Phone System Frequently Asked Questions

At Tele Technology, we enjoy providing a real and true solution for our customers. Within that practice, we have learned to make our suggestions based on tried and true methodologies that we KNOW work. We have no interest or business in selling a solution that's no solution at all. If we do not have your solution, we'll be the first to tell you.

All of our suggestions are based on years of track records of putting phone systems into the field in Houston and all across the country. We know what works and what doesn't and will be unbiased about a solutions pros and cons.

Most new phone systems these days share some pretty common feature sets. 100% of new systems that are available on the market today will cover the basics such as :

• Hold, Transfer, Intercom, Music or Message On Hold Ports, Paging internal and external ports, Caller ID, Digital Phones, Liquid Crystal Display's, Speakerphones, Analog ports for line sharing with Fax Machines - Cordless phones and other analog devices, Matching Voicemail Options, Easy Expandability.

Each manufacturer will go about it in a bit different way, but almost all options will serve offices well. Today's phone systems are more sophisticated than ever, an it shows in their performance.

Some features that are NOT basic, that a lot of users ask about are :
• Auto Attendant - which is a method of answering your phone calls and giving the users a simple set of options to guide them to right person or department. This is usually a function of a phone systems voicemail unit, but some systems, such as the Norstar Compact ICS has a basic auto attendant built into it.
• CCR (or Custom Call Routing) - which is similar to an auto attendant, but offers multiple levels of menus within options to further route calls.

We always recommend that you find a technician within your local area that is qualified to work on the phone system that you purchase. One of the simplest ways to find a local tech is to look in your local yellow pages under Tele Phone Systems Service. Prior to contacting one, we will inform you about what they will want to know in order to estimate the cost appropriately.

We also have within our web site, I database of technicians around the country who offer their services to our customers. You can access it HERE.

Depending on where you are located, we may or may nor be able to recommend a particular installer that we have experience with. Ask your representative when purchasing.

In reiteration, we ALWAYS recommend that you have a qualified technician install your telephone equipment. We get this question A LOT. In reality, it is very difficult for us to say whether or not installing certain equipment would be simple or not so simple for any one given person.

The case really lies in experience and in OUR experience, some companies have installed their own equipment just fine and others have not. This desicion is ultimately yours and we will never fib to you about "how simple" a self install is just to sell you equipment. All Telecom equipment installation requires some basic working knowledge of how the systems operate and not all manuals explain it perfectly in layman's terms.

One question we receive a lot is "Can I really save money buying refurbished equipment?" The Answer is "Sort of". In today's market, new equipment is pretty cost competitive to refurbed equipment. Usual savings on good refurb equipment might save you something in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 dollars per phone, $100 on KSU's and could possibly cost even more on certain voicemail units. The situation and needs will dictate the savings, best to talk this one over with a representative about your particular case.

The danger about refurbished equipment is that some companies sell great, wonderful and perfect refurbed equipment and some don't. Rule of thumb is "The cheaper the price, the worse the quality." Even worse, YOU don't know who puts work into their refurbished equipment and who does not, but you can use your own judgment quite reasonably.

Another problem with refurbished versions of newer lines of equipment is that it is tough to keep in stock. Usually it's gone right away, so be sure to ask your representative what we may have in stock at the time of your order. When properly arranged, refurbished equipment CAN save you money and still provide a viable, workable solution.

Another danger of refurbished equipment is in purchasing equipment with software and hardware that is outdated only to find out too later, that you will have to invest even more money to upgrade later for features that you want to add. Be careful what you buy and keep in mind, if the price looks too good to be true, there's a reason.

In a word, YES. Here at Tele Technology we have pride in the equipment and solutions that we provide and in that respect, do our absolute best to provide only the BEST refurbished equipment available. It may be a little more expensive to produce such fine refurbished equipment, but we feel that effort and the dollars invested are well worth it.

We also have stock that WAS NOT selected to be our top notch equipment. So if you are in need of a less than perfect phone (b-stock or c-stock as we call it) ask your representative if we have something that will fit your needs in our warehouse.

For our return and warranty policies, we would like to refer you over to our Help and Resources Center, where the answer to these and more question can be easily located. Find it HERE.