A Cordless Phone with Answering Machine Technology doesn't deliver on the Promises

Whenever I get a product or service for my business, I'm very careful because marketing makes promises that simply cannot be kept by the product. And we're talking my business, the way I make my money so it's critical that things work well just to stay in business.

One of the important things that I do every three or so months is to review all my costs. I do this to look for potential cost savings without damaging the business. One of the places I looked previously was all those add-on services that the telephone company offers. Initially, my business line had all those services but several were seldom used. It was then that I decided to try out an answering machine-cordless telephone combo.

As it wasn't considered a new product as answering machines have been around forever, I decided just to put it into the business. Since we got this new wonder piece of technology though it has been nothing but trouble.

First, although it is supposed to have the newest digital technology to suppress any disturbances, you would be amazed at the amount of static and interference it picks up from the mixers and other equipment in the bakery. Although probably not a problem in some environments, here it's almost unusable. Part of the problem may be the radio antenna on top of our building, and the waves that it emits are causing some of the disturbances, as well as the equipment interference.

Along with the hiss and the radio announcements in the background of our phone is an even more worrying problem signal crossover from other cordless phones. Normally we can't really hear what they are saying and they can't hear what we are saying, but occasionally words do slip through. Being a bakery, this is not a problem but imagine if you were doing financial consulting or banking!

Another problem with this particular cordless phone with answering machine is that the darned phone is always getting lost. People working in the back take it and put it down wherever the call ends. I've found the phone in the break room, storage room and even inside a cabinet. It's somehow impossible to keep track of the cordless phone when running a business. Truth is though that this is more a problem of human nature than anything with the cordless phone with answer machine.

I guess the difference is that we're always on the go. That was the appeal of the cordless phone with answering machine in the first place: it gave us the flexibility to move about bakery while talking with customers on the phone. The limitations however make for this piece of technology not to work for us. So it's back to paying for the voice mail services from the telephone company and being satisfied with the bill.

This is a good example that it's not good to pay to much for a service but if that service is important, it's also not good to pay to little.

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