get exactly what you need for your business and have it paid for from massive savings on your phone bill. This is absolutely the case if you are spending more than $492 in phone call usage per month.

9. How do you know if you are talking to the right vendor for your business?

• The most telling sign is whether or not a prospective vendor does their homework on your business.

• You want to be sure that you are getting a well researched and designed solution that is just right for your business.

• This research should, at a bare minimum, include key stakeholder interviews, site(s) audit and phone traffic analysis.