If there's something wrong with your phones. Who you gonna call?

• Many companies today use the services of Virtual Office providers. Phone number and email are often the only way to connect with them. If these stop working then a company can easily grind to a standstill.
  
• When a situation arises that requires a quick response, there's no time to wait until you have all the information together.
  
• You need to know what needs to be done first and how long it’s going to take to recover all the phone numbers?
  

Do you know what the damage would be if your IT stopped working?

It’s usually only when something happens that companies realise how many vital areas of their business depend on the functioning of just one piece of hardware. One of them is a private branch exchange (PBX) that controls access to the public telephone network for all telephones in the company or building.

Virtual Office and Call Handling companies use the power of telephony to identify who a call is intended for and then either direct the call accordingly or answer the call appropriately on behalf of the client (tenant). Imagine the impact on your business of losing such a service even for just a few minutes.

Few companies in the service industry can accurately calculate the fallout that a company will suffer if a major IT component fails for a day or a week. But large and expensive equipment is not so easy to replace, especially if you run 3,000 office buildings in 900 cities and across 120 countries as does our client.

Many operators therefore have adopted the principle: As long as it works, don’t touch it and just hope you can replace the equipment before it stops working.

Emergency procedure. Step by step.

But if one of the PBXs really stops working, you need to act urgently. This was the case with the Regus Center in Utrecht, where the old, unsupported Nortel system met the telephony graveyard and of course, there were no spare parts to be had for love nor money

Here’s how it all unfolded:

23. 11. 2018 15:17, Friday

First comms that nothing worked. Unfortunately, the client was unable to provide more information. What exactly had stopped working, how many people were disconnected or how many phone numbers didn’t work.

There was no time for further investigation. Based on our previous experience, we chose the necessary type of hardware, verified stock levels, bought the necessary spare parts and booked flights to Utrecht.

24. 11. - 25. 11, the weekend

When an issue like this happens just before the weekend you have to take the good with the bad. First of all, a lot of businesses don’t need to make phone calls at weekends; but then as the fixer you need to talk to the phone company people who are often not at work.

We therefore used the weekend to get everything fully prepped for Monday's big event.

Quick off the block: The first thing we do is to route all calls to one number. Of course, it's just an emergency solution. Instead of 200 people, now only one phone picks up, so it's very busy but at least the calls are being handled.

As soon as we get the call, we start work. Although we may not be on site, we can often remotely connect in and work on a fix. At the very least we can handle all of the necessary arrangements regardless of where we are. We try to contact the Telco provider as soon as possible, look for lists of the phone numbers, because if the PBX is dead these will be lost.

The reconstruction of the phone numbers is probably the most complicated part of the whole exercise and is when we put on our detective hats. Eighty percent of the numbers are relatively easy to obtain, 20 percent more difficult. We also search on notice boards, documents pinned up on the wall and such like.

28. 11, Wednesday

We started to replace the hardware and on the same day, managed to restore services to the customers who relied most heavily on telephony.

Everything was up and running by Thursday. We also took the opportunity to swap out the old telephone sets for new ones.

Key success factors

The main condition for success is mutual trust. Unnecessary administrative tasks have to go out the window. Only then are we able to resolve difficult situations really quickly. Complex approval and confirmation process at each step of the way would only delay successful completion. In situations like this, we go beyond the standard and for example extend instant financing to our regular customers. We bear all immediate costs and invoice just as we would for any other job.

• Foresight | We know what to do, although we don’t always have the complete picture. We simply choose the system that is best prepared and that saves valuable time.
  
• Practical experiences | When the system collapses, everything disappears; we lose all access and visibility of who had which numbers. But we have ways to find and identify the numbers that the users used. We have experience and procedures for this - for example, we know who to call at the telco providers, we know the differences in the local markets and the different rules and restrictions that affect the telcos. We know how to navigate our way through it all, which is an advantage especially for large clients with branches throughout Europe.
  
• Logistics | Many companies do not have internal emergency procedures. We are able to quickly assemble our own team, headed up by a senior technician and get them in place as quickly as possible. In addition, despite the challenge of sending a server anywhere in Europe for next day delivery, we normally manage it.