sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Favorite System Fewest Issues

Some of you may have seen my posts in the Comdial area and know of the problems we are having with DX80 systems that we have installed.
The small office is a great market for us and we have a significant base of customers that we have provided various services to over the years. that being said we would like to tap that base of customers and market to new ones.
The thing is we need to be confident that if we sell a phone system to our present customer base we need to know that we are selling something reliable. We certainly don't want to lose a long term customer over a phone system especially when we sell them other services. We belive that we go out of our way to provide excellent support, but being a small company ot becomes a huge issue when we are constantly handling Comdial DX80 problems.
Any thoughts about what system and voice mail would be good for the under 50 user market with possible migration to T1 and VOIP??

there are many quality systems out there. A lot depends on the knowledge of the installer and the sales rep to make sure the customer is getting what they want. All the Avaya products are good, and since you are familiar with with the Key Voice, it can make a nice add on to a Partner or Magix. I also work with Nortel a lot and have had very good luck with that system as well. When I was working with an NEC dealer, that product worked great too. You will get a ton of different opinions, but it really boils down to the service you are providing, your knowledge of the product, and the price to the customer.

Just for the fun of it, I will rank the systems I have first hand knowledge of:

Top 5,

1. Avaya
2. Nortel
3. NEC
4. Iwatsu
5. Toshiba

Bottom 5,

1. Sprint Protege
2. Nitsuko/Tie
3. Samsung
4. Panasonic
5. Trillian
4.

I think the Nortel product is one of the most bullet proof systems because it is so easy to program and the voicemail integration is seamless. The phones themselves are also nearly indestructible. It can sometimes be a little inflexible, however. Toshiba has a good product in the CTX, with great upgrade potential to PRI and VOIP and good flexibility. I also think Panasonic is a good system for small applications and homes especially because it has built in SLT (analog phone) support. I don't know very much about Avaya, but it seems like an up and coming product. It handles large applications (500+ extensions) well.

Just my humble opinion...

Toner,

Don't let those die-hard ATT/Lucent/Avaya guys here you call their stuff up and coming. They were really the first ones on the block

[This message has been edited by Z-man (edited September 02, 2004).]

Thank you ZMAN.

I agree with you...
"You will get a ton of different opinions, but it really boils down to the service you are providing, your knowledge of the product, and the price to the customer."

but...
If all the above is true...one does not want to look like an amateur by selling a product that needs constant fixing. That is why we are looking for products.

SPFO, I was in the same situation with the comdial dx80. Now, I also offer NEC's DS series of telephone systems. So far it seems like a rock solid system and its actually more affordable than the dx80. I think the best part about now offering NEC is that I seem to close more deals just because of the name.

Why do you all forget about Telrad, They are rock solid also and there VMS is also seamless, I would place it in the top 5 of your list. I relize there are not many of you that have a chance to work on them but if you did you would agree.

Don't you have to sell a jillion dollars worth to get a dealership?
mark

Z-man:

Up here you don't see very much AT&T product, maybe because it's an American company? Or maybe because we're in Nortel's backyard. Either way, the new Avaya stuff seems to be fairly good and it has that distinctive ring, so you notice it on some TV shows etc. That's gotta help the image.
BTW, I'm surprised you put Trillium on the bottom of your list. It's a surprisingly solid system considering the age. Or is there something newer than the Panther that I don't know about?

Phone systems are like computers, garbage in, garbage out.
Any system, even a Lexus, without proper programming to the customer needs and perspective and training and support can be
a dog. We see them all the time, fancy phone system, 24 button display phones ETC. No buttons labled, both vm and phone sys improperly programmed. Customer paid big bucks and using system like a 1A2 key w/ HF intercom.