Telco Ltd. recently wrapped up a couple of promotions that made some new (and existing) customers happy.  Buyers of new phone systems got free professionally-recorded on-hold recordings and free call accounting software, while customers upgrading from an ESI IVX 56s model to an ESI-50L or ESI-50 model got up to $250 off the upgrade price.

One of the benefits of buying a new ESI phone system between 1/1 and 2/16 included free entry into a drawing for $500 in additional products and/or services from Telco Ltd.  Well, we drew.  And the lucky winner was:

Affiliated Chest Physicians of Phoenix, AZ

Congratulations!

If you missed our promotions that ended, not to worry.  We’ve got some new promotions going.  If you’re in the Phoenix area and are considering purchasing a new phone system, let us know & we can get you started on learning about the newest productivity-enhancing products and their features.

Maintenance and service agreements: you see them everywhere, in one form or another, offered on products from cars, to computers, to home stereo systems, to (yes!) telephone systems.  I thought I’d cover Telco Ltd.’s maintenance program, and describe why it stands apart from the crowd–and even do a little bragging.

Most such programs out there are essentially extended warranties: they cover the equipment you’ve bought for a certain extended period of time (usually ranging from one or two years, in the case of electronic equipment, to 5 years or so for vehicles), and either cover the parts only, or parts and labor.  In every case I have seen, this is a fixed period after which, if it breaks, you’re paying full price for repairs.  Telco Ltd.’s maintenance program covers all parts and on-site labor for as long as you’re on the program, with no fixed termination (all we ask is that you stay on the program for one year, after which it’s month-to-month and you’re free to cancel at any time).

What do I mean by no fixed termination?  Put simply, your equipment is covered for as long as you want it to be.  It’s not that you can’t be cancelled (after all, we have to protect ourselves in case a manufacturer goes out of business, parts are no longer available on the market, etc.), it’s just that we never have cancelled anyone (except in cases of non-payment of the monthly dues).  This is great peace of mind for those customers who want their phone system to serve them for many years, without assuming the increased risk of disrepair (and costly bills) that comes with an aging system.  What a lot of people forget, especially over time, is that, aside from the phones themselves, there is other equipment that can cost thousands of dollars if it breaks: CPU cards, line and station cards, voicemail, etc.  This is equipment that is often “out of sight, out of mind.”

Our maintenance plan has some other nice features that make it an especially good value.  For example, most programming changes on the systems we sell can be accomplished remotely, and there is no charge for any number of programming changes.  There is also no charge for telephone support under the program.  Here are some other things that you can expect when you have a phone system provided by us and you’re enrolled in our program:

• Discounted on-site work for non-warranty work like moves and other changes (warranty work is always no-charge)
• On-site hourly rates that never increase
• Free software upgrades
• Free backups
• Free on-site training sessions (up to 2 per year)
• Free wire and jack maintenance
• 10% discount on any new equipment
• Faster response times
• And more!

One would assume that we charge an arm and a leg for this type of coverage.  But this assumption would be wrong.  Compared to the price of the equipment, the monthly amount is small and reasonable, and compares to what many companies charge for just the warranty portion of their service agreements.  Something that is also noteworthy is that, unlike with competitors’ programs, the amount you pay on a monthly basis does not increase year-over-year as your system ages unless, of course, you add equipment to your system (there is a discount for the first year, though, to account for the fact that the equipment has a manufacturer’s warranty on it).

The above point bears emphasis, because with every insurance or warranty program I have seen out there, the amount a company charges is related to its assessment of risk based on the age (and even service history) of the equipment.  With Telco’s maintenance program, the monthly amount does not increase year-over-year as the equipment ages.  It also does not increase based on your service history, so if you’ve had bad luck and have had to have a bunch of equipment replaced, you don’t have to worry about your rates increasing.  Here is a note I got recently from a satisfied customer who is on our maintenance program:

Dear Stephen,

I believe that the maintenance program that Telco Ltd. offers is the best in the industry, at a very reasonable price.  It should be no surprise that we have actually closed sales based on our maintenance program.  I have explained our program to other phone system vendors over the years, and the reaction has always been something along the lines of, “But I could never make money with that!  You really should re-think offering so many benefits–you could get away with much less.”

Maybe we could.  Maybe we’re crazy, who knows?  But as long as our customers see the value we provide, we will continue to offer the best maintenance program in the industry.

Well, the holidays are upon us again!  We thought we’d have a little fun by changing the blog to a holiday theme.

I chanced upon a couple of holiday music links, for anyone who’s interested:

Free holiday music

It’s unclear to me whether the music at the above link can be legally loaded into your phone system’s music on hold unit, or whether it’s just to be enjoyed for personal use.  The link below has holiday music available that’s definitely royalty-free and can be used as on-hold music (there’s just a one-time upfront fee):

Royalty-free holiday music

We are not affiliated with either site above; I just thought I’d share the links for anyone who may be interested.  If you are already an existing customer of ours in the Phoenix area and need help loading music into your phone system or on-hold player, or if you’d like more information on on-hold equipment or a promo-on-hold production, please let us know.

Also, a little gift for any of our customers (or anyone else, for that matter) who has a recent version of VIP software (this is software made for ESI phone systems that allows you to do several things, like control your phone from your computer; log inbound and outbound calls to your phone; program your phone; text message; and more).  The latest version of VIP is skinnable, meaning you can change its visual appearance, and a few skins are included.  We came upon this Christmas-themed skin you can download here.  Here’s what it looks like:

Christmas Skin for VIP

You’ll want to unzip the downloaded file and put the Christmas.skf file into the Skins folder of your VIP program folder (usually located at “C:\Program Files\VIP\Skins”), and then you can change to it by opening up the VIP Call Control window, then clicking on the Tools -> Options menu.  If there is no Skins folder, it means you need a VIP software upgrade–contact us if you’d like to pursue that.

If you don’t currently have VIP, it’s definitely worth a look.  Here are links to some videos on the different flavors of VIP:

VIP and VIP Professional video

VIP ACD Supervisor/Agent video

VIP PC Attendant Console video

Enjoy!