What’s the best way to score VoIP offers?

I would agree support is important however overall focus on solution vs. price is critical. Many VoIP providers attempt low cost entrance to get you into a voip solution when the service ends out being far from perfect. Though we all know many people mare looking to move to voip for some cost benifit this should not be the main focus. Any change toward voip should have some hard cost benefits however often times the financial gain will be some of the soft costs and overall solution/ operational benefits ton gain the lowered TCO.

You can choose the best solution based on inbound pricing (DIDs) the number of concurrent call needed and outbound minutes. If you check the current phone bill total minutes are listed. If the company has more than a few lines it is ofter more economical to go with a per minute solution. All lines are not equal and paying a single set price for each line often means that there is a lot of breakage (minutes paid for that you are not using)

In additions to all of the above comments, one of the critical point that can be considered is the future growth path of your company's telecommunication system.The day is not far enough when everybody would be on unified communication.The telco should have ideally a SIP based solution with interoperatibility tested with various UC Solutions like avaya,ciso etc.
So in next 6 months if you have pln of rolling out UC, its advisable to watch out for it from now.

Tim,

Pricing should not be the main factor when choosing a VoIP/ Unified Communications solution. There are many variable to consider as in, deployment site, network infrastructure, hardware, and software utilizing the same network. Basing a decision solely on price will lead to an implementation nightmare especially if your organization plans on running a unified network. The companies that you are evaluating should supply you with a network load test and a projected VOIP SLA and readiness report for your organization. If they do not supply you with this, then you should be ware before you sign any contracts because this might inhibit future growth of your organization.

Jamal Thompson

Many of the other replies already mention my items:

1. Choose a platform with a local (and highly respected, knowledgeable) support presence in your area. Choosing a UC provider in the best Gartner Quadrant won't mean a thing if you don't have the in house knowledge to administer the platform and the vendors in your area don't either. We chose a Cisco solution due largely that our implementation/support vendor was literally 3 blocks away and had extremely knowledgeable and service oriented staffers. This was in direct contrast to us going through 3 vendors who tried and failed to support our Avaya system. Not saying the Avaya platform was poor, but no one (in house or vendor) knew how to make work as it should so we felt a lot of pain - so the perception became "Avaya stinks."

Before you chose any vendor ask for references. If they are hesitant to provide them, then they probably aren't the vendor for you.

2. Know what UC functionality you are looking for now and is the platform flexible enough to adapt with new technology down the road. Compare the UC features, that is if you are running UC, that your company has now and see what the other platforms offer for the similar price. UC implementations don't have to be a fully blown solution with all the bells and whistles right out of the gate. Some platforms allow for a piecemeal approach, so you can adapt or purchase more functionality as IT budgets permit. Most UC platforms offer the same functionality, but each platform may call the feature by another name so know the terminology. A more important point is to ask if you can get the features a,b,c and then what the uplift cost would be if you wanted to get features x,y,z at a later time. Believe me, once end users (especially executives) get a taste of UC, they will want to add more features ASAP - it happens all the time. If the platform isn't capable of adapting to your needs without spending a ton more money, IT will end up looking very bad.

3. Don't be afraid to negotiate or ask the vendors to get create with costs. Options such as leasing, leasing to own,, $1 buyout, trade-ins, outright purchasing, deferred payments, bulk discounts are readily available by many vendors. If a vendor is willing to work with you on pricing and payments, the implementation will be a much easier pill to swallow.

I was lucky enough to attend a VoIP conference a couple of years ago. Almost all of the speakers were using a different UC platform, Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, Nortel, ShoreTel, Microsoft, etc) and they each had a common theme. Their choice in implementation/support vendor was as important (if not more important) than their choice in UC platform. Hope this helps!

This is a fairly complex topic but it would be helpful to know the general size of the system you are talking about. How many phones, how many offices do you have, etc.

However I will offer the following comments:

Generally speaking the sales and implementation of VOIP is a low margin business. Lot of competition and lots of fly-by-night operations out there tend keep prices down. You will even see vendors competing with their own resellers for business. The adage of "you get what you pay for" holds true in this space as well.

Here is a partial check list of things that should be considered during the purchase negotiations:

1. CAPEX vs OPEX - which is most important to your company now and does the proposed deal structure support those priorities? Trading CAPEX for OPEX makes the shorter term ROI look good, but over the long haul your ROI will suffer. Make sure you are in sync with your finance guy and the CEO.
2. Solution vs product - does the provider help you look at the entire picture? Your biggest savings might be in telecom costs, which over time dwarf the PBX costs. PBX vendors tend not to be interested in looking at the overall telecom environment to put together the best solution for your environment.This is why you probably want to consider a reseller. Even a small shop may realize significant savings.
3. Features - what exactly are you buying? Buy what you need. Some vendors have an "all included" offering while others have separately priced features or per user pricing. Hard as it is too do, think about what your future needs might be. A key area to look at is how well the proposed system supports remote or home offices, unified messaging and "find me". These features can provide significant productivity gains.
4. Install, setup - turn key or do it your self? If DIYS, then be sure to factor the internal costs into the equation.
5. training - is training included in the package? Success is defined as having people use the phone. The bigger the change the more training needed. If you are moving from a key system to a more "modern" system, expect to do a lot of training and hand holding. Will the vendor do this or will you? You should expect to have to do training at least twice, once at install time and then a second one a month or two later.
6. MACD - who is doing this and what is the cost.
7. Ongoing support - do not underestimate this. As simple as the systems look on the outside, they are very complex on the inside. If you are going to do this inhouse, be prepared to have on going training sessions for your tech people. Do not assume that a one time knowledge transfer will get you indpendent.

If I have to choose...My criteria & priority would be the following order, with answers for each question helping me leverage, to choose the best one finally

1. Does the product satisfy my current requirements?
2. Can this fit in to my Roadmap(furture plan) of how I can upgrade to furture network and bandwidth at a optimal cost. (and still this product can support that)
3. How much does it cost for the initial infrastructure and how much it's flexible to forthcoming changes (consider Bandwidth, Connectivity, Interoperability, Scalability, etc)
4. Is this product flexible enough for my customizations? (OSA compliance and framework to host ur customized services)
5. How good is its usability and maintenance? - (I prefer not to have too many UI for config, ease in traces and debug, minimum outage for upgrades, redundant and highly available systems)
6. How robust is the application interms of performance, network monitoring, trouble-shooting?
7. How good is it for, leveraging your business (Value-Add-ON or Overhead interms of maintenance and order handling and support?)
8. Based on ur plan to decide the products life span of use in your company, does it get the expected ROI (projections based on CAPEX, OPEX and Upgrades?)
9. How good is the Vendor's track record in terms of support, experience in that technology (Leader/innovator/..etc...you can refer on to Gartner)....(More importantly if the financial postion of the Vendor is not good enough companies may Go Bankrupt, leaving you behind with no service/support)

As a network integrator, we must keep up with the latest technology trends in order to recommend solutions to our clients and prospects. It was just a few years ago that you starting reading about the new generation of IP-based telephone systems and how they were going to change the way we communicate with our fellow workers and the outside world.

Unfortunately for many, the promises were greater than the subsequent results.

The good news is that this has changed in just a few short years and (some of) today’s systems meet, and even exceed, our wildest dreams for both efficiency improvements and productivity gains.

There are some basics that each system has to have:

• Call Processor - Initiates and manages internal and external calls
• Gateway - Connects the caller to the public telephone network
• Applications - Voice Mail, Auto Call Distribution, Auto Attendant, Unified Management

That said, there are significant differences in how the various vendors approach their solutions, deliver features and even how dial tone is handled. We have narrowed it down to a few categories that we think are most important.

• Reliability
• Survivability
• Scalability
• Management
• Usability
• Cost of Ownership

Following is a list of questions to ask the vendor or even their references.

Reliability –
 What operating system is used?
 Does the system have a hard disk? Mirrored?
 What happens if the power goes out?
 What happens if my Ethernet switch fails?
 Is the voice mail stored on the Exchange server?
 Does the system have to be re-booted when changes are made?
 What is required to back up the system configuration data?

Survivability –
(Sometimes referred to as Redundancy)
 What happens if the Wide Area Network fails?
 What happens to the users in remote offices if your WAN fails?
 What equipment is necessary for failover to the PSTN in these locations and what functions are lost?
 How many calls can you make between locations?
 How is 911 handled at my remote offices?

Scalability –
 How many users does the system support?
 What is required to add more – equipment and software?
 How many email ports are included?
 How many simultaneous calls between locations?

Management –
 Is the system designed for the customer’s staff to manage? If yes, to what extent?
 Does the management console show the status of each location and all users on one screen or do you have to use some type of remote access to see each location?
 Is the voice mail managed by this same console or is it managed separately?
 Is ACD managed separately?
 How many screens are needed to add a new user?
 Ask references how often they have to call their vendor for management issues.
 Are these calls billable or included as part of the maintenance?
 What is involved in adding and moving a user? What is involved in adding a new user at a remote location and how does that get relayed to the remote locations?
 What Call reports are available?

Usability –
 Can you see if another user is on the phone in any office?
 Can you see if another user is out of the office even if in a remote office?
 Do you have “Find Me”?
 What do you do if you want to work from another location, a hotel or even home?
 Does the system integrate with Outlook?
 Does the system have an on-line directory?

Cost of Ownership –

 How many servers or PCs will be necessary to support all of the applications associated with the system? Voice Mail? Unified Messaging? Desktop Interface? E911 Compliance? What about at the remote locations?
 How often has the vendor had to return for additional changes (and charges) since the initial installation?
 What training is necessary or recommended to manage the system?
 Are all necessary training costs included in the proposal?
 Is extended warranty or maintenance costs included? On the handsets?
 Are software updates included in the maintenance?
 Have you had any other additional expenses that were not part of the original proposal?

Other:

 Did your initial order include Workgroup or Call Center functionality?
 Does the price include Unified Messaging? How much for each? Is there an additional server necessary?
 Does the price include desktop user interface?
 Did you have any “surprises” such as the need for additional servers, licenses, training, network upgrades, etc?

Note:

Some vendors claim to have centralized management, while they really mean that they can access other locations system remotely. Some require synchronizing user databases (ie if a user is added at a location, you must remote access to all of the other locations and also add the new user to that database.) Some require multiple PCs or server to handle the different applications.

You can always haggle on price but as someone posted earlier 'you pays your money, you gets what you get'
You need a clear understanding of why you are going with voip and the benefits it will give you as a company. Then you can put your own value on it i.e. what is it worth to my company to implement this system?
Get in touch with some local suppliers and ask for refferal sites that you can speak to. See what their other users experiences have been with their systems. A well designed and properly implemented system should lead to few problems and a minimal administrative overhead. Price is always a consideration but don't let it be the overiding factor when choosing your supplier. An unreliable and featurless system is not worth the money you save, when thoses phones go down at 9;00 on Monday morning you will wish you had spent that little bit more. You will then be left with the problem of repeating this process to get the system you wish you had bought in the first place.

I definitely agree with most of the responders to this question that "Price should not be the number one consideration".

Some decisions are so critical to the core functioning of a company, that price should only be a factor after you have determined that a solution meets all or most of your organizations key criteria. The choice of a telecommunications provider is one of those decisions. You would not shop for brain a surgeon based on price, that would be ridiculous. A phone system is like the central nervous system of your company, it connects all parts of the organization.

Before you shop for a VoIP Service Provider you should determine what it is that is most important to your organization and then go out shopping. I would visit the websites of VoIP Providers to first learn about the technology each has to offer and find out if there is new technology that would really benefit your company.

After you have determined "Your Priorities", then go out and find VoIP Providers whose products fill your needs. I would then do research on your "Short List" of companies to make sure they are real companies and see if there are blogs or message boards where people have posted comments about that company. I would also do Twitter and blog searches using the company as a key word, you will be surprised how much information you will find.

One of the most important aspects of choosing a VoIP Provider is technical support. You are going to need this, a lot. A company's level of tech support is hard to nail down. You could ask the company for references, but how many of us have given out bad references. Again, I would search Twitter and the blogs for any clues.

Once you have decided on a particular VoIP Provider, you wanted to know "what is the best way to negotiate/haggle with the vendor". My response goes back to the brain surgeon analogy, if you haggle too much, you may have to settle for the next best brain surgeon. I am not sure this is a good idea.

Before you start haggling on price, determine exactly how much you are asking for and if it will actually change your decision. Are you just haggling for the sake of haggling, or is the lower price the only way you can sign a deal.

Here is a link to a blog post "7.5 Things to Consider When Choosing a VoIP Provider" http://blog.avadtechnologies.com/2010/06/75-things-to-consider-when-choosing....

Good Luck

If you are only concerned with price then you should go with the provider that gives you the most features and best rated service for your budget. In most cases a well established provider who is looking for a long term relationship with their client will waive some fee's and make some concessions to get you to sign up if you are a volume account.
Do a Google search for top VoIP providers in your area and call them to ask them about special offers that they may have.
Price should not be the most important thing when dealing with your main source of communication between you and your clients but I do understand that times like this make price a priority.
Good Luck.

Many good comments already posted. My two cents, from a cost perspective, make sure you understand total cost of ownership (probably over a 5 to 10 year period). When you include maintenance, software subscription and planned upgrades, the solution that appeared to have the lowest upfront cost often is the most expensive. Secondly, we often do a weighted scoring matrix (i.e. 30% price, 50% desired features, 20% perception of vendor support)

You can buy a bag or hardware anywhere, it's the support that you get from the reseller / partner versus price and expertise. If you work and design a system with a consultant, that consultant knows how you want the 400 to 700 features setup. Don't assume that the same setup will be understood by the low bidder. His answer will be "sorry we never discussed that implementation" and he will be right.
the difference in price for the new system will likely not effect the longevity and success of your enterprise. Your communication to the outside world will. You invested all the time and effort into selecting a solution, don't waste that.
You can always find cheaper, but maybe not better.