Are IT People trying to take your clients away form you? 12

[lvNortel]

I have been noticing this more and more. It happened to me two more times last week. I have two major clients one with a good old trusty BCM-400 and one with a MICS. Bot systems are in excellent health. One is now using all T series sets and the other is starting to migrate them to please their M series sets.

These two IT guys tried to convince the customer that these system are very old and could go at any minute and that they should both install IP and VOIP based CISCO ( yest I said the C word ).

I was moving one of them into new offices and right in front of the customer the IT guys who is about 27 I am 54 insisted that I install my connection on a patch panel instead of 66 blocks. Of course this guy never returned a single email, voice mail or text weeks ago when I was planning the project. He told me that I am using 1972 style wiring and that I must look to the future with CISCO phones.

I stood my ground because I knew that if I install the wiring on a patch panel he would swoop in one day convince the customer behind mt back to replace the system with CISCO and me and the BCM-400 would be kicked to the curb.

I reported the other IT guy to the office manager as trying to waste 40k to 50k of the companies money just to get rid of me. He hates me because I reported him for doing wiring work ( sloppy and unsafe )when he is not a licensed low voltage contractor and did not carry insurance or bonding to protect the company ( they are very big ) and require their vendors to carry insurance.

Anyway is this happening to you? I think this is only going to get worse.

By the way I got a emergency call today from a customer who has a CISCO and they got hacked and the system is placing and patching fake telemarketing calls long distance over and over and over.

GO CISCO!

"A phone is a phone and not a computer workstation".

 

[jrgood0852]

Everyone has good and valid points here. I hope I am not an exeption. I am 53 and have also "seen it all", whatever that means. We all love what we do and each have our place in this industry. From 1A2 right through to VoIP and beyond (may be retired when beyond happens, hopefully) I think I can honestly say it's been fun for the most part. Thanks to everyone for their posts and this is a good one and we should keep it going.

 

[phoneguy610]

I think the the end point is lvnortel: the industry is already at VoIP , so st this point it's either up to you to learn it like we all have, or don't complain when an it guy comes in and steals it from beneath you. Nothing is fair in this world. Everyone at our company attends training on an almost monthly basis. It's no ones fault but your own if you fall behind the times


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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[jpm121]

There's always a niche market for people who specialize in nursing along dead technology -- a good friend of mine makes a fair living maintaining COBOL code for a consortium of companies. I'm sure it's boring, tedious work but he works for cheap so it keeps him busy and pays the bills.

 

[phoneguy610]

im sure there is, but i bet your friend doesnt get mad and accuse others of "taking his clients" when they upgrade

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[lvNortel]

the issue is not so much stealing my business as lying to the customers and painting this incredible world of technology when in turn the end up with a bunch of garbage and poorly designed cable management. The customers are ending up with having far more system failures then they did when they had their traditional phone systems installed. the standard is either meet the existing standard or exceeded but don't fall below it. too often times IT people are falling below the existing standard which is not fair to the customer.

"A phone is a phone and not a computer workstation".

 

[phoneguy610]

I do agree with you that many it guys can't run cable... But we run cable as an art, and we sell VoIP.

If implemented properly the uptime is as good if not better, and with virtualization , well ill let you learn about that.

Just a thought... If tomorrow your customer came to you wanting to upgrade, what would you propose?

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[Mountainbear]

Most people hate change, especially when it is something they don't understand, or don't want to understand. If you can make a living keeping Nortel alive and you enjoy it, that's great.
I really don't think the internet is going away and at some point, some of your customers are going to want to try it. When that happens you will lose them. I lost a big customer because they wanted to get rid of their Nortel system. It hurt like H*ll but I learned that if you can't give your customers what they want they will go elsewhere.
Maybe you have enough customers that you can keep going until it's time to hang up the "butt set", maybe you need to look to the future, only you can tell.
Best of luck.

 

[Westi]

nicely said Mountainbear

Joe W.

FHandw, ACSS (SME), ACIS (SME)

http://convergednetworks.ca

Interrupt the silence only if you improve it by saying something, otherwise be quiet and everybody will be grateful.

 

[kwbMitel]

One major thing that everyone appears to be overlooking here is budgets.

As a 25yr+ tech I've seen pretty much everything from 1A2 to todays state of the art systems. I can remember clearly the days when customers would choose to forgo voicemail because the cost per set increased dramatically. The Budgets in those days for technology was very low. Then came the information age the ubiquitous computers. IT Budgets went thru the roof as efficiences could prove return on investment in reasonable timeframes. This was the most painful time for Telecom techs as telephone budgets were lucky to be 5% of the Data budgets. I found myself very unsympathetic to my customers who let there phone systems fail due to age because "it always worked". Those same customers would cringe at the cost of getting their phones running again as it was never budgeted. Phone system designers aren't stupid. They wanted access to those big budgets and VOIP was the way to get there. There were inherant advantages to VOIP that were easy to sell and the IT guys loved the idea of new toys to play with. Due to expectations of 99.999% run time of phone systems, the transition from traditional systems to VOIP was very slow and very painful. Slowly but surely the technology improved and the expectations lowered until the technology was accepted. By now the advantages of VOIP (bells and whistles) were clear and everybody had to "get me some of that".

I could go on but by now you get the point.

@IvNortel - it is not the IT People that are taking your customers. If you want to set blame, look directly at the phone companies. It was their need for profitablility that drove this change. You need to adjust or accept.

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[curlycord]

Anyway is this happening to you? I think this is only going to get worse.

Back in the day we talked about IT people taking out jobs away but this was not the fault of anyone but rather technology and last I recall IT = Information Technology.
Why is this an issue again 14 years later?
Why is it going to get worse after all that time?
Why are IT people being blamed for taking jobs away? because of manufactures?
Today's rant is "hosted services".

Bot systems are in excellent health

Who cares about the health of current systems, people want full support, warranty and new features etc, give them what they want if you care about your clients because if you don't they will just assume go elsewhere and get what they want instead of dealing with some company that is bent on only servicing old stuff that is not support any longer.

insisted that I install my connection on a patch panel instead of 66 blocks

He told me that I am using 1972

Smart IT guy!!!
BIX and 110 replaced the old 66 Block over 30 years ago, if you so much as mentioned 66 to me I would escort you off my property with a shotgun LMAO!.

Just take a look at the amount of space it would take with a patch panel vs a 110!

Oh! you mean like how a 66 is bigger than BIX by even more times????
LMAO!
If a client wants to put in a patch panel then so be it, who is anyone to say otherwise? we have been doing that for years!!! people want patch panels and 2 to 4 data cables per location, plain and simple.
As much as we want to be called to move a phone don't you think its rather silly in this day and age?
Best said here:

we install usually Cat5e or Cat6 in a way that it can be used either for voip or digital. That way when the customer is ready to move up to the voip world, they and we are ready for it.

You'll have to get with the program if you can. Play the VOIP game and subtly push it to you clients to show them you're in the groove but suggest cost savings of keeping what they have.

Well said!

I don't know him who invented patch panels but the design is very poor. The cable sag and they get moved and the customer and up with loose connections and static.

I would like to bang my head against the hardest of all walls at this time.
Cable Management at side and top or underneath, Neat work, Patch cables with boots just for starters.
I would say for every patch panel issue we have had (I think 3 or 4 in my 30 years) I have replaced hundreds of line cords and yours truly due to static.

I am sitting on a Gold Mine of work and have been since the local telco stopped servicing the older systems. I have clients who love their Nortels and are very satisfied with what it does.

That's great and fine and dandy , so leave it at that instead of knocking IT people, Patch Panels and Cisco etc.
I am in telecom 28 years now and all I want to do is service Norstar just like you but when a client wants something else like voip or patch panels then I will do my best to make it happen without question or incident.

unfortunately neither have I on Cisco so I had to refer them to another company that I know does good work with Cisco.

That's what clients want to hear from us
BTW Westi sells one of the best voip system out there.





















=----(((((((((()----=
curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[phoneguy610]

Have a star curly-

Like stated a bunch of times I think lvnortel posts more out of fear than anything else.

Don't blame everyone else for not investing in training on new technology.

Survival of the fittest my friend

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"Will work for stars

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

I must be pure Evil - I'm an IT guy living in the Telecom world

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[curlycord]

...who knows is Avyaya more than most techs lol.


=----(((((((((()----=
curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

Toronto Canada

http://www.telcopc.ca

 

[brianinms]

The fact you refuse to adapt to a clients request indicates you are going out of business very soon. You are punching to a 66 block because its all you know and you fail to gain new skills. Every single issue you have tried to raise is because of a bad install and not a bad product. I have no clue what you are talking about in regards to a patch panel as if its done properly then nothing moves as every connection is secured as its essential a 110 block. Btw 110 blocks replaced 66 blocks decades ago so you arent doing any of your clients a favor.

Essentially due to your lack of education and skill you are attempting to hold your client hostage to a POS phone system and installation.

 

[phoneguy610]

Lvnortel would you like to add? I am curious to if this conversation benefitted you in the result of seeking new training?

I am yet to find a phone or an it guy ,that when shown how to use all the new features unified communications brings, that was not impressed.

Please let us know which path you take.

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[LkEErie]

Wow. No wonder my friend sent me a link to this thread. I know some of you guys from other threads. 66 blocks, 110 blocks, patch panels?
I still do conventional key systems on 66 blocks for half-tap and troubleshooting reasons. Half of you have never heard of SMBC-2 or SMBC-4 clips, and 110 patching methods and reterms suck. Besides, only about 10% of my customers ever do massive office moves.

One thing we're all in agreement on, people today are willing to put up with the quality? of a cell phone call so VoIP is right up their alley.
As far as those fancy "features" tell that to the ma and pa shop that just wants to answer the friggin' phone. I love features, I love my CID, I love VM to email, but it doesn't help me sell more stuff in my shop and that's what the average customer wants, something to answer calls while he does what he does best.

I still hagve a 1A2 customer that writes his orders out by hand and talks to the warehouse on a talkback amp, the kind that pages all floors. Do that on a digital or a VoIP set. Sure, when he's done, he gives his handwritten order to a clerk that inputs the invoice to a computer, but it's still a manual process. There's no phone system in the world that's going to increase his productivity or profits from what he has now.

You talk about moving a phone being a thing of the past, yeah, but with Automatic set location, you don't need to do that either.

LkEErie

 

[phoneguy610]

Bs... First quality
G711 is basically HD voice, if implemented properly
Blows pots out of the water

Second of all your going to tell me that click to call integration , voicemail to email, mobility clients remote users and countless other features can't increase productivity ?!?!

Woah

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[phoneguy610]

And the roi with sip is unbelievable

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[phoneguy610]

You know what disregard ... Do your thing

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Avaya/Toshiba/SyntelSolutions

ACIS

"Will work for stars

 

[Sympology]

One thing we're all in agreement on, people today are willing to put up with the quality? of a cell phone call so VoIP is right up their alley."
I love this arguement against VoIP, makes me chuckle.
These days, certainly in the UK, if you make a call it's almost certainly going to be VoIP for much of the call. Yet people STILL think POT's is better. How? Even if you have a POTS phone, it's most likely been VoIP at some point.
The issue is NOT VoIP, but untrained idiots that just slap it in, use G729 because the are stuggling with bandwidth and break out over the internet. It no different to a Telco guy running traditional pairs next mains power or strip lighting.
G711a/u over a good link utterly blows POTS out of the water for quality. Yes POTS may be ok for mom and pops, but trust me in a muiltisite business, i'd think you'd be mad for suggest anything other than VoIP.
As for reliabilty, our next phone system, the ones we are looking at we could take kill the power to the "PBX" and have ALL agents, up and running again in less than 5 seconds, almost as if nothing had happend. Show me ANY legacy TDM system than can do that.

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