Archive for June, 2010

 

Sleeping easily with phone maintenance agreements

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Phone maintenance agreements serve two purposes that may help you sleep just a little more easily at night:

  • to provide a service that maintains your business phone systems thereby hopefully helping to avoid troubles;
  • to provide a service that will help respond to and resolve technical problems in your system, should they arise.

Older systems

Some older systems may be what can best be described as idiosyncratic.

That may mean that they’re fragile and prone to failure. That may be catastrophic for your business so if it happens, you’ll typically want it fixed – and fast.

It may be possible to take out a phone maintenance agreement that has what’s called a Service Level Agreement (SLA). That would define how quickly the provider of maintenance services would respond to your call in an emergency.

That may be something that is of far more use to you than frantically trying to ring around to all and sundry in the event you’ve hit a problem!

Of course, some older and obsolete systems may be virtually un-maintainable and you may find it far more cost-effective to replace them.

Preventative maintenance

Even modern systems from providers such as Siemens business telephone systems benefit from periodic maintenance.

Some of that may be entirely routine, such as checking call logs and clearing them down, while other such activities might be of a more technical nature.

If you are installing a new business telephone system, you’ll typically find that an initial period of maintenance and fault-resolution will be included under the warranty.

Once this expires, taking out a maintenance agreement will ensure that you continue to have on-tap expertise and aid in keeping your system in tip-top running condition.

Building up your own skills

Some maintenance tasks are perfectly capable of being carried out in-house providing you’ve had a little training.

Being able to do so may make you a little less reliant on others and reduce some aspects of your maintenance costs.

A reputable maintenance and support company such as ourselves will be willing to help and advise you on how you can build up your own skills.

Prevention

As a general rule, prevention is usually better than cure.

This applies just as much to business phone systems as to human health. Having a phone maintenance contract in place may help you achieve more prevention and a lot less trauma! We offer different levels of telephone maintenance as well as the ability to tailor make your own. This means that you can have the solution that best fits your needs and your budget. Why not get in touch for a no-obligation chat now to see how we can help?

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Need more business phone lines?

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Business phone lines are the arteries that keep your business going.

They’re your way of communicating with the outside world and few, if any, businesses can survive if access to communications is unreliable or limited.

Queues

If you’ve ever been in the position of needing to make a call but have been constantly unable to get an outside line, then you’ll know how frustrating and possibly business damaging that can be.

Equally, clients that keep trying to call you only to receive an engaged signal in response are not likely to keep trying indefinitely. They’ll simply call someone that is capable of taking their calls.

Data

The days when business phone lines carried only voice communications are now almost entirely gone.

If the phone line is the artery of a business then data is its blood.

Many businesses now send large amounts of data up and down their phone lines to and from the internet or other information systems

If your systems and phone lines aren’t capable of supporting that, you may be facing trouble in the not too distant future.

Integration is key

In fact, important as phone lines are, they need to be seen in association with your entire business telephony infrastructure.

That includes lines, any forms of routers you have installed, PCs and your business telephone system.

Thinking about any component of this in isolation may be dangerous. Having one component that is state-of-the-art and fully fit for purpose may not yield you much benefit if other components are incompatible or outmoded.

Into this integration view should also go telephone systems maintenance. Getting the best out of your integrated systems typically involves regular expert maintenance.

Holding you back

Having outmoded business phone and data systems may severely hold back your business from the opportunities offered by the modern world’s technology explosion.

That’s probably not a position you’ll want to occupy, particularly given the relatively modest costs of some very powerful entry-level systems.

So, if you’re thinking about expanding your business telecoms support or simply trying to fix some existing problems, contacting a supplier such as ourselves that has appropriate business telephony experience may be a good idea.

We will be able to help you identify what’s required and at a price that fits your budget. It may be a case of additional business phone lines – but there may be other opportunities as well!

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Customer Appreciation

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Carol Long & Lisa Settle

A recent statistic check told us that 60% of our customers have been with us for over 5 years. Many of you play a regular part in our working week and we enjoy chatting to you and hearing how your businesses are developing. Of course nothing pleases us more than taking the hassle out of your day by solving your telecoms queries.

We are sincerely grateful to all our customers but one particular organisation, CLEAN ROOM CONSTRUCTION LTD has certainly proved their loyalty to Telcare. They have been with us for nearly 14 years now and are our longest serving client.

So Lisa Settle and John Darby went to visit them recently to say thank you. Lisa presented CRC’s Carol Long with our Customer Appreciation Certificate together with a case of Waitrose wine.

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Telephone systems installation – the approach

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Telephone systems installation typically comprises several steps:

  • the evaluation of options and the eventual selection of one of them;
  • the physical installation in an office or other premises;
  • the exploitation of the system’s potential to deliver the maximum business benefit.

The physical installation is typically the easiest of the three to accomplish.

Selection

Selecting a solution that’s suitable for a small business is critical to an eventual successful utilisation.

Few businesses wish to start off with massive business telephony systems that are simply too large and complex for their needs. That’s why it may be important to select a quality system that is capable of growing easily and cost-effectively as your needs change over time.

So, selecting solutions from companies such as Siemens business telephone systems may pay dividends.

Physical installation

Telephone systems installation isn’t just a question of running a few cables around ducts and placing handsets on desks – though those things are, of course, important.

It’s also a question of ensuring that the selected system is connected to the outside world correctly and that any added features such as internal transfers and voice mail, are all working satisfactorily.

This has to be done quickly and effectively – and needs to ensure that any cutover from existing telephone systems to the new one is entirely seamless.

System exploitation

Perhaps the single most important aspect of telephone systems installation is one that’s commonly overlooked.

Put simply – it’s how to get the best out of your new business telephony system and integrate it into your business’s operations.

This may not be quite as easy as it sounds because sometimes there is a tendency not to really take the trouble to learn the new system’s capabilities and then use them to drive change through your business.

It’s there that expertise may be required to provide advice and guidance in terms of how to really make your new system fly.

Not just boxes

Modern office telephone systems can be so much more than just a collection of handsets on desks.

They have the capability to transform the way you do business and to generate real success – if used properly!

That’s why business telephones installation is more than just putting in boxes. It’s about finding a total solution that includes technology but also expertise.

Changing your technology is relatively easy. Changing your operational business culture to get the best out of it is slightly harder – and help is often required.

The final selection

In the end, looking for technology that provides a suitable solution is very important but so is looking for total installation support.

Effective telephone systems installation should always be seen as a mixture of expertise, culture and technology. Finding a supplier that can provide that mixture is critically important – and that is where we can help.

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Business Link to Judge

Friday, June 11th, 2010

We are delighted to confirm that Business Link will be assisting us with the judging of our free system campaign. Debbie Hough has been our advisor for some years now and has given us valuable support with the improvement and growth of our business. Debbie was keen to learn about our free system campaign and was pleased to be included when we invited her to be our independent judge. If you are looking for a new system why not apply for a free one? There really is nothing to lose. Tell us about your company and how you can benefit from the offer – simple!

If you have not heard or entered our competition yet then you can find out more here.

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Small business telephones – a reality check

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

The phrase small business telephones may mean different things to different people.

Some people may see it as meaning:

  • cheap business telephony systems;
  • a limited number of handsets;
  • a system that services only one geographic location;
  • only having a small-sized central box.

Some cynics may also say that the phrase describes:

  • systems that don’t offer a lot of functionality / power;
  • telephone services that aren’t very important;
  • telephony that doesn’t work reliably.

The reality is, all these descriptions are inadequate.

Solutions for your business

Companies such as Siemens business telephone systems produce highly sophisticated and very powerful telephony solutions capable of meeting the needs of businesses ranging from sole traders right up to larger businesses.

Modern telephone systems of that type are capable of starting out very small indeed and then growing as requirements change.

This illustrates the key characteristic of small business telephones – that they are capable of supporting a small business’s requirements.

Size doesn’t matter

Whether you have a system that consists of only two handsets or one that contains a hundred, what you want is access to the power of modern business telephony to help your business function and grow.

Having a very large system that’s obsolete won’t do much to help you achieve that.

Equally, purchasing a system that’s cheap may not seem such a good deal further downstream if it is incapable of expanding as you expand.

For all these reasons, it is perhaps better to think of small business telephones in terms of what capabilities they are going to give you, now or in future, rather than whether they are big or small.

Cost-effective

Inevitably, cost is a factor in many business telephony selections. That’s as it should be.

Yet focusing exclusively on cost may end up creating a situation where a sub-optimal solution is selected.

That’s because quality is typically also very important.

Your business telecoms won’t be of much use to you if they’re broken down and not working – should that happen then suddenly the perhaps relatively small amounts saved by selecting a cheap solution suddenly won’t seem so critical anymore.

Balance is key

Getting a healthy balance between function, future capability and cost, isn’t always easy.

That’s why professional advice may be required, using sources of information that have extensive experience in the provision of office telephone systems.

Today’s small business telephones offer huge potential to help drive forward your business towards further success. Knowing how to exploit that potential is important – certainly far more so than trying to decide what is or is not a small system.

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Looking for Kent telephone systems

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

If you’re a business in Kent then you may be pleased to learn that we supply affordable and flexible Kent telephone systems.

Of course, affordability is a key factor when choosing your office telephone system, but you may wonder why is flexibility so important?

Small businesses may grow

Right now you may regard your business as small, perhaps even homely.

However, things change. If you’re ambitious, you may have plans to grow your business. Even if you’re not, you may find that it will grow organically – it’s called success!

Business telephone systems to grow with you

It’s therefore important that any business telecoms system you have has the capability to grow with you.

What you typically won’t want is a system that:

  • can’t be upgraded and grown as you grow;
  • can be expanded – but only at huge expense;
  • can’t be easily maintained;
  • becomes obsolete overnight.

The use of expertise

Buying a small business telephone system is typically easy – you really only have to sign a cheque.

However, selecting a suitable one for your business is something different again.

Understanding what systems are available and how they may be able to meet your business requirements, both current and future, requires some experience.

That’s why we pride ourselves in providing Kent telephone systems that are fit for purpose, using the reliability and sophistication of systems from suppliers such as Siemens.

Your system can expand as you expand and can be typically upgraded easily by adding handsets or other technical features, as your business requires them.

Not forgetting maintenance

Technology, much like a car, requires maintenance – particularly if it has been in place for some time.

You can, of course, ignore this if you wish but it may be at your peril!

There’s little more useless than a phone system that’s broken down and regular maintenance may help prevent that. If it does go wrong, equally a good maintenance and support contract will help get someone to you quickly that understands the technology and can hopefully fix it fast. And we can help with this too.

A rounded service

Whether you’re looking for new Kent telephone systems, to expand the one you have or simply to reduce the risk to your business operation by adopting a maintenance contract, we are here to help.

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Free System Campaign

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Our free system campaign has begun! The team here at Telcare are looking forward to helping one lucky business improve their communications by providing a telephone system, installation and training together with a year’s support ALL FREE OF CHARGE!

The ideal business will be a small company (located in London or the South East) wishing to grow and one who would otherwise not yet be in a position to fund installation of this type of equipment. If you fall into this category and would like to take advantage of the benefits a telephone system would bring, not to mention the amazing saving in this respect then please go to www.telcare.co.uk/golden-give-away

This is what a recent customer said about our services

“Our Telcare system is so versatile; it does everything we wanted it to do! Best of all though is that Telcare are able to make changes remotely and are very good at finding the best solution for our ever changing requirements.”
Suzannah Chapman at Stonelees Golf Centre.

If you are wondering what the catch is – there isn’t one! Telcare take pride in supporting their customers as well as being fascinated by the many different sectors we have been involved in.

By helping a company in this way, we hope to gain a very happy customer that will want to continue with our services and also have a great story for our website! We are just putting some fun into our marketing. There really is nothing to lose by contacting us – if you have any queries please feel free to email me lisa.settle@telcare.co.uk

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