If you have any form of business telephone system, then sooner or later you’ll have a problem – unless you’re exceptionally lucky! That’s why a telephone systems maintenance contract may be very important to the continuity of your business.
Of course, today’s technology is generally reliable and it may also have a high degree of what’s called fault tolerance. In other words, a single problem shouldn’t cause your entire system to collapse and there should be a degree of built-in backup.
Even so, your business telecoms are likely to be core to your ability to conduct your business. Lose them and in some cases you may be physically unable to continue your professional activities.
Having a telephone systems maintenance agreement could help you avoid such a catastrophe. It may offer three forms of protection:
- preventative inspection and maintenance;
- the attendance of qualified engineers on your site if you encounter a problem;
- fallback or contingency emergency cover.
Preventative inspection is self-explanatory and may be important – particularly if you have an old and perhaps obsolete system. It may be serving your needs perfectly adequately but if it goes wrong, it could be out-of-warranty and the original provider may no longer support it.
Having engineers get to you quickly if you lose your system may be of paramount importance. These sorts of contracts are typically governed by what’s called an SLA (service level agreement), which provides you with specified target levels for the service. This may cover things such as:
- the average time for an engineer to get to your premises;
- target resolution times (to get your system back up and running);
- periods of cover such as 24/7 or during normal office hours only, depending on your needs etc.
Fallback provision, when provided as part of telephone systems maintenance contracts, is sometimes called contingency cover or it may also be included as part of a telephone disaster recovery plan.
This type of cover means that in the, hopefully unlikely, event that your telephone systems are unavailable for an extended period through fault or a disaster that affects your office, you can quickly switch to a backup system until your own is repaired and restored.
In the case of recently purchased and modern business telecoms systems, your provider may offer a period of reactive support and maintenance as part of the purchase.
If this has expired, there are providers of such contract services.
Telephone systems and their maintenance is an area that it’s perhaps tempting to economise on. This may be particularly true if you’ve had a long trouble-free period using your existing business telephone systems.
If so, some caution may be advisable. If your system fails, it is likely to do so without being thoughtful enough to provide you with a warning period! Thinking about a telephone systems maintenance contract in advance of such a crisis just might save you some stress and also possibly your business.
