maintenance benchmark

[jmazza]

I'm new to the maitenance game...what would a typical per port charge be?
Nortel option 11 / call pilot / 250 ports(analog, digital,universal)4 hour response, no phones covered.

We have multiple sites (30+) that could possibly piggy-back on this agreement...

Thanks

 

[johnpoole]

look for a known co with customers they will let you contact and expect to pay 1.50 to 3.00 per port.. might be a little higher is you have a lot of high end features.. and make sure you have a maint schedule... without a schedule, you don't have routine maint.. ld 117 inv prt sets. at least once a month, lcnt check once a week, all err's and sch etc noted and cleared.. dep list kept up to date.. most techs want the maint gig, but only expect to change handset cords... for a few 100K, i can change a bunch of cords

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[GHTROUT]

Jon has covered it...one thing to consider is splitting your 30 sites between two maintenance providers so that each one has a carrot hanging before them...the chance to win over the other vendors half. It makes for competitive pricing.

We use multiple system maintenance providers mainly because of the regions…but an example (not system maint) of one site with multiple vendors is our main switch with Sprint (1 span), Global Crossing ( 2 spans), ATT (the SBC ILEC - 5 spans), Time Warner (1 span) and MCI (3 spans). It is a good example of competition, but the fact is, we do it for redundancy.



~

http://www.GHTROUT.com/

 

[telnettech]

speaking from a maintenance vendor viewpoint


splitting your sites is not always a great idea. If a customer has say 30 sites and he only gives me 15 sites, then he is going to get a higher price for maintenance than if he would have given me all 30 sites......we have multiple PBX systems that we service and depending on the total number of ports that a customer has, as well as the SLA that he is wanting, is how we price everything.

now i do agree with regional support as long as it is outside the area that the main vendor has coverage, but like i said it generally is more cost effective to have 1 vendor......pricing is already competitive and the "carrott in front of the horse" trick doesnt work most of the time


Brian

To error is human.....if the machine doesnt work, then KICK IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[hawks]

Another good reason for 1 vendor is you only have to remember 1 phone number when you have issues. I have to agree with telnet most vendors go off of total ports when pricing so the more you give them then the cheaper the price.

 

[johnpoole]

one thing i always try to nail down, response time,, to me that means way more then price.. 2 hours sounds great unless you a system down at a large site... two hours at my site would mean a vendor change... they get 2 minutes on almost any error code.. and haven't had an out of service, ever, since i;ve been on site

john poole
bellsouth business
columbia,sc

 

[hawks]

good point as always john down time to us is thousands an hour.

 

[telnettech]

we have different levels of SLA(service level agreement)that we offer....we have a couple customers that actually have 1 of our techs assigned to their site.....the tech has an office on site with the necessary basic parts to get the system back up and running within minutes depending on what is identified as critical parts for their PBX.......if he needs help he has a special line to call into the office to get him in front of any other customers that may be calling in for support also.....that tech is assigned exclusively to that customer and does no other support tickets....also that tech is on call after hours for that site exclusively....but as you would expect, that contract is expensive and depends on the number of ports that the customer has......we use alot of local techs in area where we cant just jump into a vehicle and be there within a 2 hour window.....most of these techs are certified on some type of pbx and calls into our tech center 24/7 to receive "guidance" from us on fixing troubles....this is a common practice when it comes to companies that provide nation wide service.

So as you see it depends on what you want out of the agreement and 1 vendor is pretty much like the other as far as pricing.

To error is human.....if the machine doesnt work, then KICK IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!