On Phone Vendor Selection

Phone vendor selection has become a wide open race due to VoIP. You can now literally download a VoIP phone switch from the Internet. Oh, and for free. Gosh, that sounds great but be aware your service relationship is with a very busy person, you. 

Obviously we are not at the point where a freeware VoIP phone switch is main stream, but we are at the point where the number of phone system vendors is no longer limited to a dozen territory controlled resellers of the same ol' big iron stuff that once you buy into you are stuck with their proprietary world of expensive upgrades and so-so service.

The big PBX of old has been replaced with a PC. This means that the barrier to entry for a new VoIP vendor is very low. Competition is immense so prices are low, hurray! Even the huge companies have had to drop prices. Even small companies don't have to agonize over the years of amortization of their PXB anymore.

Now for the down side. How do you choose when there are so many competitors and you have never heard of any of them? At least in the old days you could buy from one of the monster vendors and be confident you were not going to get smirked at in the Monday morning meeting. "Jim's Computers and Phone Systems," does not bring with it the same comfort that you get from buying AT&T or IBM. Ah but our buddy Jim might be just what you need.

Forget technology, forget compatibility.  Standard are everywhere and from the big boys to the little boys there is a great call to march in a straight line. If you buy a VoIP product these days, you will hear terms like SIP, RTP, and H.323. Machines work together so much better than they ever did before you are in good shape with a VoIP PBX.

So, now to decide you must go back to the basics. Remember, the phone system along with the internet, are your connections to the world. Those connections are the most important technology in your office and most often they are together in one VoIP box. Don't pick the box, pick the vendor.

Get referrals from other businesses in your area. If you have no friends in business at all, try the Better Business Bureau. Find a company that others have had good luck with. And by good luck I mean trouble with their phone systems with quick response and resolution. A reference for a VoIP phone vendor that installed a system and was never needed again is a useless referral.

Once you have your vendor in your sights have them propose a system for you. Ask them to add you to their customer list prior to purchase. Then research the proposal on the net. Make sure people are speaking well of the unit they are offering. Make sure the pricing is within 20% of what other people are paying. Do not quibble over a small variance in price. Pay it like you pay your fire insurance. Gladly and with confidence you are protected.

Now, at 2 am contact them. Tell them you have an outage. If you can contact someone, they know who you are and are ready to serve you; these are probably the lifelong voip phone buddies you are looking for. If not, move on. Repeat until success. Oh and always pay a good phone vendor on time. They are basically your business fire department.

Oh, if you need IVR or voice technology to work with your new VoIP PBX, you should contact us. We have the fireman hats and everything.

On Speech Recognition via the Telephone

In computer technology there is always a bottleneck.  For years the speech recognition limitation was machine power.  Either memory was too expense, the CPU was not fast enough, or disk drivers were too slow.  These issues are behind us.  Now it is the actual phone lines.

Our current limitation is the design of the phone network and we are quickly removing that obstacle.

Imagine you are speaking to someone face to face and have to spell out a complex name, like a chemical formula or a person's name from another country.  Not to hard really, the person can ask you to slow down if needed, or you may even see physical cues that they are not understanding and then make adjustments.

Now try the same thing over the phone.  You don't even have to try it, you know how frustrating it is to get an idea across over the phone lines.  If you have done it you are already cringing.

One of the primary reasons for this difference is the amount of bandwidth set aside for a single conversation over the phone.  It is very limited.  The good news is VoIP is going to resolve this issue.  Think of it as HiDef for the phone network.  Once this is in place, speech recognition technology is really going become a daily experience.

Projects

Primarily we come in to build complete complex systems including database design, reporting, IVR, web and integration to other existing call center systems.