Quicksheet #4 Breaking down Support
The word “support” is often thrown into advertising pitches to help sweeten the deal as a sort of insurance policy in case anything goes wrong. While support can mean many different things, Phone System Support can be summed up in two questions:
- Who will be doing the work? (see below for a list of work required)
- How much will it cost me?
For your phone system and service, someone will have to:
- Configure your phone system behavior, setup any menus, record prompts, setup your phones, and setup your phone service.
- Install your phone system.
- Make any changes you need at any time.
- Update and maintain the phones and the system.
You will need to decide who you want to be responsible for these tasks:
| Who’s Responsible for Support | Your Time | Your
Cost |
| You, i.e., Do It Yourself | Most | Least |
| You do everything, except maintain the system, you get phone support with your service (typical hosted VoIP service). | Med | Med |
| You do some, you hire a Telephone/IT person when needed | Med | Med |
| You hire full support, the Telephone/IT person does everything. | Least | Most |
Some hosted services build the cost of phone support into their monthly price. As you can see, the tradeoff is your access to technical expertise and the time you can afford to spare versus the amount of money required to secure the experts needed. Also note that depending on their level of expertise, the standard range for IT/Telephone Professionals is from about $45/hr up to $150/hr. Experienced IT/Telephone Professionals typically charge between $80/hr to $150/hr. The quality and experience of the IT/Telephone Professional is important.
At Synergia Communications, we offer a fully managed system for your business but at a price that is affordable. This option means the IT professionals do everything for you and is typically used by large companies with complex phone systems. We are able to achieve this level of support at a reasonable cost because we have designed our system to be simple and efficient.