Cost of PBX goes beyond price
The purchase price of a PBX is seldom an indication of its cost.
So says Graeme Victor, CEO of telecommunications solutions company Du Pont Telecom, who points out that lack of after-sales and maintenance service, coupled with the poor controls around management of the business’s telephone system often combine to reduce the initial purchase price into relative insignificance.
“Most businesses take their PBX for granted – when it works properly. It’s only when it doesn’t that one realises the critical role of this piece of equipment. Indeed, the cost to the business can be more punishing than the initial purchase price,” he says.
Victor notes that not only can the cost of the service call-out and actual repair of the PBX be frighteningly high, but there’s also the often incalculable cost to the business resulting from lost productivity and sales, as well as customer and supplier annoyance.
According to Victor, Du Pont has taken over six PBX installations in the past two months after businesses had experienced ongoing frustration with their PBXs. Their complaints had ranged from the PBX repeatedly going down, to issues around dropped and missed calls – an often more insidious problem to identify and repair.
Most of the complaints these businesses had were not with the PBX itself, but with the level of service provided by their suppliers who often do not have the technical expertise to support their sales.
“The major problem for businesses is that as PBX technology has moved from analogue to IP, telephony has become far more complex and suppliers have become more specialised. So who does a business call to fix a problem of, for example, dropped calls? The fault could lie with the PBX itself, or with incorrect wiring in the organisation, or with the power supply. It could also be a Telkom issue, or a myriad other problems, particularly if it’s a VoIP installation,” Victor explains.
“That’s why outsourcing the management and maintenance of one’s PBX to a supplier that understands all aspects of telephony and has the technical IT and telephony skills to identify the source of problems, can save businesses significant PBX-related costs.”
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