All You Really Need to Know About Telecom


Phone Systems Only Have Three Functions

There are almost unlimited telecom system and feature options, of course. But you don't need most of them. The following three facts will help keep you grounded as you go about evaluating your telecom system or cloud-based alternatives:

  1. Every telephone system has only three main functions: handling incoming calls, outgoing calls, and internal calls. Person A calling person B. That's it. 
     
  2. All the fancy features you've every heard of: call forwards, call holds, callbacks, call pickups, call returns, voice mail, and so on, exist for only one reason. When party A calls party B, and party B is either on the phone, away from the phone, or just doesn't want to talk to party A, the only thing all these features accomplish is to create telephone tag, nothing more. (Doesn't sound quite as impressive that way, does it?) It's like a car. You can buy all the expensive options you want, but you should always be aware they're not necessary to get you where you want to go.
     
  3. The rotary telephone your grandmother (and great-grandmother) used still works today. So, what do you really need?  That's our focus.  Satisfying your wants? That's the purpose of a salesperson, someone who benefits when you buy something.  One reason to retain a consultant like Teleconvergence is that we make certain that the party that benefits the most is you.

Teleconvergence, as you've doubtless read many times by now, doesn't favor any particular technology, vendor, or solution. But we don't automatically preclude or exclude them, either.

We understand traditional and IP-PBXs, VoIP, and hosted services. We also have a very, very specific way of looking at our clients' needs.  You can learn more about your real options by reading through this short series of articles about changing systems, following the sitemap to your left.  The next article, as you see, is The Essential Questions You Should Be Asking.

This entire section deals with your needs and what we can do to satisfy them. In terms of how we go about our work, you can evaluate our methodology at your convenience by looking over The Teleconvergence Approach to System Selection.  You can always find it under the Methodologies Tab.

Finally, you can also always determine where you are and where you might like to read next by looking at the sitemap to the left.