RECOMMENDATIONS Advice for a newbie small bus owner

[Karl Ermatinger]

My brother and I run a small industrial distribution business in Michigan with 8 outside salesman and 5 inside staff that our parents started in 1975 but then retired in 2004.

I am interested in switching from an old digital Tateran system on a T1 to a VoIP system with primarily cell phone for the salesman and softphones/headsets for the inside staff.

I can't afford the high-priced big players like Ring Central et al. I've found and am trialing OnSIP.com pay-as-you-go which works fine, but limits and charges extra for call parking, BLF and voice mail.

I wondered what else is out there and found the nerd vittle website and then this forum. I see Incredible PBX for Wazo and PIAF5. Wazo seems more for the adventurer but good potential. PIAF5 / 3CX has a free promotion now but eventually requires fees similar to OnSIP.com.

What advice can you give me about choosing a VoIP service? Low cost is a big factor but I'm also looking for upside and future potential. It needs to be relatively low maintenance as I'm a business owner and can't get too mired in technical stuff but can do setup and tweeks. I'm also willing to hiring a consultant as appropriate.

Please help in whatever way you can.

Thanks,

Karl Ermatinger
Industrial Control
www.industrialcontrol.com

 

[briankelly63]

Everything has a steep learning curve for those who are not already software and operating system familiar. It's ok to learn and switch over slowly but you better not have any other time consuming hobbies as this will displace them. You'll always want to make it do more. I think you should also decide whether your business will really allow you the time and the experimentation to do this. I'd stay away from any cloud implementations as a newbie which can add more complexity. It might be wiser to see if someone from this forum does 'business' in your area and could setup or get you started on what you want. With there help you could tweak or learn things on something that already does basically what you want. Initially I would forward your existing business number to a new voip DID rather than move it to another carrier. A lot of things are in a state of flux at the moment.

 

[w1ve]

Karl,

PM Me. I do cloud-based Incredible PBX Implementations, have connections with many low-cost providers.
We can do a partnership for the setup and I can train you on how to maintain the pbx. I can so a solution sale, or give you consulting on how to do it yourself (even if you want the pbx local). It's pretty easy to get sub-penny rates ($0.002/min - $0.005/min) in North America. I know how to make your sales guys cells an extension on the pbx, and, the sales guys can make outbound calls with the company caller id -- lots of stuff like that.

Gerry