What makes a good telephone system maintainer?

I’ve enjoyed working in the telecoms industry for nearly three decades and during that time have come across a variety of different engineering and support models rolled out to customers. From the complex global multi-site solution to the simple system there are key questions that should always be asked of your maintainer.

Here’s our list of the Top 5 things that make a good telephone system maintainer:

1. Knowledge

   How much experience and expertise do the support team have? Check what accreditations the engineers have and that they are fully qualified to manage your system. It’s also worth asking how long the engineers have been providing support, after all there’s no accounting for the value of experience.

2. Locality

   A large proportion of telecoms support can be performed remotely but the ability for a support team to be onsite quickly is invaluable. An efficient support team will operate based on location so that you are supported by the nearest engineer at all times. It’s also worth asking how many engineers there are in the team.

3. Support

   What support options are offered? Depending on the hours you work you need to make sure you’ll be able to get support as and when you need it – check what options are available for out of hours issues. Any team that doesn’t offer 365/24/7 care may not be able to provide you with the support you need.

4. Training

   Who provides the user training once your system is in place? Ideally you want to receive training straight from the installation engineers as they understand better than anyone the structure of the system and how to get the best out of it. Involving a third party can cause a number of issues – at the very least they won’t fully understand the system and how it works for you if they’ve not installed it. If they can’t answer your queries as they arise, it’ll create a disjointed experience for everyone.

5. Stock

   Does the support team have immediate access to stock? Preferably, they would hold stock so that they can react quicker to any requests you have for new or replacement kit. We hold approximately £1/2 million of stock for just that reason.