Excellent for Small Businesses!
We've had a great experience with Gibson Teldata in Indianapolis. Recommended!
We’re a small business. We had an old trunking-24 setup over coax from Spectrum. After moving, we experienced intolerable dropouts thanks to an antiquated grid. The cost was exorbitant for service that went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ when it rained. I priced fiber VoIP service, and it wasn't pretty.
A couple weeks after I back-burnered it, I got call from Bill at Gibson. We prefer to work with local businesses because we are one. When I saw his local number, I was ready to listen. He is a veteran in his field. When I described our setup, he knew just what to do. Hosted solutions are tolerant of grid latency. Our LAN was ready for the Gibson system.
Then he laid the quote on me. “Shut up and take my money!” Not only would we be closing the expensive trunking account, but he hinted what to say and to whom to say it to get us more bandwidth at a lower cost and a new modem. We had a conference call with screen sharing, got the skinny, and pulled the trigger.
We were eager to stop paying too much. Onboarding specialist Katherine navigated us through setup and porting with a deftness that would make Bull Halsey smile. It could not have been easier. Well, it could have been easier in the regard that our problems with Spectrum were much deeper, but she was my new best friend in coercing Spectrum's incompetent customer service to do our bidding. I provided basic info like emails, passwords, numbers and attendant scripts and she had it all perfectly configured and ready to roll ahead of installation.
Now our phone system has no latency problems whatsoever. We are saving hundreds per month! Up-front costs were wiped out in a few weeks. They’re accommodating about tweaks, and the configuration portal is easily navigable by anyone with a bit of experience with a PBX. You’ve got control over nearly every aspect of the system, but you’ll not be overwhelmed by technobabble.
The equipment! Our heaviest users got color screen phones with always-charging Bluetooth handsets. The desk phone archetype is a must, so I have been wrestling self-tangling coily cords forever. To finally be free to spin my chair, or to wander the warehouse while talking with a client is just… liberating. These are great for parts stores or warehouses. Other extensions got traditional phones (there is no escape from the coily). They are all from the same manufacturer and use the same platform. There are many models to choose from, and you can take them off-site and jack in over Wi-Fi. If you’re travelling, the Android app works just like an on-site extension.
Fax service is saving us over $100/month. They offer cloud e-fax and a phone line interface device.
We had a minor law-of-the-universe technology glitch. Their tech support folks (this is you, Nate) are just as responsive and smart as Bill and Katherine. He was on the case immediately after the trouble ticket was issued, and there was none of the typical “try turning it off and back on again” tripe. Should we have hardware issues or the need to upgrade or add an extension, we can swing by the local office.
Spectrum would not assist me at all regarding porting out our numbers. Without going into the whole litany, let’s just say that with Katherine’s help we were able to be creative and rescue our toll-free numbers. Our ports happened the exact minute they were promised by the Gibson porting team with zero down-time, a handoff that would make Peyton Manning smile.
This is the part of the review where one goes into the “con” side of the ledger. I really can’t come up with anything. The technology glitch was just a minor little thing with workarounds. Maybe throw in some classic banana shoulder rests? The Windows client and the Outlook and Chrome extensions were a bit dated, but they have just released a major update that works great.
When I say we’re a small business, I mean we’re probably in the bottom 2.5% of their customers in terms of revenue. Despite this, throughout onboarding and after, we have received only the best from the friendly and competent team over at Gibson.