I am been on the perifery of a raging debate on Linkedin about which is better, a premise phone system, or a hosted solution. For the uninitiated, a premise system involves physical equipment installed in your office. A hosted solution involves phones in your office connected to a remote phone system via the Internet. I will refer to both options in this entry as a “system.”
Not surprisingly, most people participating in the discussion were strong advocates for whichever system they sell. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. After all, if you cannot speak highly of your product, why should you be selling it?
In reality however, most systems available on the market today have very similar major functions. There are differences, but in today’s world, these differences are getting more and more minor. The major difference is economic - a premise system involves a larger initial cash outlay and low recurring costs, and a hosted system has a low initial outlay, and larger and continuing recurring costs. If you do a feature by feature comparison however, you will find more similarities than differences, particularly in the most important areas.
I would suggest however that the single most important component of any phone system is the service and support provided by the vendor. Phone systems are complicated, and mot phone users to not really want to understand the technology; they just want clear and reliable phone calls. The best system on the market when accompanied by poor vendor support will be a miserable experience. On the other hand, a mediocre system with outstanding support will meet your needs well.
If vendor support is truly as important as I think, then I would contend that selecting a system based on features and price first is getting the cart before the horse. The choice of vendor should be at least as important.
Some years ago, I was a phone system customer selecting large systems for a call center and a new corporate office. In the call center, I had the choice between a system from a vendor with an excellent support reputation, and a system with roughly equal functionality from a large, bureaucratic phone company. Despite the fact that the phone company was also a major customer, I selected the vendor with the good reputation, and never regretted the decision. Since I did not want to offend the large customer, I selected them to provide the corporate system, a decision I later regretted.
I would suggest therefore that you begin any search for a phone system by selecting the vendor. Once you select a vendor, pick a system they sell. You will very likely be very pleased in the long run, regardless of what system you end up with.
In a future blog entry, I will offer some tips for selecting the right vendor.
