atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums TDM Business Telephone Systems Mitel Telephones & Systems SX-200 Service Contract

I tried that about a year ago. The guy with a 217 lost his SMDR. Yeah, I could change the chipset, but the national Mitel house had a complete board for less than $200. It took me 38 minutes to change it out :-)

I dragged out the numbers for an ICP, which was way more than $5k. As I could see his eyes were glassy as I was talking to him, I wrote the invoice for a tidy profit and concentrated on his wireless internet.

Now there's the profit center.

Carl

Whatever works.

I know a Mitel dealer in a resort area whose currently upgrading scores of end-of-life sx20s to ICPs, and he's using IP trunking for ROI (people used to use Call accounting for ROI). The 20s are starting to wear out, so it's a good time for it.

In 5 years, it'll be the 50s, and in 5-7 years, it'll be end-of-life on sx100/200 Analog, imho.

But if you're happy and the customer's happy, more power to you, and carry on.

Boys and Girls, it's time for a simple economics lesson. And one I hope you (property owners) don't learn the hard way. It's time to abandon the band-aid approach on these old 200's and 50's, Bless them, but here is an example you might want to throw the owner's way. Recently at a flagship hotel chain, a guest was in his room choking, dialed 911. When the 911 operator answered, he could not tell her what room he was in. He couldn't speak. The only number she saw was one of the CO's. The operator saw that he was at the *** Inn, and sent paramedics to the property. They went room to room until they found him, barely alive. Guess what, he sued, and all franchises have now upgraded to the SX-200 ICP (and that's not an urban myth, it happened in my home town, and we have been upgrading ever since). It's time to move ahead for more than one reason. I mean, if $$$$ is the bottom line, (and that's all it is), buy some insurance with the upgrade. After all, we as techs do travel quite a bit.....and would you want to be one knock-knock short? Didn't think so.

Gee, fellas, I think you're missing my point. I doubt you'd be able to find many interconnects who would prefer to keep struggling with an old analog SX as opposed to making a sale on an ICP! Everybody here knows that the old analog/hybrid platform is reaching the end of it's useful days and that the latest/greatest has a raft of features that make ugrading an excellent idea. ButI'll guarantee that not every one of your customers has faithfully upgraded to every new version as they came out.

As techs, we understand our product, the evolving technology of telecom, and all the excellent reasons that the newest is better than the obsolete. But I'm also willing to bet that in our role as customer for other products (computers, appliances, vehicles, tools, etc.) we're just like our own clients when it comes to the repair/replace decision.

Everybody around here likes to make analogyies so here's one:
If my washing machine has a problem and I call a repairman (there's another topic altogether because I'd probably try to find a webforum and ask some poor Maytag repairman how to fix it myself), I actually expect him to try to fix it. If his first response is to point out that my washer is a POC and that I should just upgrade, I'm probably going to say "Thanks and goodbye" and look for someone else. If, however, he checks things out, says it's a decent old machine that needs a new timer for $100 (vs. $800 for a new washer), I'll pay him to repair it. Thenhe has the chance to educate me by pointing out its age and suggesting that I should consider replacing it in a year or two. Guess which guy I'll buy a washer from when ol' reliable gives me a problem again?

While we may know a switch is old and obsolete, the customer sees it as just one of the many components of his business operation. As a hotel owner, he's balancing it against malfunctioning air conditioners and the replacing all his carpeting that before the next annual franchise inspection. If, in his mind, the PBX is doing it's job well enough and he has the choice of spending hundreds on a repair or thousands on a replacement... he's going to do the repair and hope he can budget for replacement before the other shoe drops.

This thread started as a request for a service contract for Lightspeed's customer. Lightspeed is being ethical enough to say it's beyond his expertise and he wants his customer taken care of. If the first thing out of the tech's mouth is a sales pitch, the customer won't be happy and everybody would lose, including Lightspeed. What Lightspeed and his customer need is an interconnect who'll put a fair price on an annual service contract and keep the PBX (and the hotel) in business until the customer is ready to replace the old switch. We all know that there are warehouses full of refurbed parts ( ;)Hi Fred!) for the old switches and that the job can be done.

My first (and much shorter) post was just to point is that this is an opportunity to develop a relationship with the customer, gain his trust, and educate your way into a replacement sale when the customer feels it's in his own best interest. It's really just a question of how we view ourselves as telecom professionals... are we technicians who sell as a part of doing business or are we salesman who know the technology as a sales tool?

Well, Gainseville is certainly out of my general area (about 3 hours away, but I would be happy to talk with you, lightspeed, about getting these guys upgraded to a higher level of software - which is what I think they need for the time being. Obviously the would be far better off to upgrade the whole system but that is not always economically feasible. Other than that I would be more than happy to offer YOU and your technicians remote support via phone and modem which would take care of about 98% of their needs. Anything else I could visit the site. This really ain't brain surgery and I have spent a good part of my time in the phone biz dealing with walking techs and property staff through addressing telephone problems. Stick a modem on the system and you are in pretty good shape.

Now just a word about the whole 911 thing. First whoever installed the CAS in that property could have done a better job. Just about every system has a 911 alarm so even though if it wasn't on the console they should have been able to find it on the CAS printer - even if it was just printing out raw SMDR. Unfortunately most hotel staff are not trained to look for that either and the fire department is not trained to look for it either. So while a 911 which alarms the console is obviously better - they still should have been able to identify the room.. Glad the guy was okay.

Re the 911 problems. The analog Mitels and the 'D's', as well as the 20's and 50's don't put out call detail until call is over, AND the room phone is hung up. And older SMDR equipment doesn't alarm on 911, either. Let's face it, if the property had a 1005 or older, his smdr is probably just as old. That said, the comments are valid, and considering the tendency for lawyers to sue everybody, wouldn't surprise me to see an interconnect dragged into the mess. It might be wise to present property owners with written warning/description of problem and get them to sign it, before you do any work! Who says I'm lawyer shy! John C. (Not Garand)

hey If you are a one man show like some of us here and that sx 100/200 analog or sx 200D goes down and you have a service contract on it you better have a compleat crash kit in your shop a full backup of the database with procomm (yes you can back up the whole database and reload it, yes it works sometimes)a whole database print out, a decade calendar and not take any vacations because the min you leave town that thing will spit the bit you can bet on murphys law.

Not sure I agree with SNC completely. These things actually run pretty well as long as the environment is pretty good. Main thing is to make sure you have an extra set of disks and a couple of 110 cards. Other than that the property should know that if anything major goes down it will probably be overnight before you can get the thing back up and running. There are plenty of places that can overnight you what you need.

And again, your washing machine or microwave isn't responsible to pinpoint from where you are dialing "911" from. However, your phone system is. By law. You really should not continue to downplay this.

I just got back from a motel with a 20/503, memory back up battery finally bit the dust. The system is still bopping along just fine. No way will you get a motel to cough up the thousands of dollars for a upgrade. TechHarry is right, get their confidence, they convince them you can get a new system in quicker than you can find the replacement parts (providing the don't pull some old system and ask if these parts work).

Carl, next time just solder in sockets, then it's $2.00 a RatShack for the drivers.