sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information A good Tech must

also be a consultant like it or not.

There are times as professionals in this crazy business where a very good technician naturally becomes a much needed consultant. I would like to tell a true story for others to read and relate to but first I must mention what has been said so many times before.

All successful equipment manufacturers make good stuff. In the story below you will see two names of well known manufacturers and they BOTH make quality equipment with rock solid reputations to back it up. Please remember that throughout the storyline.

Once upon a time (Dec 2004) a man named Jack contacted me to do some technical install work for his new office building. Jack was and still is a successful lawyer that had purchased a vacant glass shop and began the remodel process to convert the location to his private practice and have available space set aside to lease to other interested tenants. Jack had previously been a partner in another law firm where they had a Nortel system so due to him being familiar with it from an end user standpoint he figured it would best serve his needs. Jack contacted me after purchasing the system, the needed cards, the Call Pilot VM and about 25 or so 7316 telephones. When I came into the picture all of these items were new, still in the boxes sitting in the shop floor of his location. If my memory is correct they came out of California somewhere. In Jack’s mind all he needed was a guy with a punch tool and he would have a working phone system forever. Also at that time I informed Jack that there would be a need for extensive cabling throughout his building for both his immediate needs and future expansion. I also informed Jack that my experience with Nortel had limits. I would be able to install his system, activate each phone at its proper location, cross connect his incoming phone lines from his service provider. Even 5 years ago I emphasized to Jack that I was NOT a certified Nortel Technician and there would come a time when a certified Nortel Tech would need to be brought into the picture. He appeared to understand or at least I thought he did by the look in his eye and so we began our long term business relationship first, along with a good personal relationship between myself, Jack and his office manager Dina.

Through the years Jack and Dina have become rather comfortable with the way I do business. When Dina calls and describes a new employee at a new location I would determine if what needed to be done was under my scope of abilities and respond with usually an expected arrival time, then actually go and do whatever needed doing, get paid and move on to the next project someplace else. For 5 years all this customer ever needed was a name on an extension, adding a mailbox, recording a greeting and informing Dina that Joe Blow is at extension 2xx and they have had the short user level lesson. Cool!

December 2008, Dina calls and a new attorney is going to lease available space. I am asked to take 2 of the existing phone lines and make them private lines for the new guy. Along with this I realize we will need to remove those 2 lines from the current rollover established by the service provider but other than that we should be good to go.

To make a long story short (too late huh?) during the process (which should be basic) the Nortel system is not offering me the options I expect to see and have seen in the past during programming that prevent me from doing my assigned task. I double check my process and try again with same results. I suspect there to be a software problem but I’m just not qualified to nail that down definitely. I explain to Dina that the time has come for me to contact a certified Nortel Tech to come in and evaluate. Dina calls Jack and he comes into the office to discuss this. Reluctantly Jack allows me to contact my local Nortel associate to schedule a visit. It is my personal policy that I don’t bill my customer unless I accomplish something. This was the case here and even though Dina had checkbook in hand I declined her offer of payment for the service call. I did tell her I would check back later after the Nortel Tech had made his determination. Later that day Dina called and said the Nortel Tech had come and gone. As I suspected the Nortel Tech had determined there was a software glitch and to repair this problem would require a reasonable amount of money, not much and equivalent to any other software upgrade of any other manufacturer. Unfortunately Jack did not take advantage of the opportunity to make the repair and instead cornered the Nortel Tech into doing a “work around”. Just doing the work around cost a healthy amount. I wish they had chosen to fix it but instead they (actually just Jack) chose to save basically chump change.

The next morning Jack and I had a long conversation that was a combination of my personal opinion along with options for his business. The most difficult obstacle I am having to attempt to overcome is Jack doesn’t want anyone to touch his phone system but me even though I have given my full faith and recommendation that I am not the solution. I have brought the solution to him but I’m not it. I gave Jack 2 reasonable choices in the best interest of his business (bingo, I am now a consultant) and they are as follows:

1. Spend the money for the repair and let the Nortel Tech handle all the future MAC’s (moves-adds-changes) and I will coordinate with him all of my cabling and infrastructure information.
2. Replace your Nortel with a system that I am fully capable of servicing for all of your future needs. It just so happens that there is an ESI E-Class I am aware of that is available for about the same money Jack could get if he sold off his Nortel on ebay. Jack is a rather proficient ebayer.

Ok, now we get to the first week of Jan 2009. Dina calls several times crying and pulling her hair out from the frustration of a new lawyer downstairs that can’t get dial tone. Some other extension that previously had no problems can’t get dial tone either. I console her and explain that I am barely capable of working with a quality Nortel and that I am of zero value when it comes to a Nortel with a known software malfunction. Dina reports back to Jack who is under his desk jingling random coins to see if any of them might contain some silver. Some new guy is irritated cause he has been promised an office with a friggin phone that he can’t even make an outgoing call on and no one can call him unless they go through the reception desk first. The reception desk might go flakey any minute now. It is like watching someone drown because they won’t let go of a 30lb rock.

To top it all off Jack calls me last night (Fri 1/16) and wants my opinion on something. He went to ebay and typed in ESI to do his research. He has spotted a system that he wants. It is a 128 with maybe 4 years of life left on the hard drive. I told him yes it was and is a good system and yes I could service it fully. It will fail soon and we will be back here at square one again. It is not as good as a repaired Nortel or as good as an ESI E-Class but for lords sake Jack do something and do it soon, your entire business is at stake.

I’ve done all I can do at this point. The 128 on ebay ended as I was typing this up. If it was Jack I guess I’ll get a call.

The point I am trying to convey is that we as techs have experienced so many times these circumstances where knowing what pair of wires does what is only 5% of our true value. Knowing the technology environment and conveying it to the customer is the true value. I have never let Jack down in 5 years and I am actually trying to deliver business to my competitor in the best interest of Jacks business, why he will not trust my numerous experience is beyond my comprehension.

I totally empathize with that!

John, your story seems to be one of stubbornness, which is very common, but I see just as many customers who trust me/the company go down the "CG told me it would save $XXX a month", so we went ahead and did it.

I can not say how many times the exact situation has happened to me... and every time that someone I've worked with for years and years doesn't listen, the inevitable happens.


----

How long is your "told-ya so" list?



Good story!

Been there, done that! I got a call a few weeks back from someone wanting help with a Nortel system. It seems that their usual vendor disappeared. Again, this is not a system I know much about. I relayed this to them, and referred them to someone who could work on it. To the best of my knowledge, they got a service call set up.
On the other hand, a friend of mine asked me to help replace an aging Panasonic system in his house. I did some research online and decided that I could do it. Got everything installed and working okay. With the help of several people on the board, we got the system fine tuned and the customer is happy. Would I do it again? I don't know. I did not get the time to really set one up in my shop and totally learn it.

My first reaction is that you should have backed away when the customer provided his own equipment. But money is always hard to turn down! That all said, if Jack won't take your honest recommendations, I'd certainly have some sort of written (Preferably signed or documented somehow) back-up of my recommendation(s). I'll be surprised if you retain his business, as honesty and faithfulness seem to count for naught in this particular case. John C.

John, as always you are the man! You did all you could for the client and more importantly, you were 100 % up front with him.

If he did win the auction, I'm sure he will call. If he didn't, he'll either keep looking for an ESI that you can service, or get one from you.

As always...you're

John, you have gone way above and beyond....but you can only do so much for a customer....

I agree that money is hard to turn down but I wonder just how much you made off this cheapskate. I wouldn't turn them down but red flags go up when those ebay/internet buyers ask me to install something they bought. I don't think I have ever got one job. Looks like if they are too cheap to buy the system from me in the first place they will never agree with what I would charge to install what they bought. So I have learned not to waste a lot of time with those people.

-Hal

You can lead a horse to water, but...

I wonder just how much you made off this cheapskate.

I don't have the exact figure since it was 5 years ago but there were over 40 drops installed (1 cat3 & 1 cat5e) per drop plus X T&M labor hours for the system,backboard, meeting the service provider and so on. He never tried to beat me down on the price and every time I submitted an invoice if he was present I was paid on the spot. If he was away the check arrived within a few days. So to answer your question I did OK.

Perhaps it was my "coin jingling" reference but it is unfair to label Jack as a cheapskate.

There are numerous potential customers out there like Jack that have been and will be putting together a small or medium size business together under a fixed budget. Jack also purchased a bulk amount of desks from a local used office furniture store, hired local labor to move, assemble and install them. That doesn't make him a cheapskate just a guy trying to meet a fixed budget.

Within the first 2 years of their business being in operation I got a call one day from Dina and she described a problem that had come up. Apparently unanswered calls were not going to the AA/VM like they had done in the past. When I arrived I said my usual hellos, how are the wife, kids, cats, dogs and where did that big boat in the parking garage come from stuff then I went to the com room and looked at the Call Pilot. It was dead. I told Dina and she told Jack and he said to do whatever needed doing. I took the CP and the power supply off the wall and went to my friend the Nortel Tech. We connected another power supply and it was all good to go. He sold me a power supply and I returned went straight to com room, fired it up. Bingo, problem solved.

I presented an invoice for new power supply (with mark-up) and service call charges. Needless to say when Jack got the invoice he was surprised since he felt the complete CP unit might need replacing which he was prepared to pay for.

What I am getting at here is these business people are willing to pay proper and market rates but they are not as familiar with the domino effect of cutting a corner here and there. Our job sometimes is to be a consultant. If they listen that's great, if they don't well you really can't fault a person for not believing everything they hear can you?

Sounds just like a lawyer; jumping over dollars to pick up some dimes.