Much to their credit “Commander phone systems” have become a generic term like “Kleenex” has for tissues. Many customers call and ask for a “commander phone system” quote not realising that it isn’t actually a brand. Commander have always purchased their systems from manufacturers and then relabelled them with the Commander branding. This is why it’s rather confusing for customers that already have one. In the past 10 years Commander phone systems have comprised manufacturers such as Avaya, NEC, Samsung, Siemens, Nortel, Lake and more.
If you’re speaking with Commander it’s important to understand which brand of actual phone system it is. This way you’ll be in a position to accurately compare apples for apples. In the current market they have opted for Siemens, Avaya and Samsung as their key offerings. It’s no indication that the brands they have chosen are the best but more likely the ones they’ve obtained the best wholesaling arrangement for.
When comparing quotes you may have for Commander phone systems you should always try and look at the phone system and the call rates as two distinct elements. As a phone call carrier also, companies like Commander and Telstra often try and bundle the two elements together. By including your call rates it makes customers “stickier”. This means that customers are less likely to leave as they have all their communication services under one umbrella.
Customers are happy to change phone system providers but more reluctant to do so for their phone lines. The old adage “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” seems to be the prevailing mentality. Other customers are simply afraid because they can’t afford any issues with their phone lines.
So why should you look at the commander phone system and phone calls separately?
The simple reason is that most customers haven’t changed their phone carrier for years. They’re unaware that phone call rates (with the increased popularity of VoIP services) have fallen so dramatically. As a result the sales person is more often than not able to save you money. Depending on what your monthly savings translate to, they can then partially or fully offset the cost of the new phone system. On the surface deals like this look fantastic. And compared to what you current situation is they typically are. What you don’t realise is that the phone call rates being offered (that facilitate the savings on the commander phone systems) could actually have been cheaper somewhere else. By breaking the two components apart you can potentially save $1000’s.
We’ve seen customers that have had quotes from other companies where the system prices are massively inflated. Seeing a phone system with a true value of $5,000 quoted at a monthly figure that equates to $12,000+ is not uncommon at all. We even had one customer quoted $18K for a $5K solution! The sad thing is this particular customer was actually about to commit because the system was almost fully offset by their new call rates. To them it still looked good. The reason they rang was for a last minute sanity check and they are very happy they did. When we quoted the proper price of $5K and still delivered the same phone call savings the customer was now cash positive! That extra money wasn’t going to line the suppliers pockets but their own!
So remember when looking at commander phone systems to make sure you know which brand you are being offered and do your homework on both the telephone system and the phone call rates available in the market.
