Working with vendors requires clear communication and expectations, good research, and strong management. These articles may help you develop successful relationships with your technology vendors and learn from the blunders of others.

-- by Ed Marks, Ohio

Issue: Callers with cell phones cannot afford to use their minutes for lengthy hold times common to a hotline. Ohio's solution: use technology that will allow cell phone clients to leave their number and be called back automatically when they are next in cue.

Working with Telephone Equipment Vendors
by Joan Kleinberg and Sue Encherman, Northwest Justice Project

No legal services program can survive without vendors. We have become fairly savvy about using them for items such as office supplies, office equipment and books. We are in more dangerous territory when purchasing items with which we have less comfort and familiarity. While we at Northwest Justice Project are not in a position to write the authoritative legal services article on the use of vendors, we can share our recent experience purchasing sophisticated software for our telephone system, with the hope that other programs may learn from our experience.

Questions for Vendors

by Joan Kleinberg and Sue Encherman, Northwest Justice Project

1. What will the system do that your system does not currently do?

Ask the vendor to go over all the features of the new item, not just the ones that were on your list of needed items. There may be features that will be very helpful that you had not anticipated. Those features may change the comparative desirability of various products.

2. Will the system perform each of the functions your current system performs that you want to keep?

Don’t assume that just because it’s a newer, bigger or more powerful system it will do every function your existing system does. Make a list of the important features you currently have and then go over them with the vendor to make sure your new system will have each of those features.

3. What are the costs, including:

a. hardware
b. software
c. preparation to meet system requirements
d. installation
e. maintenance
f. training
g. staff time including IT, implementation, user
h. consultant time

The cost of purchasing the item is not the only expense incurred in purchasing, installing and running new technology. We have found that bringing in new technology requires a significant amount of time from our network engineer and a lot of time for training and set- up. Sometimes changes need to be made to your existing configuration prior to installation of the new technology. All of these costs are part of the equation.

4. What are the system requirements? If you are adding to an existing system, what version of the system software do you need to be running to support the new system?

a. Will you need to upgrade the software on the system before an expansion/addition can occur?
b. Is your computer network configured properly to accept the new telephony? Have your system technician talk with the phone vendor’s technician before you buy.

Make sure the sales rep is knowledgeable about the network configuration needed for the product. Grill him or her mercilessly.

5. How are upgrades to the system handled? What are the costs involved?

Technology is very dynamic. Over time there will be upgrades to the system you are running. Ask how you will be notified of upgrades and the cost of implementing them.

6. If employing telephony: What are the effects on the network? Will you need to breach firewalls?

When venturing into computer telephony, remember that the computer network part is as important as the telephone part. Have your IT staff person or consultant meet with the vendor to discuss how the new product will interface with your existing network.

7. Will a new computer terminal be added to the system? Must it be dedicated? Is it included in the cost?

These are all questions that will affect the total cost of the project. There may be space considerations if more equipment is being added to the room or rack.

8. What is a reasonable estimate of the need for tech consultant or IT staff time at your end?

We use a consultant for network engineering, so there is a very real cost associated with time spent implementing technologies that impact the network. Even if you have in-house information technology staff, there will be a need for his or her time. It’s best to have an estimate of that time as you plan the project and include it in a grant, if applicable.

9. What training is available? What is the cost? What will the training cover?

New technology generally requires new training. Find out who will have to be trained and how training will occur. Lucent provides costly training at its training centers. We found it less expensive to bring a professional services person to our office to work with two people rather than send them both to the training.

10. Is technical support/maintenance included in the sale price? If so, what’s included? What’s the cost of maintenance if it’s not included or after the maintenance contract expires?

11. What are the possibilities for expansion? How many users will the system support without upgrade? What is the cost of upgrade for expansion beyond the current capability of the system?

When making a big investment in technology you want it to have the flexibility to meet your program’s needs over time. Thus, it is important to learn the costs of expansion and upgrade for both hardware and software. For example, to implement upgraded software you may need an additional processing card for the computer that runs the software. If it is a system with announcements, mailboxes or actual telephones, you will need to know how much announcement time there is, how many mailboxes or telephones there are and what it will cost to increase the amount.

12. Get the names and numbers of some current users of the system being purchased (references) and call them.

13. What are the reporting capabilities?

Figure out what information you will want to extract from the system and find out how you get the reporting capability to get that information. There may be different levels of reporting available (with differing costs associated). You should know which level gives you the desired data.

14. What do callers on hold/in queue hear? What other options are available?

If callers will spend time in queue you will want to make sure they hear something appropriate. If you use a music source, ask what the playing time is. The loop should be long enough that most callers won’t have to hear a repetition. You may want the ability to play different music sources on different lines/queues, for example, to serve a culturally distinct population.

15. What is involved in changing the way calls are processed? Can you change/program yourself or are professional services required? If the latter, what is cost? Availability?

As your system increases in sophistication, the range of possibilities expands. You will want to determine what is involved in changing the way calls are processed and decide whether it is a task you will learn to do in-house or whether you will use the vendor’s professional services to make the changes. The cost of training or professional services should be included when you evaluate the cost of the purchase and in any grant proposal to cover the costs of the project.

At Northwest Justice Project we are what one staff member calls "phone empowered." Your phone empowerment should start with the work you do with vendors to lead you to the system that is most appropriate for your program.

Download PDF 2003 BayLegal PhoneSystem RFP 

Most legal aid programs are not familiar with phone technology, and are unsure how to go about working with the vendor to get what they need. Learn from others' mistakes by reading the articles on working with vendors and selecting a phone system. Once you have determined what you want (you may have even worked with a phone consultant to do that), and you are ready to solicit bids for your project, read some of these sample RFPs (Requests for Proposals) for phone systems.

Features List and Definitions

Below, we have outlined basic features and terminology at-a-glance. Be aware that phones come with many features, and you can be led to think they are standard. They are not. You pay for them. We’ve divided the features into two categories: Basic and Advanced. Basic features likely most office managers are familiar with. Advanced features are common among most intake delivery systems, and a few are recent advances. Below is a thumbnail sketch to get novice managers introduced to the topic.