I got a 7960 for evaluation purposes. I was planning on upgrading our phone system and wanted to see if Cisco's product was any good. Short answer: Nice phone, horrible service.
Support? I called Cisco looking for support on the phones. They told me to go through a reseller, and I could find one on their website. I contacted a local reseller, listed as having the Cisco line on Cisco's website and guess what - they had no idea what I was talking about. Seems they didn't even know they were listed on Cisco's website to begin with.
I tried a second reseller with similar results.
I finally got ahold of someone at Cisco to sell me the support contract, but it took three weeks and a couple of follow up phone calls for them to process the paperwork and assign me a number. You'd think Cisco would have an easy sign up over the web for this stuff, but no. You've got to send them a check (Why wouldn't you take a credit card???) and answer a barrage of questions before you get the thing.
I wondered why a company like Cisco would make you jump through so many hoops. I soon got my answer: one of their sales reps called within days to discuss purchasing more product. "I'd be glad to talk to you about it," I told him, "but we're a bit premature. I need to evaluate your phone with a current image and I'm getting nowhere with your technical support. Any chance you could speed up the process? It might help you get more business..."
No chance. After three weeks worth of runaround, I finally got my SIP image. Again the phone was nice, but the service wasn't. The price definitely wasn't. Oh, and let's not forget about the software license requirement and the power cube (purchased separately of course) Add all that up and you're paying alot for what you're getting.
I went with the Polycom phones and never looked back. They're every bit as nice as the Cisco phones for a lot less money.
John
Paul Mahler wrote:
I have recieved far more that my money's worth in technical calls to Cisco
about my 7960 telephones. They respond immediately. They keep working until
the job is done. The pull in whatever resources are neccessary. They have
never failed to find and fix the problem. If you want professional, real technical support you should be willing to
pay for it, or in this case part of it. Paul Mahler
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2004 7:37 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Cisco 7960 SIP Images
What you and so may others on this lise seem to forget is that Cisco is a
company offering bsuiness products for businesses. Businesses typically pay
by check and wire transfer, especially for items such as this.
If you want home-user pay-by-credit-card service, buy products from Belkin's
home line and similar.
Oh...what's that? None of these cheesy Stocked-at-Costco hardware companies
have any VoIP phones worth a crap? Then deal with the fact that you are
buying from a company who doesn't target home users, and deal with it. It
costs Cisco more money than they make on the contract to offer SmartNet on a
single device like this. You're lucky they don't have a minimum device
limit/contract cost of something like 5 devices or $300/year. I'm guessing
this type of policy would hardly effect more than several hundred of their
customers, most of them with 7960's and similar.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of John Baker Sent: Sat 3/27/2004 4:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Cisco 7960 SIP Images
[massive amounts trimmed]
No, you can't use a credit card. You have to send the #$!@@$#'s a check. It's really stupid, but it's the Cisco way.
John
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