Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...
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We have a building equipped with an old Avaya Partner ACS system and voicemail module 509. So the phones are multi-line RJ-11 systems.
The main feature the boss is clamoring for is to have multiple selectable voicemail greetings we can switch between.
Based on my research so far, there really isn't much left in the market of RJ-11 phone systems, everything has gone VOIP to some degree.
And of course they don't want to spend any money or have to replace all our phones etc etc. I also don't want to be reliant on our local cable company because downtime is not uncommon here.
Our local telco is also about to raise prices on long distance fairly significantly and since they are an ecommerce, they do make a lot of outgoing calls to customers long distance. It amounts to hundreds of dollars a month.
One of the options we talked about is to get an extra cell phone added to their Verizon plan and use the cell phone for outgoing long distance calls. The problem is being locked in to the plan, into a phone number we'll want to keep around forever, and inconvenience of sharing one phone around the office to make calls out on, etc.
Another option is to get some kind of internet phone account that can be used with headsets or something, and make calls over the internet at their employee workstations.
Regarding the voicemail issue, I haven't the foggiest idea how to get this feature while keeping all our current hardware.
All that said, I have two main goals with one main requirement:
- Multiple selectable voicemail messages the company can choose between (day message, night message, holiday message, etc etc)
- Reduce our long distance costs.
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Ideas?
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
The main feature the boss is clamoring for is to have multiple selectable voicemail greetings we can switch between.
This is the second time in 24 hours that I have read this type of request. Just WTF.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
- Multiple selectable voicemail messages the company can choose between (day message, night message, holiday message, etc etc)
Wait, this is not a voicemail thing. This is an announcement thing.
You set the IVR message or announcement message as needed. you don't set the voicemail message itself.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
- Reduce our long distance costs.
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
You don't reduce costs by staying on POTS. That is not possible. That is where the cost comes from.
You need to look at new internet service that is reliable. Even if it costs triple what you pay now, you will likely come in cheaper once you move off of POTS.
As for the phones, well if it is all RJ11 digital Avaya phones, you are screwed. You cannot reuse any of that. You can buy new phones and put them in-line with your desktops to avoid wiring costs, but that there is no reuse of phones.
- Reduce our long distance costs.
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Put together a solid plan showing cost savings switching to VOIP and ditching the POTS lines, and show how quick the ROI is. If you're paying anything close to what we were paying for our POTS lines, your ROI should be less than 1 year with all new hardware. It'll be hard for them to not go with the new system.
EDIT: the reply to Jared was coming in form of elaborating a little on your comment about putting phones in line. If he wasn't aware of that option, you can get phones with a passthrough switch port so you plug your existing ethernet connection to the phone then plug the workstation into the switch port on the phone. No need to rewire anything so long as every user already has a computer...
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Actually, it's the opposite. They have beer tastes on a champagne budget. POTS, Avaya... they are flaunting how much money they can throw around while having a crap system with no features. It's likely insane how much money they are burning to show off how much they can burn.
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@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Actually, it's the opposite. They have beer tastes on a champagne budget. POTS, Avaya... they are flaunting how much money they can throw around while having a crap system with no features. It's likely insane how much money they are burning to show off how much they can burn.
This was definitely the case when they bought the system 20 years ago.. Not sure it applies anymore.
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@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Actually, it's the opposite. They have beer tastes on a champagne budget. POTS, Avaya... they are flaunting how much money they can throw around while having a crap system with no features. It's likely insane how much money they are burning to show off how much they can burn.
This was definitely the case when they bought the system 20 years ago.. Not sure it applies anymore.
Yep reality has set in, and a new phone system in the six figure range just isn't appealing.
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@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Actually, it's the opposite. They have beer tastes on a champagne budget. POTS, Avaya... they are flaunting how much money they can throw around while having a crap system with no features. It's likely insane how much money they are burning to show off how much they can burn.
This was definitely the case when they bought the system 20 years ago.. Not sure it applies anymore.
Yep reality has set in, and a new phone system in the six figure range just isn't appealing.
Enterprise phone systems are free today. Can you spend a lot? Of course. Do you need to? Nope, free is fine. And better than where they are.
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Multiple IVR's could be setup in FreePBX (or really any PBX) to do just this. But using the phones, why?
Get new cheap yealinks if you don't want anything fancy.
Under $50 per phone. Yealink SIP T19P-e2
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@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Requirement: Champagne taste on a beer budget. Unreliable internet access, Avaya RJ-11 phones. Rental building, we can't necessarily redo their entire phone infrastructure in any permanent way.
Actually, it's the opposite. They have beer tastes on a champagne budget. POTS, Avaya... they are flaunting how much money they can throw around while having a crap system with no features. It's likely insane how much money they are burning to show off how much they can burn.
This was definitely the case when they bought the system 20 years ago.. Not sure it applies anymore.
Yep reality has set in, and a new phone system in the six figure range just isn't appealing.
Enterprise phone systems are free today. Can you spend a lot? Of course. Do you need to? Nope, free is fine. And better than where they are.
I was specifically referring to the Crexendos of the world.
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@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Multiple IVR's could be setup in FreePBX (or really any PBX) to do just this. But using the phones, why?
Get new cheap yealinks if you don't want anything fancy.
Under $50 per phone. Yealink SIP T19P-e2
Yeah, the alternatives get really cheap, really fast. Compared to crappy old phones, these are still better. And the cost savings over the POTS LD adds up really quickly.
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$34.25 for those phones.
That's insanely cheap for a new phone.
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Of course the assumption that there is CAT 5 or better everywhere is something else some might be making.
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@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Of course the assumption that there is CAT 5 or better everywhere is something else some might be making.
Relatively it's a safe assumption. Where there is a phone, there is a computer.
It could be all wireless I suppose. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dashrender said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
Of course the assumption that there is CAT 5 or better everywhere is something else some might be making.
Relatively it's a safe assumption. Where there is a phone, there is a computer.
It could be all wireless I suppose. . .
I have about 50 phones that don't have computers. We are mostly WiFi here.
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@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
$34.25 for those phones.
That's insanely cheap for a new phone.
Damn
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@scottalanmiller said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
@dustinb3403 said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
$34.25 for those phones.
That's insanely cheap for a new phone.
Damn
Right?
If anyone complains about phone prices for their office I wouldn't have anything to offer them. How much more cheap could you get?
That's less than a dinner for 1 at most restaurants.
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Handset costs are not relevant here. His problem is bad internet service.
Bad internet service = no SIP
But as I said, the cost of POTS versus SIP needs calculated. Once you know that, then you can determine how expensive you can afford to go on your internet costs to get good service and still reduce your monthly spend.
Then you can look at handset options and determine a cost for that.
And then you can calculate and RoI for the project.
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@guyinpv said in Small office phone setup, looking for improvements...:
since they are an ecommerce, they do make a lot of outgoing calls to customers long distance.
wait, what? You're eCommerce business and your internet isn't reliable and you don't have a second connection? That doesn't seem to fit.
