Premises IP Telephony Issues About What You'd Expect

A survey of 475 ShoreTel prospective customers found key issues you might expect, including desires for simplicity, reliability, ease of use and management, reduced costs, and easier integration with business processes.

Nearly 81 percent of respondents expressed a desire to simplify their communications system yet only 47 percent, less than half, have actual goals in place to help them achieve this.

Of system capabilities most important to IT managers,  80 percent of respondents indicated ease of use for end users, 80 percent indicated reliability, and 76 percent indicated ease of management.

The survey also revealed that the highest ranked causes of complexity are “Integrating communications system with business processes,” “integrating new equipment with legacy systems,” and “the number of remote or mobile workers.”

The top three system qualities that are most important to end users include ease of use, reliability, and sound quality.

Among the issues seen as most challenging were management time and complexity; costs for moves, adds, and changes; end-user complaints and difficulties; and inconsistent or incompatible systems.

Other irritations were after-sale costs, which 65 percent of respodents indicated they were frustrated by “many invisible costs after purchase.”

About 63 percent were frustrated by “systems that are hard and costly to manage” and 57 percent were frustrated by “systems that are complex and hard to use and learn.”

None of that should come as news to suppliers of IP telephony systems.

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