Telephone Systems Planned Obsolescence

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a new client this week about aging business telephone systems. It was clear that in his case his equipment is still doing its job and operating well, but he was going to have to replace. Only because it was not being supported by the manufacturer anymore. This is what I call a gotcha” is that either the manufacturer is out of business or you have become a victim of “planned obsolescence”.

Planned Obsolescence is a marketing strategy whereby the manufacturer will build a business phone system that by design will become difficult to technically support and/or the phone system's expansion,
replacement or repair equipment becomes unavailable after "x" amount of years (usually 2 -  5 years).
The manufacturer will usually send you a "Dear John" letter or email saying something like this; "Dear customer, We regret to inform you that we can will no longer offer technical support or replacement parts for your business telephone system and Auto Attendant Voice-mail System as of "x" date. However, we will certainly be happy to sell you a new Business Telephone System that we can support for you. We appreciated you past business and encourage you to call our sales department for a supportable replacement".

Boy, that is cold!

And so if you are at the end of your phone system's obsolescence cycle you may find yourself needing to relocate, reprogram, expand, train or repair your business telephone system / voice-mail system.
This ends up forcing you to buy a new business phone system that puts you right back into the same "planned obsolescence" cycle.

This occurs time and time again with end users even though their phone system is working perfectly fine! It doesn't seem fair does it?

The good news is that a number of forward thinking organizations, such as Metro-tel, recognizes the need to support customers that have older phone systems ("legacy") and so have accumulated a vast library of Repair Programming Manuals along with a vast inventory of spare replacement parts and elements.

So before you "trash" a system that has been working well for you, think about contacting us in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, or your local supplier.