Need Advice on Support Agreement

[Bzawlocki]

We are a ShoreTel shop. We have two staff members who are ShoreTel Certified Installers. One of our staff is certified in the "Implementing the ShoreTel Contact Center". We presently get our support directly from ShoreTel via an Enterprise Support agreement.

This all has worked very nicely - no complaints.

Now it's time to renew our Enterprise Support Agreement.

I understand ShoreTel marketing model - I don't have any problem working within that framework. The question I have is, "Can I ask several different resellers to bid on providing Enterprise Level Support?" Or are we forced to go through our original reseller?

Seems to me this is America - I should be able to ask any authorized reseller to sell me ShoreTel products and support agreement packages IF we have certified staff.

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Bill

[cburgy]

Are you unhappy with your current reseller?

[Bzawlocki]

Ambivalent Toward Current Reseller

It's not that we don't care for them. There is essentially no relationship other than we thought we needed them to buy ShoreTel product and ShoreTel Enterprise support according to the ShoreTel marketing model.

We don't ask nor do we expect them to support any of our ShoreTel system.

We're just shopping for better pricing on ShoreTel products and ShoreTel Enterprise support agreements and wondering if there is any real reason why we can't just go out to bid on these items.

Bill

[gberkemeyer]

Do what you want to. If your job is to ensure that your company is getting value for its money, then why wouldn't you shop around?

You may find that the other ShoreTel partners have some difficulty getting pricing info from ShoreTel for your quote, as ShoreTel wants to protect your current partner from competition, but they can still get the pricing.

You also probably want to provide a detailed list of all hardware, software, and licenses to the other partners because I don't think ShoreTel will share your configuration with them.

We did exactly this when a new partner opened up shop closer to us than our current partner. We ended up staying with our original partner, but got a better deal as a result...and like you, we rarely need their services.

[Bzawlocki]

Good Suggestion!

Hey Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'll do exactly that.

[nikroft]

We use Black box out of Chicago and have been quite happy with them. I usually only contact them if we are having a major issue or just a heads up before a software upgrade. it never hurts to shop around.