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Have you said NO to a customer?

Monday, May 14th, 2012

I stumbled upon Geoffrey James’s article quite by chance; it made me smile so thought I’d share some of it…

Don’t sell to jerks

Of course, conventional wisdom says that you should sell to whoever is willing to pay. After all, times are hard and sales are hard to come by. If the customer thinks it’s OK to treat you like crap, well, the customer is always right … right?
Wrong.
If you truly believe in your product and its value to the customer, selling to jerks gradually but inexorably leaches away your enthusiasm. When you help somebody you despise to become more successful, you know, in your heart, that you are making the world into a worse place.
That’s especially true when selling to a jerk sets you up for a long-term relationship. Now that jerk is part of your life–is part of who you’ll become over time. You’re now “partnering” with somebody who you can’t stand. It’s like a lousy marriage, bad for both of you.
Best case, you’ll have to tolerate the ongoing presence of the jerk, with all his or her obnoxious behaviors. Worst case, the jerk will become a constant headache, consuming a disproportionate amount of your energy and your company’s resources.
Selling to jerks is also a dead end when it comes to growing sales. The lifeblood of every small company is referrals–it’s the easiest kind of sales lead to close. Referrals come from customers who are happy (with your product and service) and generous enough to help out.
A jerk isn’t going to do that. In fact, jerks, if asked, would probably bad-mouth you, even if you’ve gone the proverbial extra mile. Why?
Because they’re jerks.
So, yeah, you might be turning down a sale by refusing to sell to a jerk. But long term, you’ll end up building a customer base who can be trusted, who will behave in a reasonable manner, and who will help you develop future sales.
And you’ll sleep better at night, too, knowing you’re not beholden (or hostage) to somebody you can’t stand.
Written by Geoffrey James For more information please go to www.geoffreyjames.com

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Supporting Siemens telephone systems

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

A byword for quality, telephone systems from Siemens may help your business to grow and prosper. Yet there are a few points that you may wish to bear in mind if you are to maximise the benefits obtainable:

  • any telephone system, however well-made and state-of-the-art it is, may need routine and regular maintenance – just as is the case with a motor vehicle;
  • ignoring this maintenance may increase the frequency of problems and outages – things that may cause you huge difficulties in terms of business continuity;
  • arranging for emergency problem resolution is typically less cost-effective than preventing problems arising in the first place;
  • through services, such as ours, helpdesk and telephone systems maintenance contracts just might help you avoid operational problems – and that must be a sensible objective for any small business;
  • of course, however well your system is maintained, there is always still the inevitable risk of problems arising;
  • when they do, it may be safe to predict that your first requirement will be for an urgent contact point in the shape of a helpdesk with access to expertise;
  • the first stage in problem resolution is usually diagnosis and you may be surprised at how frequently that can be conducted speedily and efficiently over the phone;
  • in some situations, it may also be possible to resolve the problem through telephone contact, thereby avoiding the need for on-site visits;
  • if on-site attendance is required, you may also wish to have the peace of mind of having a service level agreement (often known as an SLA) in place that will document average service times in terms of getting an engineer to your premises;
  • typically, it is more cost-effective and efficient to have a contract and agreement in place rather than simply to end up frantically ringing around trying to arrange ad hoc support in the event of a crisis;
  • such an arrangement may also ensure that your support company and their helpdesk, fully understand your system in advance of any particular issues arising;
  • if that is not the case, precious time may be lost while your support staff try to learn the intricacies of your individual system before they can begin to attempt to diagnose the origin of the problem, let alone remedy it;
  • we would always be only too happy to discuss with you, the nature of support and maintenance services for Siemens telephone systems available from us.

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Non-geographical numbers and how your business may benefit

Friday, April 20th, 2012

There was a time when a business relocation meant not only all of the traditional logistical challenges involved in getting people, equipment and furniture from A to B but also the need to potentially change your telephone numbers.

In fact, at one time even moving a relatively short distance within the same major city may have resulted in the obligatory need to change your telephone number, with all the implications of that for things such as stationery, business cards, advertising and so on.

If your move were over a significant distance, your entire telephone number including dialling prefixes would also have needed to change.  In fact, today that may still be the case unless you choose non-geographical telephone numbers.

Why retain your existing numbers?

In the past, the effort associated with ordering and printing stationery carrying a new telephone number, may have been a significant cost and logistical inhibitor.

It may be fair to say that today that remains an issue, although perhaps proportionally not as significant as it may once have been.

What may be far more serious today are things such as:

  • you may have worked hard to get your phone number to be the first number of instinctive choice for your clients.  Essentially, it may be seen as part of your brand and changing it may undermine much of what you have previously achieved in these respects;
  • existing advertising may have an intended lengthy shelf life but that may be totally undermined if it cannot be left in place due to the fact that it is now carrying a number that is no longer correct;
  • you may have relationships with customers and suppliers who interface directly and possibly even automatically with your systems through dial-up services – they may all need to be notified and their systems changed if you intend to change your number.

Are there options?

Assuming that some of the above effects are unpalatable and ‘do nothing’ is therefore not a serious contender, you may be faced with one of two choices:

  • re-route your calls from your original number to your new geographical based number, wherever that may be;
  • adopt non-geographical numbers as your strategic solution.

The former option may be perfectly viable and even desirable, particularly in situations where you may wish to maintain a token physical or marketing presence in your original location.

The second possibility may offer the attraction of meaning that you are free to locate your business wherever you wish and however often you may need to move, your number stays the same and goes with you. It might be particularly appealing to newer businesses that have no legacy numbers to deal with.

So, no need to change stationery, issue number change notifications to customers or scrap existing advertising in a hurry, should you need to relocate your business.

These options may be something worth considering further and we’d be only too happy to discuss them with you.

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Cold calling on the telephone: what can you do about it?

Friday, April 6th, 2012

There are some types of unsolicited telephone call, typically described collectively as cold calling, which may prove to be a serious nuisance for some businesses and individuals.

If you have never experienced these calls, you may be relatively fortunate.

A Parliamentary Report issued in August 2011 reported that in 2009, OFCOM received around 6,600 complaints about silent and abandoned calls* – both examples of this genre of cold calling. OFCOM also estimated that over 22% of the UK population experienced silent calls on their landline in the period February-August 2011.

If these are an occasional occurrence, you may be able to shrug them off as a relatively infrequent irritation, however, in some situations they may become a more noticeable nuisance and even, at times, potentially distressing and disruptive.

What are they?

Advertisers have always sought to find new ways of bringing their products and services to our attention.

There may be nothing fundamentally wrong with yet there are some fundamental principles of human psychology that some advertisers may overlook.

Those relate to the fact that many people may have no major objection to impersonal passive advertising such as in the newspapers or on the TV. However, they may feel uncomfortable and the victim of unwanted intrusion, if approached on the street by salespeople or through door-to-door sales techniques.

Some people believe that cold calling is the telephone system equivalent of those intrusive sales techniques.

In practice, cold calling may include:

  • unsolicited sales telephone calls to your business or private numbers;
  • silent calls / abandoned calls – having answered a call, you are then automatically disconnected or you hear nothing at the other end (these may typically be associated with automated dialling systems used by some sales organisations);
  • automated dialling calls – aimed at fax machines, resulting in the transmission of unwanted sales materials etc.

What are the effects?

Such calls may prove to be a serious annoyance as a matter of principle or they may also cause disruption to your time management.  In some cases, they may tie up your telephone or fax lines at critical times.

To some extent, the net effect will depend on both your tolerance levels and the frequency/duration of such calls.

Your options

The link to a UK Parliament paper below provides an excellent overview or the options available to you in some detail.

As a first step, you may wish to register (free of charge) with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service).

By law, organisations making telephone marketing calls, must check with the TPS before dialling a number in order to see whether or not the owner of the number has registered that they do not wish to be called for sales purposes.

If your number is so listed on the TPS, it should stop a significant percentage of the calls reaching you (estimated at 85%*).

A second sound idea may be to ensure that your personal or business telephone system is equipped to display the calling number in order to enable you to choose whether or not to answer it.

Under current legislation* automated calling systems must display a number capable of accepting a return call, though this may be difficult to enforce in the case of calls originating from outside the UK.

Thirdly, if a problem appears to be persistent and you are able to identify the source, you may be able to make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office*.

Finally, remember that your telephone services provider may be able to facilitate the tracking of persistent nuisance calls in order to trace, block and possibly pursue further action against the perpetrators.

*Source:

UK Parliament – www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06033.pdf

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Small business telephone systems cost – colleges and schools

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

Although colleges and schools may be interested in new small business telephone systems, cost may sometimes be a factor that causes concern up-front.

Education – the background economic reality

Few sectors are under such economic pressures as that of education.

This leads to an understandable focus on cost and sometimes the tendency to put off making a decision on a new business telephone system, as long as is possible.

This occasionally masks some unpleasant cost-related realities about the ongoing use of obsolete systems:

  • their cost of ownership (running costs) may be soaring away – particularly in situations where you are frequently needing to call out engineers;
  • the risk of a fundamental and perhaps irreversible total systems failure, may increase on a day by day basis and that may lead to a corresponding decline in the robustness of your own establishment’s disaster recovery or continuity plans;
  • your professional reputation may be suffering, both with third parties (parents, investors, education boards etc) and your own colleagues and possibly pupils.

The longer you put off the decision, the worse these effects may prove to be.

Small business telephone systems – cost and balance

Contrary to some expectations, a new small business telephony system does not have to be an expensive, flagship-type project. Theoretically, it might comprise as little as two connected handsets!

What is typically important with any new office telephones system is not, in itself, the sophistication of the technology that it offers but rather its suitability for your individual requirements

In the case of some schools and colleges, those requirements may be relatively complicated. They may, for example, include things such as providing what is called a backbone network, one that may carry various forms of data traffic, including telephony, around the establishment.

In other situations, the requirements may be far more basic, involving only effectively being able to make internal calls from extension to extension and providing the capability to make external calls also.

Of course, whatever your requirements are today, they may change tomorrow and it is imperative that any solution has the capability of being easily and cost-effectively expanded should the need arise.

A range of options

We would welcome the opportunity to work alongside you, so as to help you understand what the new generation of office telephones system may be able to do for you and even more importantly, what you need from technology in order to support the way you manage your own day-to-day operations.

The outcome of this requirement analysis may not be a single proposition but in fact a spectrum containing a number of options that may vary in several respects both in terms of the facilities they will provide and of course, cost.

In terms of small business telephone systems, cost is something that is critically important but so is the ongoing management and development of your own operations. It may pay to think of the two things together at all times.

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What is the best business telephone system?

Monday, March 12th, 2012

If you are planning to spend money on a new office phone system, a number of questions may spring to mind including that of, what is the best business telephone system?

Here are some other questions we have come across during the process of advising our clients on how to take advantage of the latest advances in business telephony systems.

What is the best business telephone system?

Although this is an understandable question when contemplating a significant investment, it is also question that is impossible to answer in abstract.

The best office telephones system for one type of business, such as a small manufacturing company, may not be the same as the best system for a veterinary practice or a college etc.

It is typically necessary to look closely at the characteristics of your business and to perform an analysis of requirements, prior to reaching even a provisional conclusion.

Doesn’t a higher price always buy you a better system?

Not necessarily, no – at least not in terms of optimum solutions for your situation.

Of course, there may be no dispute that purchasing solutions from quality providers, such as Siemens business telephones, may offer a range of advantages including resilience and high-quality systems etc.

Even so, the emphasis should be on finding and purchasing a suitable and cost-effective solution rather than one which is considered to be either cheap or expensive, as such labels may do nothing to indicate to you whether the solution is fit for purpose in your context.

For example, you may pay extra for a system that is capable of supporting video conferencing but if it is not something you have any need for at the moment, you may be paying for redundant functionality.

How do I know that a system purchased today will meet my needs of tomorrow?

A fully frank response to the question is, you don’t.

Few areas of technology are moving at the same pace as communications technology and it is impossible to say what the technology may be like in five, ten or fifteen years time.

Strangely, to answer the question, it is necessary to look to the past.

Technology has changed massively over the last decade or two and the lesson to be learnt from this is not that change must be predicted but that it is necessary to look for systems that are built on technology architectures that mean that they will be better positioned to adapt to change as it arrives.

Once again, this tends to highlight the importance of purchasing solutions from major established providers who have a track record in the past of adapting to change and accommodating it on existing technological platforms where possible.

That is why companies such as Siemens are often mentioned in the context of the best business telephone system – as providers of reassurance and continuity and not just here today systems.

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Good Customers

Monday, March 5th, 2012


An enormous amount of time is given to focusing on our customers. We spend hours on polishing our service, we are constantly looking for ways to improve and we are grateful for their custom and rightly so, because without them we wouldn’t be in business.

However, whilst we are caught up in the busy life of serving our clients, I wonder how often we consider how we are performing as a customer? We are all someone’s customer. Mostly we happily receive the service our suppliers offer and don’t comment until there’s a hitch in normal proceedings.

Recently I referred to a customer as one of our ‘favourite’ customers. Why are they our favourite customer? Of course there is the obvious answer, they give us business, but then there is so much more to it than that.
A good customer has been open to forming a relationship with us, they provide us with precious feedback, they respect the need for our terms and procedures and they recognise the value of our offerings, they sometimes even refer us.

It got me wondering, how do we rate as customers, what would our suppliers say about us?

Do we give feedback to our suppliers?
Do we acknowledge their payment terms and pay on time?
Are we grateful for the service? Do we tell them?
Have we referred them?

Maybe if we take the time to consider our own behaviour as customers, it will help us understand and serve our clients in a more efficient manner. Certainly food for thought!

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Cheap Siemens business telephone systems

Saturday, March 3rd, 2012

What advantages might cheap Siemens business telephone systems offer you?

The nightmare scenario

If you are responsible for purchasing a new office telephone system, you may suffer from the occasional nightmare along the following lines.

Perhaps you see yourself introducing your colleagues to a new office phone system, explaining to them as you do so that it is the one that will be replacing the other new office phone system that you purchased only a couple of years ago.

If that sounds too surreal to be true, you may be even more disturbed to know that such things happen.

Why is this and what can you do to make sure that it does not happen to you?

Reasons for failure

There may be any number of reasons why a company may end up being disappointed with the solution it has chosen for its new business telephony system.

Surprisingly, outright technical failure may be comparatively unusual. What is perhaps more commonplace is one of the following scenarios:

  • once installed, the system proved itself to be incapable of delivering the functional support required in order for you to realise your anticipated benefits – this is typically attributable to inadequate up-front requirements analysis;
  • relatively quickly after installation, your business changes or evolves but this results in your new system becoming incapable of supporting your business operations any longer;
  • you have found that it is proving to be prohibitively expensive to expand your new system in line with your own business growth.

In the case of the second and third points above, the problem may be related to the nature of the solution you adopted.

Space does not permit a discussion of the technical and architectural issues here, however, some systems may simply be more modular and therefore, easier to change, grow and expand, than others.

This is where cheap Siemens business telephone systems may score highly on your evaluation criteria.

Avoiding it happening to you

Sometimes, the drive for economy may lead to the danger of choosing solutions from manufacturers that have relatively limited scope for expansion and diversification. In some cases, even if such changes are possible, the utilisation of non-standard approaches and technologies within their solutions may lead to high cost should you need to expand them.

By contrast, Siemens telephone systems have a globally established reputation for architectural and technical excellence and they can typically be upgraded and expanded to meet the changing requirements on your business (plus the evolution of background technology) more easily than might be the case with some other manufacturers.

Of course, what is cheap to one person may not be seen as cheap by another. However, if you wish to ensure that your purchased solution is as future-proof as is realistically possible, it might be advisable to let us help you to find out more about cheap Siemens business telephone systems.

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New business phone systems – frequently asked questions

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

If you are facing a serious decision regarding your existing phone infrastructure, you may also be thinking along the lines of new business phone systems.

How do I know what system is right for me?

Some companies perform their own research then go out and purchase a solution.

Others may simply look to see which system appears to offer the cheapest price and make their selection on that basis.

Both of these approaches may yield dissatisfaction downstream.

Unless you are an experienced business telecoms expert, it may be advisable to approach this decision by:

  • getting someone to help you with a full analysis of your requirements;

  • approaching a telecoms solutions provider with a proven track record in the successful implementation of small business phone systems – who will then use the analysis of requirements in order to identify appropriate solutions.

Of course, the same organisation may be able to complete both steps.

Which is best, to extend my existing system or to replace it?

There is no single answer to this question.

If your existing system is relatively modern and was produced by a quality manufacturer, who conformed to international technical standards, then in some cases the most cost-effective solution for you may be to look to expand it to meet your revised requirements.

However, if your system is many years old and/or does not conform to modern approaches and standards, then it may prove to be difficult to expand and integrate it with other more modern technical capabilities.

From a practical point of view, some antiquated systems may be approaching the point where they are impossible to support and maintain for reasons due to parts being unavailable etc.

Although the attractions of patching up existing systems appear to be obvious (perceptions of lower cost), in some cases this is a false economy and one that may cause you grief if your system becomes increasingly prone to failure.

It is necessary to objectively review both options in the context of your particular situation.

Why do I see such a huge price disparity in potential solutions?

When recommending a solution that involves thinking about new business phone systems, an expert solutions provider will be endeavouring to identify suitable matches for your requirements.  They will also be trying to balance the inevitable pressures to find a cost-attractive solution with their professional obligation to think about issues such as resilience, reliability and maintainability.

These latter points may have a very direct effect on your annual running costs over time but they are not always immediately visible if you are looking at costs based simply upon the ticket price of a solution.

This is why what appear to be the cheapest new business phone systems may not prove to be the cheapest in the longer term and why some solutions providers may not recommend them.

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Looking for the best small business telephones

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

If you are looking to upgrade your telephone system, you may well be wondering what are the best small business telephones for you.

If so, you may wish to consider the following questions of any potential solution:

  • have your requirements been analysed – this is not a question of the telephone solution, as such, but a general principle because trying to select a new business telephone system in the absence of a detailed understanding of your requirements may lead to disappointment;
  • is the manufacturer a major player in the marketplace – purchasing solutions from organisations such as Siemens business telephone systems, may reduce your risks of encountering unpleasant surprises to do with quality and non-standard technical approaches;
  • is the system scalable – this basically means asking how easy it will be in future to upgrade the system if required, to cater for changes in your business (systems that cannot easily be expanded and upgraded may involve you in significant future cost);
  • can your supplier support it post-implementation – if you purchase your phone system through an outlet that is essentially an exclusively retail-based box shifter, then if you are unfortunate enough to experience troubles in use, you may find it difficult to obtain technical support (we pride ourselves on our ability to offer such support);
  • does the proposal include professional installation services – installing a new telephone system is rarely as simple as plugging in a few boxes and it is important both from a technical and health and safety point of view, that the installation is correctly designed and professionally carried out;
  • will the new system integrate with your existing technology – in today’s business world, integration is often key to success both in terms of service provision and cost-effectiveness, so if different components of your technology do not communicate with each other, then you may struggle to achieve an optimum solution;
  • do you fully understand the cost base – when selecting what you consider to be the best small business telephones, the cost of your solution will typically be a major factor in your decision. Remember, however, to take into account things such as the annual running cost, as occasionally some apparently budget solutions may have unpleasant hidden surprises in store in this respect.

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