Conversant / Voyager Slow Moving Train Wreck

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NeedingHelp

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Wannabe Geek

#230794 13-Mar-2018 14:35

Hi All, we are small business based in Auckland with over a dozen busy extensions on Conversant VOIP hosted by Voyager, supplied by a reseller I'd prefer not to name at the moment.

Since Christmas our formerly reliable system has become a slow moving train wreck.

We are now having problems all day every day with incoming calls that don't connect, out going call quality, lost voicemails, scrambled extensions (users can't pick up another ringing extension) etc, etc.

These problems are getting worse by the day and Conversant techs can't fix them. We have phones down with staff sitting at desks unable to work and customers unable to reach us.

Our reseller is telling us their other Conversant clients are having similar problems and to sit tight, they are working on it.

QUESTION 1) Are we alone or are there others experiencing similar problems?

QUESTION 2) How do we migrate off a very busy system to a new one quickly and with minimum pain?

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#1974020 13-Mar-2018 14:39

Use the contact form on this site. When they call, explain your needs as you have here. If they think you're too small to deal with directly then they'll be able to recommend a local reseller of their services who can help you directly.

https://devoli.com

xpd

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#1974026 13-Mar-2018 15:02

I know Voyager took over Conversant, but did they migrate everyone to their own VoIP platform or just continue with Conversant's ? If still on Conversant's platform, maybe ask Voyager for them to move you to their own system.

Unless they took over Conversant to move the Voyager business customers to the Conversant system.....

XPD / Gavin

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CamH

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#1974029 13-Mar-2018 15:11

Voyager is pretty well known for being responsive to issues - Perhaps try to talk to someone at Voyager about the Conversant issues - they'll likely be able to discuss and sort internally from there, but if you're not interested in that, then Devoli (linked above) does Broadsoft which is a really good system.

You could always try 2talk but you'll probably find that the service levels aren't anywhere as good as Conversant or Devoli.

NeedingHelp

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1974084 13-Mar-2018 16:09

Hi CamH, I am desperate to get this fixed, unfortunately Voyager / Conversant are unable to fix our problems. They have been working on this for days and it is progressively getting worse.

I'm trying to find out if others are experiencing same problems to gauge the seriousness.

CamH

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#1974089 13-Mar-2018 16:23

NeedingHelp:

Hi CamH, I am desperate to get this fixed, unfortunately Voyager / Conversant are unable to fix our problems. They have been working on this for days and it is progressively getting worse.

I'm trying to find out if others are experiencing same problems to gauge the seriousness.

Perhaps speak to Devoli then - we use their VoIP for some stuff and they're great. If you need some help, let me know, be happy to walk you through how some of the stuff works.

I haven't heard of many people that still use Conversant so I'm not sure how much response you'll get here!

cameronbeattie

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1974207 13-Mar-2018 20:23

I'm really sorry to hear about the issues you're having and the impact they're having on your business. If you're in Auckland and would like one of our engineers to come on-site to assist then please let your reseller know and we'll arrange that ASAP.

Our service status page contains information about any general service issues: https://www.conversanthq.com/nz/support/status/

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NeedingHelp

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1976373 14-Mar-2018 10:16

Unfortunately Cameron your Service Status page refers to problems dating to 5/6 March as being resolved and does not reference any further issues.

However a multitude of problems with our system continued unabated past that date, and I know these were continually reported to Conversant. My understanding is these were across the wider user base, yet there is no mention of these on your Service Status page. Neither is there any mention of the continual problems that commenced at the beginning of the year.

A phone system should be like a toaster. You push the handle down, it toasts your bread. No brainer.

Unfortunately our current toaster has burnt out elements, the cord is frayed and my staff are wary of using it.

It's not fit for purpose, and we're going to throw it out and get a shiny new one.

seeby

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#1976375 14-Mar-2018 10:18

Hi there

I'm the CEO of Voyager and I've just been made aware of your post.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for these issues you're experiencing. I'm not aware of other widespread issues like this on our platform, so this seems like an isolated case, however I'm very keen to get to the bottom of it one way or another.

Is it possible that these issues are to do with your broadband connection or router? With a Cloud-hosted voice solution, the solution is only as good as the internet connection it runs over. Things like missing voicemails sound like something else, but it's worth checking. I assume you've been through things like re-starting the router, diagnosing the connection etc?

Voyager took over conversant last year, but it was only recently (in the last couple of weeks), that the Conversant network was moved onto Voyager infrastructure. So that wouldn't explain your problems since last December.

If you'd like us to send a tech on-site to do diagnosis, please let us / me know so I can get this actioned. I'm sure with a bit of concerted effort we can get to the bottom of this for you

Thanks

Seeby Woodhouse

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#1976390 14-Mar-2018 10:43

We use Conversant at work and have for well over a year - I am not aware of any issues - I normally hear about it pretty quickly too.

We did have an issue several months ago where I noticed phones popping up that they were reconnecting or dropping out - finally discovered we had a failing switch in our server rack - ports seemed to be randomly failing. So wasnt a conversant issue as it happened.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

NeedingHelp

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Wannabe Geek

#1976391 14-Mar-2018 10:44

Hi Seeby, we know each other from past lives.

(I recall a teenager moonlighting at Iprolink helping me with our dial-up).

Telling us to check our router is so 1900's and things have moved on.

We now have two things called ONT's connected to meaty cisco boxes, on the end of two big fat fibre pipes delivering all we can eat, so no problems there.

Things have suddenly settled down here (surprise, surprise!) so I'll close this thread for now.

Good luck with your new ventures.

xpd

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#1976392 14-Mar-2018 10:46

Just having @seeby appear makes everything work as it should :D

XPD / Gavin

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#1976395 14-Mar-2018 10:51

NeedingHelp:

Hi Seeby, we know each other from past lives.

(I recall a teenager moonlighting at Iprolink helping me with our dial-up).

Telling us to check our router is so 1900's and things have moved on.

We now have two things called ONT's connected to meaty cisco boxes, on the end of two big fat fibre pipes delivering all we can eat, so no problems there.

Things have suddenly settled down here (surprise, surprise!) so I'll close this thread for now.

Good luck with your new ventures.

It's far from 1900's... it's probably the single most important thing involved in your phone system other than the phones!

Bandwidth is not so much the issue these days, but NAT and firewall rules need to be checked to make sure they suit the phone system.

I was personally quite impressed by Conversant over the past couple of weeks. I have a single DDI on an account just for testing purposes, but still got a whole bunch of notifications about the migration they have just done - quite often those things just get done silently and the customer is none the wiser until something goes wrong. But you have obviously made your mind up so whatever.

robjg63

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#1976396 14-Mar-2018 10:53

Still sounds possible you may have some gear that is going a bit "wobbly".

When our switch was failing it would randomly drop a port - but then it would start working a few seconds later - so internet users didn't normally notice any issue. The phones picked up the disconnect quite quickly - so it did look like a phone issue. I even raised a call with Conversant.

The worst part with IT gear is when it starts to fail slowly - Its much better when the lights go out and you know its died!

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

speed

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#1976409 14-Mar-2018 11:08

FWIW, I am extremely impressed that Voyager's CEO replied in a public forum offering direct help. That's pretty unusual in this industry; you sure as hell wouldn't see the CEO of Spark posting on here.

If the problems resume, I would recommend taking him up on his offer.

hio77

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#1976413 14-Mar-2018 11:18

speed:

FWIW, I am extremely impressed that Voyager's CEO replied in a public forum offering direct help. That's pretty unusual in this industry; you sure as hell wouldn't see the CEO of Spark posting on here.

If the problems resume, I would recommend taking him up on his offer.

fyi, JP in his time was known to post here on some larger issues.

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