When first approached by Jerry Ellstrom on a sales call in December he brought a Linksys SPA 942 VOIP phone with him and plugged it into an internet connection at the salon and started making calls. He said that a VOIP system could save me hundreds of dollars compared to my Cincinnati Bell phone system and that installing it was quick, easy, simple and uncomplicated. I was so intrigued by the technology that I considered selling it for him, or maybe even trying to buy into the company. Basically, a VOIP phone system would save me $100 per month on my phone bill, so when he sent me a quote on 12/19 it was easy to see that the ROI would be about six months. I asked him about our message on-hold and fax (I never thought to ask about the V/MC terminal), and he said the installation would be seamless and there'd be absolutely no interruption of service. I reiterated how critical to our business the phone system was and he assured me there'd be no problem.in fact, I asked about this many times with both Jerry and Mike because I knew how important it was and I knew I was going to be responsible and berated by my wife if everything didn't go smoothly. She is more of a "if it's not broke" type of person, whereas I'm more of an "early adapter lets embrace new technology for the benefits" type of person!
I dragged my feet for several months waiting until I thought our cash flow would permit buying the four phones (SPA942) that we needed to take full advantage of the VOIP technology. Jerry had told me that we could use our old phones, but we wouldn't be getting the full features of the system. I wanted new phones with the new technology anyway. I stayed in touch with Jerry until mid- March when I said I was ready to switch to the new system.
A new sales rep, Mike Barnes, visited me the week of 3/12 and we talked about the system. During the ensuing conversation (s) I asked several times about the install and the changeover to the new system. His responses were always so casual and confident that he gave me the impression that he either was brilliant and knew the system inside and out, or he was just blowing me off because, he too, believed that the installation was going to be a cake walk. Either way I believed both Mike and Jerry. I told Mike I wanted to order the phones myself (for the cost savings) and that I'd like help with the specifications to make sure I ordered the right phones. He recommended the SPA942 phone from Linksys. I ordered the phones from IP Phone Warehouse on Wednesday 3/21 and they were delivered on Wednesday 3/28.
During this time Mike worked with Lauren on 2 or 3 occasions to set up each phone with its own SIP account, to program all the necessary settings and to program the phone call management system. He also contacted Cincinnati Bell to get our numbers ported over.
We waited almost two weeks for the porting and on Wednesday April 11 I got confirmation via e-mail that each of our numbers was in Talus Communications possession.
I was amazed when I got a call from Lauren on her cell phone to tell me that none of the phones were working that Wednesday morning. I immediately called Mike to inform him of our problem and he arrived "on the scene" between 10:30 and 11:00am. Why hadn't he set the phones up the day before so that when our old system stopped working that the new system was in place ready to go? What took him so long to get to my company to start fixing this catastrophic problem?
The list of events that transpired over the next month are cataloged in a separate document. Suffice to say that this was the worst, most stressful and most expensive business decision we've made since my company opened in March!
I feel that Talus Communications "went to school" at my company because they didn't know what they were doing and how to handle the problems. Tim and Mike said on more than one occasion that "we've never seen this before!", but we're your average Main Street merchant that has computers, a network, a message on-hold, a fax machine, a V/MC processing terminal, etc. They had no Pre-Installation Checklist of things they needed to do to ensure a smooth installation, for instance,
1. Is the signal from the local cable provider properly conditioned and of the proper intensity?
2. Should the cable company provide a new cable modem?
3. Does the router need to be updated and/or replaced?
4. Should the router have QoS (Quality of Service)?
5. Does the network switchbox need to be replaced with one that has QoS (Quality of Service)?
6. Is the existing Server set-up properly to handle a VOIP system?
7. Should the Server be replaced?
8. Is the existing V/MC processing terminal compatible with a VOIP system? If not, what is the solution? A software download and update, or a new processing terminal?
9. Does the merchant have music on-hold or do they have a message on-hold system? If so, is their existing system compatible or do they need a new system? Can the existing message on-hold file be converted and uploaded, or do they have to get a new one made?
10. What's necessary for the fax machine to work?
11. Should the router, switchbox and all other "phone related" devices be on an Uninterruptable Power Supply for battery back up in case of power failure?
Tim was literally groping his way along trying to figure everything out as he went! This is evidenced in an e-mail from Bill, my IT guy, dated 4/26,8:04am after he remotely logged into our server and fixed a bunch of changes Tim made to our network server.
"I spoke to him (Tim) and he did not have any explanation as to how the network had problems. He quoted a few things he found in the event logs, but none of them would indicate a network problem. I think he is grasping at straws. He said he was not a network guy.
I think just adding a UPS should fix things. If that does not do it I would recommend replacing your network switch with a layer 3 switch to prioritize voice."
And again on 4/26,11:50am:
"I found they changed the following settings in desperation on your server to try and fix their phone issues:
Changed the DNS servers, added the RR dns to the local server. This would keep the internet up if DNS fails on the server, but who cares about the internet when you cannot get to local resources.
They set the static IP on the server to automatic. This caused DNS issues as well as DHCP issues.
I noticed NetBEUI was turned on. I don't think they require any NetBEUI traffic. This would cause all kinds of traffic on the network and possible phone issues. I turned this off for now.
I also found DHCP was turned enabled on the router and was mysteriously uninstalled on the server. We did not setup the router to pass out DHCP. I had to reinstall DHCP on the server and reconfigured the scope. I turned off DHCP on the router as it would only cause network routing/DNS issues. I had Mark reboot a workstation to verify both internet and local network traffic was working fine.
I spent an hour fixing these issues.
I checked the backups and they appear fine".
On one occasion when I was frustrated about the "fragility" of the new VOIP system because I just learned that every hardware component related to the phone system required a battery backup and that every time the router went down my whole network went down, I asked Tim why or how that could be? I'm not a network guy, but I know that my local area network will work with or without an internet connection. Tim was telling me that my network required the router, hence the internet, to work. I knew that was wrong!
Worse than their statements over and over again that the switch to a VOIP system would be a quick, easy, uncomplicated transition with NO DOWNTIME, is the fact that they're leaving us hanging and not focusing on getting our VOIP system at my company bulletproof. On Wednesday May 2, they assured me in a meeting they were going to be more attentive, keep me in the loop and get the job done, but at this writing, I haven't heard from them since Monday, 5/7 after I called and left a message for Jerry about the status of a new 16-port QoS switchbox they were going to order and install with the help of my IT guy.
Add to this the fact that with the exception of some on-the-fly spot training we've never received proper training on how the phones work, how to add/delete users, viewing log files, setting protocol, etc. It's easy to see how the experience has left us angry and bewildered that a company would portray themselves as committed, expert, professionals in their field only to avoid our calls and abandon us with such a critical system in shambles.
Clearly, Talus Communications is "getting on with business' and leaving my company with an unstable, unreliable, partially installed phone system. Our phones are our most critical system and are our "life blood" because we rely so heavily on a large number of new and existing clients spending only $75 on average per visit. When analyzing the numbers by comparing the same period of time in 2006 and the company showed a 15% growth from 4/1 to 4/10 before our phone problems began. For the period of time when we first began to have serious phone problems on 4/11 and going through 4/25, from 2006 to 2007 the company experienced a 10% decline in total revenue. The decline was $3000.00 and when you consider that we were on track to be 15% ahead, that's $7500.00 in IMMEDIATE lost business. When you consider our new client retention rate is about 33% and that the average client returns every 8 weeks spending $75 dollars, then over through January we've lost an additional $9900.00 in revenue.
During this period between 4/11 and 4/25 when we lost this revenue the owners of the company had to make an Officer Loan of $3000.00 to the corporation to make payroll on Friday 4/27.
In addition to the revenue losses we experienced, I calculate the number of wasted hours by key personnel to be the following:
1. Owner (hourly rate - $150.00)
a. At company troubleshooting 35 hours
b.V/MC Processing Terminal Problem 20 hours
c. Breakroom Computer Goose Chase 15 hours
d. IT companmy Consulting 3 hours
2.Co-Owner (hourly rate - $150.00)
a.V/MC Charge Card Manual Entry and Settlement 6 hours
b. At company Troubleshooting Client and Employee issues 12 hours
3. Lauren, Front Desk Manager (hourly rate - $13.00)
a. Working with Michael on Set-up 15 hours
b. Troubleshooting Phone & Client Issues 15 hours
At this writing on Monday, May 14, we are still without our message on-hold, fax capability and a stable phone system.
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