As many of our readers may know, Affordable Communications is a much respected name in the Las Vegas valley dental industry. Over the years, we have installed wiring and/or phone systems in approximately two hundred dental offices. So we were not surprised when one of our dental clients contacted us about upgrading to a new phone system.  While we had done some additional wiring for this office in the past, we did not do the initial wiring or phone system installation.  Therefore, we were very exciting for the opportunity to get one of our systems installed at this location.

We provided the client with two quotes.  The first was for a cost effective system that would meet all of their current needs.  The second estimate was a more advanced system with additional features and room for expansion in case the doctor expanded his practice in the coming years.  The second estimate cost approximately 20% more than the first, but the doctor trusted our recommendation that this system was worth the extra cost due to the additional features, flexibility, and room for expansion.  As an added bonus for our client, we contacted Panasonic and were able to get them to provide an additional 2 years on the warranty for the hardware.

As is normally the case with dental offices, it is next to impossible to do an install during their hours of operation without getting in someone’s way.  Lucky for us it was the holiday season and they were closing their office early on the Friday before Christmas for their company holiday party.  This gave us the opportunity to install their new system during our hour of operation and not disrupt their business in any way.  We arrived at 1pm just as their office was closing up.  We unpacked all of their new hardware and as soon as everyone was gone, we began uninstalling the system that was in place.  One problem we ran into was that the phone jacks in the building had to be re-terminated. It was a minor inconvenience, but we were able to resolve this problem quickly.

The total installation took about three hours.  We called the doctor as we were finishing up and he and his office manager came back to the office to let us out and see their new phones.  They were very impressed with the design and functionality of the Panasonic DT series of phones.  We returned on Monday to provide the staff with training on their new system and we told the doctor if he has any questions, we are just a phone call away.  In the end, it was a win-win situation. 

Recently, Affordable was contacted by one of our long term clients. Like many businesses in Las Vegas, they were moving their offices. They have a working Panasonic system we sold them a few years ago, but there new office was already furnished with an NEC DS2000 system. They were interested in selling us back their old system and purchasing some additional phones and programming for the NEC system they would be using.  As always when moving a client to a new location, I like to do a survey of the new location first.  Upon my review, I noticed that the NEC system in the new location was actually a discontinued system.  Lucky for Affordable, we have great suppliers and they were able to find us the equipment we needed to make this system work to the client’s specifications.  However, we would not be able to guarantee we could provide hardware for this system in the future.

I felt it made more sense to just move the current Panasonic system they had then purchase new hardware for a discontinued system, so I prepared two estimates for the client. First, was to provide 5 new phones, an expansion card, and reprogram the NEC system.  The second estimate was to just move their current Panasonic system to their new location.  Because the second estimate was for labor only and no additional hardware was required it was less than half the cost of the other estimate.  Obviously, the client trusted our advice that spending more money to expand a discontinued system wasn’t a good solution for them and went with the less expensive estimate that we recommended.  We are happy to have the job and the client is happy that we provided them options and helped save them money.

This story portrays exactly what we are about at Affordable Communications Inc.  Of course we like to generate revenue so our business can thrive, but it is just as important that we provide our customers with the knowledge we have of the telecom industry, so we can help them choose the solution that is right for their business.