What’s going on in the world of VoIP business phone systems

Local is Better

HB Technologies are an IT Integrator based in Hawke’s Bay. With service coverage throughout New Zealand they specialise in providing top quality IT support services to businesses since 2007.  They currently support over 600 businesses and achieved the Supreme Award at the 2018 Pan Pac Hawke’s Bay Business Awards.

Reputation is Important

As business leaders, HB Technologies’ reputation is particularly important to them. In 2019 they were concerned with the number of support and technical issues they were having with the VoIP solutions that they were recommending to their customers.  This meant diminishing margins by requiring more staff resources to be allocated. Their reputation was also being eroded in the eyes of some of their valuable customers.

On a recommendation from an associate they decided to investigate the services of UFONE. After a  period of testing they committed to the migration of all their customers’ telephony services to UFONE.

 

HB Technologies VoIP specialist Carlie Jones says;

“That was the best decision we made. Support issues have all but disappeared and UFONE is providing a rock-solid, high-quality VoIP solution to our customers. We couldn’t be happier and have no hesitation in recommending UFONE. Their service matches our high-quality reputation in the marketplace”.

 

Insights Gained

The main insight HB Technologies gained is that overseas-based VOIP technology won’t deliver the same performance as a high-quality local provider. Whilst technically there may not be an issue, VoIP quality is very dependent on the connection between the end-user devices. “Tromboning” to an overseas location to connect to a hosted PBX service introduces time-lag. It also exponentially increases the chance of quality issues.

Technical support is also handicapped. The remote service has reduced ability to successfully liaise with local infrastructure providers to diagnose quality problems.

Local Experts

UFONE pointed out to HB Technologies that their VoIP core is right next door to the Hosted PBX platform eliminating connectivity and speed issues.

UFONE uses and advises on “best practice” configuration. This sets them apart from other services that don’t specialise in the VoIP solutions they support.  This includes configuration templates and on-premise SBC devices which eliminate most of the problems which HB Technologies were experiencing.

Formerly their service relied on a custom bespoke configuration which meant that software upgrades “broke” the Customer’s service. This required a custom build at each upgrade, increasing the time to update and increasing the cost to do so. Now with the UFONE service software upgrades are a breeze and work seamlessly every time.

Value Proposition

For HB Technologies the most important factor for growing an income stream from VoIP customers proved to be deciding on the right Service Provider. Support issues can easily soak up profit and credibility if and when things go wrong.

Make sure the VoIP provider you choose not only has a good reputation, and is competitively priced, but provides expert and immediate phone support with a VoIP engineer at the other end. UFONE is proud that HB Technologies chose them to provide the backend VoIP solution to their customers.

Soft Solutions – IT Reseller Channel

Since 1995 NZ-owned Soft Solutions has supplied the IT industry with computer products and as such live and breathe IT solutions, from network security to software and managed solutions, as well as VoIP hardware and software.

Soft Solutions are the premier distributor for the software-based PBX “3CX” which is a highly popular worldwide VoIP Telephony Solution.

They have also been responsible for training the IT community to use and deploy 3CX, as well as hosting regular seminars on behalf of 3CX.

Showcasing VoIP Telephony

Having developed the Channel, Soft Solutions were in a position to assess and compare the various providers who market and deploy 3CX to end customers. Criteria included:

• Complying with 3CX interoperability standards, in being able to demonstrate every technical feature and be confident it works “out of the box”.
• Maintaining their own high standard of technical proficiency in a VoIP provider.
• Quality and reliability of the service.

 

UFONE a cut above the rest

Like most businesses, for Soft Solutions their Telephone service is their lifeblood, and compromising on this is not an option. So after ‘looking under the bonnet’ of their 3CX providers, they chose UFONE to provide the connection between their own 3CX and the outside world.

 

Chris Fitzgerald, the CEO of Soft Solution says;

“In the end, it was an easy choice, UFONE was not only the first provider in NZ to achieve 3CX interoperability certification, but they were one of the first Platinum partners and have been supporting 3CX from early on. We believe that UFONE provides a service which is second to none and are happy to endorse their great service and technical expertise”.

 

In the past, the phone service in NZ has been taken for granted with huge expensive Exchanges providing bulletproof reliability. But now in the “Internet Age” as telephony has become a data system, the importance of local expertise has become critical, and achieving the required high reliability requires a lot of moving parts to work together. UFONE has worked hard to have a good balance of the right technology in their platform and services, and expert staff to maintain it.

UFONE has been providing Soft Solution’s phone services since January 2015, confident in the quality of its local service and expertise.