sundance-communications.com/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Mitel Telephones & Systems SX-200 Service Contract

Ok, Ok,...I'm just sayin that it's gonna bite you in the ass, and maybe you're not part salesman, but you should really be pushing these people into the 21st. century at some point. I've got all kinds of parts too, but they're gettin kinda rusty, which is really impressive, and not cost effective in the long run. What kind of warranty are you gonna give a guy on this stuff anyway? Car 54, where are you?

Westerntelephone... actually, your point about the 911 feature is well taken. When that feature first appeared on the Mitel, I made a big point of explaining it to my hotel customers. Some of them took it into account in making their buying decision and some didn't. Unfortunately, time can make us complacent and I've stopped stressing that issue... probably because of an assumption that they should know by now. My bad... it's my job to educate when needed and we should never assume. I'll be re-thinking that issue now. Thanks.

As for "part salesman"... if we're in this business and not selling we're doing the customer a disservice and probably won't survive the changes we'll see in the next five years. My point is not that we shouldn't represent and sell new equipment. I have customers who want to keep running their old systems... that's the decision they've made for their own reasons. Have I priced new systems to them? Sure I have. Have I priced refurb systems to them? Sure I have. Do I keep trying to solve their problems and keep them in business even if they haven't decided to upgrade? Of course I do. I'm too small a business to cut out customers just because they don't cough up the bucks for the latest and greatest. I do the best job I can for them and keep trying to educate and make them aware of the increasing costs and decreasing reliability of what they have. Hopefully, I'll be there when the scales tip toward upgrade... because the guy trusts me, not because I walked in the door on the first day and pointed out all the reasons why he should upgrade.

We can continue to disagree and if you want to you should probably move this to the Installer Forum as a new topic thread. I was just pointing out that the topic here is "SX-200 Service Contract"... not "Upgrade to ICP".

90 days. All of my motel accounts have tight owners who only have the phone because it's expected. Gone are the days of guests actually using the phones for long distant and modem calls. They might make a short call to the place they're going, a restaurant, a convention center, things like that, but for calling home, they're probably going to dig out the cell phone and make that call. True, all my properties are between 10 and 160 rooms, but each season, I get a call from someone who has downsized the number of lines and wants to make the appropriate changes. Clearly the phone system is no longer a profit center.

It's not important to me at this time, but didn't even early Mitel's send an alarm to the console if 911 was dialed? I'll put that on my list of things to do next time I go to a Mitel property to test it.

Also, I was well aware of the cost of the chipset for the SMDR's. I was also aware of what a PITA it is to change them out. When a customer gives you $200 retail to swap a board and you get labor on top of that and give him a 90 day warranty, it wasn't worth the effort to pull the board, solder in the chips, replace the board and test. I'm guessing the difference was about $100 to the end user and his downtime was half what it would have been to change the chips.

Carl

TECHarry, I agree with you. I've got customers that still hang on to their old stuff, and will until it either blows up or burns down. Guess I'm just a bit frustrated. Didn't mean to take it out on anyone. I'm just pushin' and hopin'.

Carl, for Mitel, 911 notification at the console finally started with lite 17, if I remember correctly. Although the 319 analog software also had it, but that wasn't Mitel's doin! The 10, 20, and 50 only spit it out on smdr AFTER the caller hung up. If he passed out, he hadn't hung up and guess what! And Tel Electronics saw an angle and made their INNFORM alarm on a 911, 'cause most PBX's were in the same boat as Mitel! And that's the semi-accurate history lesson for today! John C. (Not Garand)