Dial Communications only handles a single manufacturer of phone systems, Toshiba. Many dealers like to handle virtually any phone system out there, Mitel, Panasonic, NEC, Avaya, Meridian; but this only ensures that their technicians are stretched too thin. When you have to learn so many different systems, you cannot be truly expert at any of them. Nor can you stock all the parts you need on a regular basis.
So we decided to go with only one manufacturer. After a great deal of research into the different phone systems available - Toshiba was chosen for a number of different reasons. They are a leader in the field, meaning that their phone systems will be competitive both price-wise and feature-wise with anything else available. Toshiba always try to ensure upwards compatibility - meaning that you can continue in most cases to update only the necessary components, and not your entire system to gain new features. Toshiba phone systems are built in a modular way - any components that go bad can be quickly swapped out.
For example, a recent electrical storm took out the power supply of one of our customers, a local bank; and it took the technician just 15 minutes to swap out the bad power supply, and replace it with a new one. This means that downtime is minimal, all of the customer's unique phone programming is still in place, and the cost was low. Needless to say, this customer took the advice of the technician, and their phone system is now plugged into a UPS, which would have prevented this problem in the first place.
Another customer of ours is expanding their business, and needs to have IP telephone capability - they will have a sales staff that is working in different areas apart from the main company location. So we have upgraded their phone system - and the phones remain the same - the programming was all saved and moved to the new system, and their Voice Mail programming was completely transferred to their new system. Total 'downtime' - about 10 minutes. This would have been difficult, if not impossible, on many other phone systems, since many phone system vendors require a different type of phone for each of their phone systems. Upgrading the phone system processor would have meant changing out all the phones.
In addition to Toshiba's great modularity, it's reliability has been quite noticeable. The bank, for example, that needed to replace their power supply after an electrical storm, hasn't called us for 15 years. That's how long they've had their phone system. (I know, I'm the technician who installed it!) When you understand that phone systems are nothing more than highly specialized digital computers, it's actually amazing to consider; after all, can you point to a computer at home or at your business - that's been there for 15 years?
Toshiba's reliability reflects well on our company, our customers who do decide that they want to upgrade invariably decide to upgrade to a newer Toshiba model, rather than any other phone system. That makes us look good, and it keeps us in business. If you don't have a Toshiba phone system, ask your business associates who do - what their opinion is, then give us a call to see how a Toshiba phone system can improve your business.