atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Sprint - Tadiran Telephones & Systems TADIRAN SUPPORT GOING DOWN THE TOILET?

Has anyone noticed how poor Tadiran is these days? I have an IPX 500 that is almost 3 years old.
Was very happy with it in the beginning (even tho I had a catastrophic failure with the UCMC within 1st month (and then again during 2nd year).
Also had numerous phones (in excess of 5) just flat out die at various times.

I was given a demo of their fax board at their headquarters in LI prior to purchasing the system.

3 years later, it still does not work correctly and Tech Support tells my tech guy that they have it working in their office, so the board works (yet they can't make it work in my office going on 2+ years now- (outbound faxing).

Then, after various software updates to UCMC, features like silent record stopped working with Boss groups. Tadiran has no annswer for my tech (who is on this board) other then they will send it to Israel to get a fix (this has been going on for 6 months now).

Then, my rep brings in a Sales Engineer from Tadiran who promises to upgrade me to 10 navigator seats on my UCMC (which they come with free on all new UCMC systems anyway). YET, they want to charge me over $2k for this free upgrade, part of which is to fix the silent record issue.

I don't get it.

I sit there and watch my tech on the phone with support who now RARELY has an answer or fix for any # of problems I am having.

NOW, I am having trouble with my conference line for my conference bridges because Support went in and changed something and now I can't get it to work properly again.

Has anyone noticed how poor support has become and how bad Tadiran itself has become lately?

I am sure some of you dealers out there HAVE to be having issues and noticed the changes. As an end user, I know I certainly have.

I would have to steer anyone away who is looking to get involved with Tadiran (Dealer/Tech wise)or purchase one of their systems as an end user like myself.

Ever since Tadiran has moved to NY, there support has suffered tremendously. I know there are a few guys that are still in Tech Support from the days when their HQ was in Florida. I am surprised that George K wasn't able to fix most of the issues you have.
The upgrade fee you are talking about on your UCMC, you sure it isn't to upgrade the actually UCMC software and board so you can have Navigator on it? I am sure there are good explanations on why certain features were not working after upgrades. If is a matter of someone very well versed in the system knowing where to look. I know with some upgrades, features in the keyset def get turned off or turned of in COS. When I deal with a Tadiran system that is acting funny, I always look for the most obvious then the not soo obvious. I would look to other dealers that have seasoned Technicians to help you fix the problems you run into.

I am pretty positive my tech is well seasoned. I sit there when him when he is on the phone with their Tech support when they tell him they have no answer and will have to get back to him.

That was part of the excuse for the $2500 fee.

Free navigator, but have to pay for the upgrades AND for the fix to my sielnt record issue?

I also have a $2000 fax board which is garbage as far as I am concerened.

No outgoing faxes and half the time (more then half actually) it will not even recoginze a fax is coming in.

I quite honestly never liked the UCMC anyways, It was one of Bregman's brainy ideas to for a quick buck on selling a cheap voicemail system. Something like that can really make the customer not like tht whole system because of one part (Ucmc) of the system isn't reliable.

I have 2 of those problem children (ucmc)and I simply won't install another one. If you can't make a backup drive I say screw it. Yes, I have noticed I cannot get a tech support call handled in a timely manner 90% of the time. I simply email anymore if I can. I have to compete with other people that aren't certified on the product when I have real hardware/software issues and it ticks me off to no end because I RARELY call unless it's something just weird. I also am getting REALLY p*ssed off at their PO system being so screwed up. Trying to make paperwork and licences to a job site is frigging annoying at best and a complete PITA. Right now the safe money is with the Windows Based CMC IMHO. Active Voice makes a good product.

I would have hoped the new Tech support Manager there fixed things but I guess not. The only way Tech Support is going to change is the dealers have to make waves with the RSM and Sales Engineers. I used to hate calling them and one particular support guy would answer the phone. I would tell him my issue and he would tell me to "wait a moment" put me on hold and ask the person next to him. Frustrated me to no end.

Coral Tech,
Since you guys are an NEC dealer as well, did you guys have the "pleasure" installing a UM8500 (kinesis) yet? That system needs some work! We had it at my last job. What a POS. Our infrastructure guys were going bonkers when AV told them the box needed to be a domain controller.

There are some very helpful and talented people still with Tadiran. However, collectively Tadiran is the highest maintenance vendor I have ever worked with in the last 20+ years. We also have and continue to experience nearly the same issues as indicated by other posts on this topic. A tough situation with no clear resolution in sight from our viewpoint.

By no means do I think there are no talented people at Tadiran. I like most of the ones I deal with, problem I have is when you call tech support and some of them make you feel you are bothering them and that we should feel privledged to be speaking with them. Somtimes I wonder if tech support people actually have ever been in the field and installed a system in a real environment? Other manufacturers I deal with have support guys that have never installed a system out in the real world, just in the "lab". Kind of hard to see a lot of realtime issues in the lab.

Several years ago I had one of those problems that seems to never go away with a Coral. My techs were getting nowhere with tech support so I got involved and spoke with the tech support engineer that my folks had been dealing with, let me say here that my experience with the TAD tech support folks had always been exceptional before this, he (who shall remain nameless as he is still in tech support at TAD) gave me MAJOR attitude, until I had to explain in VERY plain english WHO was the customer (ME!!!) and who the vendor was....one further discussion with his manager and problem got solved!!

Agreed TTT. We actually install the UX and Aspire systems and from what I have seen so far the UX systems are just great.

I guess the UM8500 wouldn't be so bad if it is used as an all in one box, for customers that are just starting from scratch, but there are many customers that have an exchange server and Domain Controller already.

Yeah, that rates pretty high on the suckage table that it cannot use an existing one.

It sures seems I am not the only one who ain't happy with Tadiran.

Let me be a little clearer... I LOVE the Tadiran line of products. I just don't care too much for the tech support. There are a lot of cool people that work for them but unfortunately they don't work in the tech support area.

Well, Tadiran makes a nice product in theory, but if their advertised features don't work properly and their tech support can not get them to work and then make excuses for it or just forget about it period, what good is it?

You would think after all of the problems I had (and even expressed to an engineer, who was nice enough, but made promises to me that they obviosuly have no intention of keeping), I would get a visit from some type of manager willing to address my issues. Nope, just garbage from my Regional Sales Manager on proposals for things I should pay for to fix my issues or buy Tadiran.

It seems whoever is in charge of my area (and most likely even his superiors) only seem interested in charging me money to fix problems with their equipment.
Most fo which they flat out don't seem to care about.
Their attitude about the fax is "Well, what can you do, not many people use it anyway and the used fax board has no value to us, so the cutsomer is out of luck"!

Maybe when I start to spread the word to organizations and communities I belong to about how poor their support is and their sales start to suffer, will they pay attention.

Out of all the Tech companies I deal with as a Director in my Co., Tadiran has BY FAR been the worst to deal with on a macro level. That is saying A LOT!

If you feel that strongly about this maybe you should go over the RSM's head. Remember, you are the customer which in turn keeps them in business. Heck, I would go straight to the President to get this resolved. Once a President hears something bad happening in the Support area, there are changes to that area. One thing though, have you requested help from Gabbi?

I just had some issues with the ICE and the UCMC voicemail message duplication. I worked with tech support for several days, this was an issue that had everyone stumped. We worked with the engineers and everything was resolved. 1 week later I see there is a new software upgrade for the ICE UCMC that solves these issues. I would say that every issue that I have had has been worked on and solved.

I have only been dealing with Tadiran for 2 years but so far all my experiences have been positive.

My only problems if you would even call them problems, are I would like to see some additional staff added to the support team, some additional documentation on a few products. Additionally I would like to see some voicemails phased out and just have one or 2 different platforms rather than the 4 or 5 that they currently offer.

All and all I would rate my experience with Tadiran great and the support I have received from several of their in house staff outstanding.

I would totally want to be in their Tech Support if I didn't have to move to NY. With the technology out there today, I could stay where I am and login like most tech support companies now a days.

I was up at the NY office a couple years ago. There's a lot of space dedicated to sales demo areas, but the support guys seemed to be stuck in a relatively tiny room.

Of course, I was also up there on what was apparently the then-current trainer's last week on the job, which explains why he wasn't particularly motivated about the class. I only gave a positive report to my bosses about the class as poor training is marginally better than no training and I didn't want a bad report to reflect on my vendor (who is pretty good).

Alot of their tech support still appears to be down if Fla. With today's tech, California is just next door.

I know of two tech support guys in Fl from the old Tadiran days when the company was in Clearwater. If Tadiran wanted to save money, they would move the Headquarters to Houston Tx. Houston has been rated as the cheapest place to have a business and the housing here is cheapest in the nation.
Same size house I have here in Houston would be 5 times as much in Cali or NY.

Well, I would say maybe they will take you up on that since they have been reading this thread (and for some reasons till can not figure out why so many people aren't happy), but they have done absolutely NOTHING on my end to fix my issues.
I STILL have problems with silent record w/ Boss groups.

Fax still does not work correctly (3 year problem now and they are just hoping I forget about it an go away).

The free upgrade they promised me (in persron) is free after I pay them over $2500.

I still have to reboot my wireless card once every week or 2 or my users complain and ultra static on the lines.

At this point, I am looking to get my coporate attorneys involved.

His name begin with a C?