Why Feature-by-Feature VoIP Licensing is Dead
Posted on Tue, Nov 22, 2011 @ 09:29 AM
Business communications vendors and manufacturers are trying to get new business with an old sales technique - stripping out all of the (mostly needed) licensing in order to present the customer with a very low initial price with great sex appeal that blows every other solution out of the water. The sales person is counting on the buyer being so in love with the price that critical features and functionality are overlooked and it's not until much later that the buyer realizes he doesn' have what he needs - like hunt groups, remote voicemail, call transfer, call hold, call forward, music on hold, etc without paying a SUBSTANTIAL additional annual fee for that appropropriate license. Remember, once you sign the contract, it's too late.
And when you add up all of those licenses - POW! You'll be unhappy, frustrated, feeling like you've been duped and you'll have to write a much bigger check than you were lead to believe!
To put this another way, if you were buying a car and you told the car sales person you were very interested in a low price as well as quality, he'd strip out the stero and IPod system, give you cloth seats and not leather, stick shift, the cheapest inteterior possible, etc. and say - "Look, what a great car!" Once you bought the car, you'd say "wait, there's no radio" and the salesman would respond "You didn't say you wanted a radio - that'll be $550."
Be careful! This is technique is employed by many telecom vendors. Generally, you want to get an apples-to-apples comparison as best you can. Be sure to ask the following questions and any others you can think of:
1. What features am I receiving?
2. Are all of these features covered by a license or are they native to the system's capabilities?
3. If they are covered by a license, how much is each license and for what period of time is the license active?
4. How much does it cost to renew a license? How often do I have to renew? What happens if I don't renew?
5. Provide a laundry list of all features and functionality that requires a license and the amount of that license?
6. Do the servers require a license and, if so, how much and for how long?
7. Are the servers proprietary (i.e., they only play friendly with this system and it's family of companents)? (RED FLAG IF YES)
8. Do the IP phones require a license and, if so, how much and for how long? Is this in addition to the price of the IP phone itself? How much is the IP phone by itself? How much is the IP phone will all of the licensing and installation?
9. Are the IP phones themselves proprietary? That is, will they work with this IP system (or its family of components) only but not with devices made by other manufacturers? (RED FLAG IF YES)
10. How much bandwidth do these IP phones require? What is the size (kbps) of an average voice call on an IP phone on this system?
11. If I want to add one seat (one person with a phone and internet with avaerage capabilities) and integrate that seat into my system, how much does it COST (ALL IN) FOR THAT ONE PERSON? You need to know this so you can plan for the future growth of the company.
12. Will I still require two sets of cabling to each work station, two switches, and two separate voice and data connections?
Be SURE to get all of this IN WRITING or you may be end up paying for things like a second line per phone (each second line has a $35/month/year license fee), adding a $185/year 4-person hunt group when you are only bringing on one new employee, and having to pay extra for remote call forwardring, etc, etc, etc.
Wherever you are located in the United States, contact Atris for a free 60-minute no pressure evaluation of your current communications system. We'd be pleased to talk to you for up to one hour at no charge about possible communications solutions for your business even if the best choice for you is not Atris. Get the process started - click here and send us a quick message by completing the short form to the right on our Contact Us page.
Thanks - we look forward to hearing from you!