DIY repairs offer flexibility, lower costs for VoIP
Posted on Tue, May 10, 2011 @ 09:00 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
“Don’t touch that wire! It might void your warranty.”
That’s just one of the many understandable fears businesses have about their phone systems. When a problem comes up or the system goes down, the options are rarely attractive. You can delve into the issue yourself in hopes of saving money, but rarely have enough information to diagnose and solve the problem. Or, you can call in your integrator and pray for quick service.
As an integrator, we are always happy to provide fast, reliable maintenance to our customers. After all, that’s part of how we make a living.
But we also recognize that many customers prefer to take a do-it-yourself approach, when possible. Thanks to ShoreTel, DIY phone maintenance is a reality for many of our clients.
ShoreTel Director offers a single, centralized view of the phone system via a Web browser. This is the same interface that our clients use to manage features like voicemail, automated attendant, adding and dropping lines, and more. ShoreTel Director also provides proactive maintenance. In a single screen, Director provides a view of the entire phone system, including indicators of any problem areas. When a critical issue arises, Director will even automatically email one or more administrators of the phone system.
Director sends a heartbeat out to every device on the network. If a signal is not received back, that device is taken out of service and a notification is immediately sent to the administrator. At the same time, traffic that would have gone to that device is re-routed to an available resource. This built-in redundancy prevents downtime while the administrator fixes the problem.
As a result, clients can see, diagnose and fix service issues without ever picking up a phone to call us. In fact, they can solve phone outages before anyone else in the office has had time to notice – or complain. Internally, this creates customer satisfaction levels that are sky-high.
In addition, ShoreTel’s System Monitor provides even more in-depth network monitoring. System Monitor provides daily, weekly, monthly and yearly information. It can localize errors and even expose the likely cause of these aberrations. It then makes suggestions for correcting the problems.
System Monitor sends out a Daily Network Weather Report, which shows the status of the network and helps prioritize daily administrator activities. Finally, ShoreTel System Monitor collects utilization and error information across the network to identify potential problems that may impact VoIP call quality.
With these tools, clients have more choices. By diagnosing the problem in real-time, they can determine what repairs are needed and understand any service costs in advance. Plus, they will know which repairs they can make themselves, and when they need to call in an expert. This time-saver and budget-saver is a ShoreTel advantage, and one our customers love.