VoIP Telephone System Shopping Checklist
All VoIP phones systems have many more features than you would ever need. The checklists out there are extensive. We offer some critical and deep questions to ask.
Terms
- What is my full bill with all taxes and fees. I need to know the final check amount.
- Will I be in a contract? What is the early termination penalty.
Voice Quality
- Where is your VoIP data center? Explain how you control the path my VoIP signal takes to get to your data center?
- If you provide backup Internet, how fast does it switch over?
- Do you compress your voice audio or do you use full g.711 audio?
- How many Internet carriers are between my phone and your voice servers?
Critical Features
- Can I park and pickup calls on cordless phones and on desk telephones?
- What features will I miss that I had on our old phone system?
- Do you fix my Caller ID Name sent when I make calls if it is wrong?
- How do you support door phones?
- How do you handle after hours messages and paging
- How accurate is your voicemail to text transcription feature?
- Do you offer conference phones and what is the cost?
Telecom Expertise
- When is a premise based VoIP PBX better that fully hosted telephones?
- How long have you been selling telephone systems?
- Tell us three times that you failed and why?
- What is your largest VoIP phone system install?
- Who are your largest customers?
- Can I see a demo?
Security and Continuity
- Explain your security methods to protect my voice calls from snooping and also protect my computer network from intrusion due to your equipment.
- Explain your Internet backup process.
- Does my VoIP travel on a dedicated single carrier connection or is it over the open internet?
Install and Service
- Explain your porting process
- When I call you, who do you need to call?
- Are you a phone company or a reseller / rebiller? (Does a single entity bill you for my telephone service and/or telephone sets?)