Our little business has been using the same phone for nearly three years: a base system with two handsets that are wireless. It’s a traditional analogue signal telephone system made by Philips.
Just as we were clearing up for Chinese New Year, the units became less and less functional, and the base unit developed a cable problem: every time someone called, and you grabbed the handset quickly, the cable would fly out. Not good for first impressions.
So, today, I went shopping: I ended up by two separate phone systems for our business: a wireless phone system with an answering service and two handsets for the teachers room, and a small business phone system that could handle two lines. It also contained a ‘hold’ function.
For those three phones, I spent nearly US$200 (or NT$5700) but I’m hoping I’ll get more reliable service from each of them, as I didn’t buy cheap models like before.
For some kinds of consumer goods, especially phones and other items that get a lot of abuse, buying cheap really means buying dear.