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Selkowitz Technology | Seattle’s small business network and telecom consultant

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Last year Microsoft introduced the Response Point phone system to great fanfare. I reviewed it after it came out and concluded that aside from one nifty but questionably useful feature, it was an underwhelming product when compared to TalkSwitch. Microsoft has since had a chance to update their product with a service pack and I felt a new comparison was due.

Picking a small business phone system isn’t easy. Chances are your business doesn’t buy phone systems often enough to know what’s available in the market and understand the nuances of each system. I boil it down to a few simple points - a small business phone system should deliver the features you need, it should be well supported as phones are usually critical to businesses, and the total cost of ownership should be reasonable.

Features
Let’s start with Response Point’s unique feature - speech recognition. At the auto attendant, callers can say “sales” instead of pressing 2; your staff can transfer a call by saying “transfer call to John Doe” instead of pressing transfer and the extension. My experience with these systems is mixed - if you think some names are hard to say, they’re even harder to get recognized. For larger capacity Response Point installs, you may run into their limit of 8 simultaneous speech recognition sessions. Bottom line is speech recognition is an interesting feature, but not a necessary one.

Beyond that, at the surface both systems look similar – auto attendant, transfers, parks, forwarding, voicemail, voicemail to e-mail, caller ID based routing, etc. But TalkSwitch bests Response Point in many beneficial ways. Here are three examples:

• Response Point has just one auto attendant and no concept of day or night mode to handle calls differently when you’re closed. TalkSwitch has 9 auto attendants and automatic mode switching to handle calls differently when you’re open, closed, or out for the holidays.
• Response Point can forward your office phone to your cell phone.
  TalkSwitch can forward, do call cascade to try to find you at multiple phones, or let the caller choose between leaving a message in voicemail or be redirected to your cell.
• Response Point can e-mail you your voicemail - but you still have to call in to delete the messages once you’ve listened to them. TalkSwitch lets you save and delete messages from your e-mail inbox, a huge timesaver. TalkSwitch can also notify you of voicemail by texting, paging, or calling your cell.

There’s also a slew of features only TalkSwitch has - call queues to deal with high call loads, calls can be transferred between offices if you have multiple locations, IP phones can be taken home and work exactly like in the office, you can send and receive faxes without a dedicated fax line which saves hundreds of dollars each year, etc. Even basic features like intercom and paging are built into every TalkSwitch - but not Response Point.

In my experience given today’s high gas prices, a big advanced feature driving phone system sales is being able to telecommute - to make and receive calls exactly like you were in the office. TalkSwitch can do it and Response Point still cannot.

Response Point still seems like a speech recognition showcase, not a fulfillment of small business’s telecommunications needs. TalkSwitch has been building small business phone systems for over a decade and with nearly 35,000 systems sold, they’ve had more time to learn the needs and build a feature-rich, mature product.

Installation and Maintenance
Both TalkSwitch and Response Point feature an easy point and click management interface - meaning no expensive service calls from the phone guy for minor changes. Response Point seems simpler, largely as it has fewer options. But there are some serious gaps in the Response Point management software - for example, you have to go into each phone’s web UI individually to set up their programmable buttons. All system configurations on the TalkSwitch are done through the TalkSwitch Management Software - including configuring phone buttons.

Service, Support and Upgrades
Phones are a critical part of most small business’s client communications - and unlike PCs, if your phone system has problems, you can’t just run out to the local office store and get a new one. Good support is absolutely crucial.

One concern about Response Point is an unclear support model. If you go to Microsoft’s Response Point site and go to the Help menu, they direct you to the hardware partners (Aastra, D-Link, Syspine). Go to the hardware partners’ sites and it’s still unclear - aside from a 1-year hardware warranty, it’s not clear what end-user support they offer or for what term.

TalkSwitch is very clear about their support policy - it’s free for life.
They’ve got great documentation, FAQs, e-mail support, and even free phone support. TalkSwitch also offers affordable extended hardware warranties to protect your investment.

TalkSwitch also has a clear upgrade policy - you get free software upgrades for life. In other terms, if you bought a system a few years ago running version 3 software, you get all the new features in 6.1 at no cost. Response Point has no stated upgrade policy - when version 2 comes out you may get it free, pay for the new software, or need to upgrade hardware.

While both systems can be self-installed - building a relationship with a local authorized partner is a great way to ensure not only that you’ll have an easy install but also onsite support should you need it. Your local partners will vary by city, but even in Redmond, Washington (Microsoft’s headquarters) you’ll find more experienced TalkSwitch partners than Response Point partners.

Conclusion
If speech recognition is at the top of your feature list, Response Point is the system for you. Otherwise TalkSwitch has a depth of configuration options and features that is still unmatched by Response Point’s update. Both are easy to install, but TalkSwitch makes many advanced settings easier. And TalkSwitch’s support and upgrade policy is clearly better.

But that’s not all to consider when picking a phone system - hardware options and purchase cost are important factors. My next post will compare TalkSwitch to Response Point in a number of example configurations.

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