What’s Your Number One Consideration When Purchasing VOIP Equipment?

What VoIP questions do we field here at VoIP Supply

Being the number one online retailer of VoIP equipment, VoIP Supply and its employees experience a wide variety of customers on an everyday basis. Some are calling for replacement equipment, some for endpoint hardware, some for complete IP Phone systems, some for guidance and support on product applications, some for services such as technical support and product configurations. Each consideration is unique to you, the customer, and whether you’re an installer, reseller, or end-user, you will have certain considerations which need to be addressed. As you can see the list goes on, and each and every customer is unique in their own ways. As a sales engineer, I get to listen to and hear each and every customer’s request, and then make recommendations as to which product or application would correctly meet their specifications. This is often a daunting task, especially on larger IP PBX complete phone system orders…there are so many variables to cover before even offering a solution, then much fine tuning to get it just about right in the customer’s eyes. My question to all of you…what is the number one consideration when you call VoIP Supply for product inquiries?

Here is a short list of some concerns that I have seen and dealt with in the past, and have seen repeatedly. Please comment and add to the list as needed:

-Product cost

-Product warranty (VoIP Supply’s go³ or Manufacturers?)

-Product quality (Hardware and Software)

-Product functionality and features

-Product support

-Return policy (Can I return this product if it doesn’t meet my specifications?)

-Will this product work with my service provider?

-Past experience with the product (Good or Bad)

This is just a short list of concerns that I have heard from customers on a pre-sales basis in the past. Obviously this list continues to grow with every customer need and specification, and I encourage you all to post your comments on what you look for and consider when purchasing VOIP equipment from VoIP Supply.

Garrett Smith

Garrett is the former VoIP Supply CMO.

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View Comments

Jason says:

June 20, 2008 at 3:21 AM

My biggest thing is the leading manufacturer. Why? well they tend to be the company that calls all the shots as far new innovations. There are a few other reasons and they are more and better firmware updates. A manufacturer such as linksys tend to have the time and resources to continuously push out new firmwares to fix bugs and also minor bugs that other manufacturer may not feel that are important to fix. Also the bigger manufacturer tend to build there devices slightly stronger than needed to make make room for new features and standards that may be added in the future which in turn makes the device more "future-proof". To me price is important but quality is more important, if i have to keep buying an entirely new cheaper device everytime i turn around then technically it would be cheaper to spend a little more money for a better device that will last much longer in the first place. In my opinion linksys products aren't as good now as they were then however in my opinion they still make the best voip adapters. To anyone newcomer to voip over 98 percent of voips adapters will work with any provider. Except some providers lock there devices and only allow you to use there locked devices. If any voip company (mainly the locked providers try this stunt) claim that there service is "special" or a new technology that no one else has i can honestly say they are lying to you (except skype they do have there own and proprietary codec. However if the company claims the above statement that they are special then this is a dead give away that this is a company that should not be trusted. Hope my comment and suggestions help!!
Chris Heinrich says:

June 20, 2008 at 9:00 AM

Product Quality and performance....who wants to buy a product..any product that is not going to perform up to par? This somewhat goes with what you are talking about, when a company constantly updates firmware to either fix bugs or add new features. A company that pays close attention to this will almost always come out, well most of the time, with a quality performing product. I guess from my experience with a wide-variety of VoIP equipment, I have seen both, and its very difficult when configuring a device, and part of the hardware is not working right, or the hardware is working fine and the software is very "flaky". When you get into a crapshoot like that, it is very possible that you run into a dead end, and usually end up returning the product as defective.