I have a couple good law firm client references locally that we installed, but the largest is only about 20 extensions. I have a larger law firm that I should be able to win the deal if I can provide a reference of a larger law firm running Fonality. Can be a law firm anywhere. It just needs to be large and running Fonality and be good/referencable.
If you know of reference larger law firm, please let me know ASAP.
Thanks,
Dave Kinsey
dkinsey@totalnetworks.com
602-412-5001
Is this for Pro or CE?
The problem with reference sharing is that the integrator is the weak link not the software. The reference would be for you.
If this is Pro your Fonality channel rep should be able help you.
If you had OTTS certification you would be able to obtain assistance from the OTTS community.
Instead your first post is asking for a reference on the forum.
Scott
aka "Skyking"
We are a Platinum certified Fonality reseller and have tried several times to get a larger law firm reference client from my sales rep and also from others within the Fonality organization. Fonality has not been able to provide me with any reference clients that match what my client has asked for. When you go to fonality.com, they now have success stories, but their largest success story under legal is about the same size as my personal success story law firm. Not only do they love the system, we've been written up in the main local legal magazine for Phoenix where this client raves about their phone system and the great job we did for them.
I have phenomenal personal references for my company, for general IT services and other more specialized IT services. We've only been doing phone systems for a little over a year, but in that time, we've established several outstanding references including a smaller law firm (~20 people).
Additionally, my client loves our IT services that we provide. We are the natural fit, but they want to validate that they will not be the largest law firm in the world using Fonality. I understand the request. They want that extra validation. I have many large law firms as my clients, larger than this firm, but I don't have one that's using Fonality. My client doesn't view my firm as the "weak link", they don't view Fonality as "the weak link". They just want validation backing up their decision.
I'm hoping to find such a reference client if one exists. Do you know of any large law firms using Fonality? I hope there's one out there that serve as a reference.
Thanks,
Dave Kinsey
President
Total Networks
dkinsey@totalnetworks.com
602-412-5001
I'm the owner of my company and it's important that my team has the right certification and training. Before I considered selling Fonality, I insisted that I had two of my engineers formally trained and certified. My company's reputation hangs on doing things right the first time.
I have two engineers that have been through the FtOCC training. Is there some sort of other training that they should be going through beyond this?
Also, I'm not the techy guy in my company, but I'm happy to share any experiences that we've had. We've done a number of different installations.
Probably the most unusual was a Real Estate company with about 70 people total (about 60 RE agents). They wanted to manage all of the DID's, but the bulk of the numbers were to RE agents who only had cell phones. We were able to accomplish a fairly low-cost installation using VM only extensions (which are free) for the agents, but you need to have at least trixbox ENTERPRISE (almost all of our installations have been enterprise or call center). This Real Estate firm was crazy-focused on cost and wanted to do everything to control costs, but they also loved Fonality. If anyone has any questions about a Real Estate company, I think we learned a fair amount on this one.
Most other installations have been simpler. We have run into some issues/limitations in the Aastra phones where we may stop carrying them to encourage people to go Polycom and continue to carry the Grandstream GXP-2000 as a lower-cost alternative.
If anybody knows of a large law firm that they know is running Fonality or even think they are running Fonality, please let me know.
Thanks,
Dave Kinsey
President
Total Networks
602-412-5001
I would be interested in what you state as issues / limitations to Aastra phones? I had originally been provisioning Grandstream when first got started, but since integrating Aastra's XML scripts and trixboxCE, we've had very good success (97+ extension church /educational facility; 16 extension Vet hospital, etc).
Since working with the Aastra's, you'd have to pay me to not consider them as my first choice
Thoughts?
There are some things about the Aastras that seem appealing. I'm just dealing with a few issues at an extremely high level. One issue that is irritating is that there are some IVRs (US Airways reservation line for example) that don't seem to behave very well. You call the number and the Fonality system doesn't show that it's connnected, this has to be a US Airways issue, most IVRs work fine. Polycom or Grandstream don't care that the call isn't answered. Aastra appears to and will not let you punch numbers. From a client's perspective, the Polycoms and Grandstreams that he has work OK, the Aastra are broken. I called Aastra support and after much repeated prodding I got "maybe it's a bug, if it is it won't be fixed for a long time". Not good, when I sell to high-end clients like law firms that aren't very forgiving. That's my biggest concern. Granted, doesn't happen with most IVRs, but all it takes is one experience like this for some demanding clients to be disappointed.
Another issue, is that the Polycoms support headset integration much better with electronic hookswitch capability to the headset. Aastras require that you use a headset lifter. Polycom much more elegent. I've got a Polycom 450 coming in to evaluate now that it's out and Fonality Platinum certified. I have a feeling it may be our mainstream phone since it's got a price point that's a little more attractive than the 550, but looks much more functional than the 330/331.
Just my $0.02. And my target market is professional business where I'm selling mostly Trixbox pro enterprise edition or occasionally call center. This is a more cost-effective alternative to a Cisco or similar and IMHO with the HUD which is more intuitive.
I'll try that. I've never found myself wanting to post anything. My technical folks may have, not sure.
I've worked the Fonality process with my rep and I also know Corey Brundage, VP Marketing for Fonality (not well, but I kind of rememberd him from when we both used to work at Inter-Tel/Mitel) and we talked a little on the phone and met in person last year, so I've pinged him too. Doesn't seem like Fonality has a good system to really keep track of just who their install base is by industry. Although, I think that they're working on it. It just may also be that law firms are very conservative and the larger the firm, the more conservative. So, perhaps there are no really large law firms out there running Fonality yet. I'll ping the Pro forum to see if anyone there knows someone.
I'd hate to end up with one of my long-time IT services client going with something like an Avaya system, just because other law firms have Avaya. I don't see them going Cisco, although I've had other larger law firms IT clients where they just had to have Cisco and I didn't get a shot at the phones since I don't want to carry Cisco (too many other people carry them and I just think they're overpriced and not as friendly as a Fonality system).
Hopefully someone in the Pro forum knows a large law firm using Fonality that I haven't heard of.
Member Since:
2010-08-10