https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

Telephony/UC/Collaboration


Session Offers Tips on How to Get, Keep Customers

  • Written by Channel
  • February 9, 2004

Know your customers and serve them well. First impressions count. Be proactive with customer relations to reduce churn. Those are three cornerstones to "Reducing Churn & Attracting New Customers," say three telco executives who will be on the Cisco Systems-hosted panel this afternoon. Other Cisco-sponsored panels address OSS solutions, multiservice edge technologies and deployment strategies at the edge.

Panelist Janice Aune, president and CEO of Onvoy, a service provider in the upper Midwest that sells retail voice, video and data services to business customers as well as wholesale services, says her company caters to multisite companies with specific communities of interest. To do that, Onvoy looks at customers’ and potential customers’ key partners and applications and figures out how best to address them, she says.

Health care is the first vertical market Onvoy is addressing as part of that strategy. The company has created a specialized team to work with rural health care systems, hospitals and related organizations to identify their needs. "We have brought radiologists on our network and connect health care clinics to them for no additional fee," she says. "Clinics can videoconference them just like they’re calling them."

Aune says offering this kind of service has been "a big success" for Onvoy, which expects to target other verticals in the future. "We have had zero churn," she says. "Customers that signed up for one-year contracts now are signing up for three-plus year contracts.

"It’s how we’re trying to address their ecosystem needs" that builds customer loyalty, she says.

Brooks Robinson, chief marketing officer at IP-based integrated communications provider Cbeyond Communications, says it won over small business customers by offering them affordable broadband Internet service at a time when pricing for such services from other providers was typically out of their reach. "We packaged local, long distance and Internet to give businesses all of it for the price they’d paid in the past for just long distance," he says.

Of course, once a service provider has won over customers, it needs to figure out how to keep them.

"Winning customers and keeping customers is the name of the game," says panelist Drew Walker, president of business services at ITC^DeltaCom, a large CLEC in the southeast targeting small and medium businesses with regional communications requirements.

To win and retain customers, a service provider first should listen to customer needs and address how its services can meet those needs, Walker says, noting that ITC^DeltaCom believes in a "consultative sales process." The next step, he says, is fulfilling or exceeding customer expectations during the installation process.

The company’s high-touch mindset extends to ongoing customer relations. For example, an ITC^DeltaCom customer representative hand-delivers a customer’s first invoice and reviews that information with the appropriate contact at that business, he says. That way, if there’s a billing problem, ITC^DeltaCom "gets it nipped in the bud, so it doesn’t fester."

ITC^DeltaCom also sends every customer a letter with its "our word guarantee" that says if the company’s service is deemed unsatisfactory in the first 90 days, the customer can — without question — terminate service without penalty, says Walker. In addition, if at any time during the life of the contract ITC^DeltaCom can’t resolve a problem within 20 days, the company offers the customer that same ability to pull out of the contract, he says. "I am notified every time someone takes advantage of that guarantee, and I can tell you it is very few," he says.

"First impressions remain important over the years as long as you deliver what you promise," continues Walker.

Cbeyond’s Robinson agrees that first impressions count. "We think customer loyalty is really built in the first 60 days," says Robinson, whose company delivers VoIP and data services to businesses in Atlanta, the Dallas area and Denver.

Like ITC^DeltaCom, Cbeyond (in most cases) uses a direct sales force to explain the value of its services and make sure customers are buying the services that best meet their needs. And to ensure customers get off to a good start, Robinson adds, Cbeyond dedicates an individual to coordinate the installation date and make sure customers receives the features and functionality they require.

Walter adds ITC^DeltaCom also ensures that a customer service representative from one of its 40 branch offices contacts each customer in person every 90 days. "That’s a requirement," says Walter. "This really minimizes access by competitors" to ITC^DeltaCom’s customers, he says. ITC^DeltaCom also employs its own technical field force who wear the company logo and has a technical consultant-sales engineer in each of its branches available to serve customers as their business needs change, Walter adds.

To get a jump on the contract renewal process, ITC^DeltaCom has an automated system that alerts it service representatives six months before contracts expire. That way, Walter says, the representative and the customer can discuss contract renewal and what are the best products for that customer well before the contract is due to expire. "Where you run into trouble is if a rep who sold the customer leaves the company and the account doesn’t get reassigned to a new client rep. Things like that are very costly," says Walker, explaining the automated system helps alert representatives to expiring accounts.

"This industry is really tough because Internet, private line, other services have been commoditized," says Aune of Onvoy. "So we’ve realized that you almost have to do an eat your own strategy."

That means that before contracts expire, Onvoy actively works with customers to offer better price plans or something along those lines. "As a rule, you’re going to take a revenue hit," she says, "but you’re going to keep those customers" get good word of mouth and better volume.

Tags: Agents Telephony/UC/Collaboration

Most Recent


  • Integration puzzle pieces
    Kyndryl, Five9 Partner to Offer Cloud Contact Center Solutions
    They will help new and existing customers move legacy contact centers to the cloud.
  • application portfolio modernization
    Adaptiv Networks' SD-WAN Joins OTG Consulting Portfolio
    Adaptiv Networks SD-WAN will help OTG agents move customers from PSTN to UCaaS.
  • partner portal
    GoTo Promotes Chief Product and Technology Officer to CEO
    He will accelerate innovation and growth in the SMB space, the company said.
  • Revenue, Sales Down
    Another Avaya Bankruptcy Pending? Company Launches Internal Investigations
    The company's stock price slipped all the way down to 61 cents per share on Tuesday.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • Cloud Phone
    AT&T to Offer Up to 1 Million Customers Cisco Webex Calling
  • Sign a Contract
    Unisys Adds Managed UCaaS with $153 Million Unify Square Acquisition
  • Fortune 500 2021 logo
    AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, More Tech, Telco Companies Make Latest Fortune 500
  • Telephone poles and lines
    Granite Buys Epik: Score One for Legacy Telecom

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Galleries

View all

Partner Program Updates: Microsoft, TD Synnex, AppSmart, Cisco, Verizon

August 11, 2022

Black Hat USA: Former CISA Director Says Cybercrime to Get a Lot Worse Before Better

August 11, 2022

Channel Futures and Channel Partners Ready Trio of Powerhouse Summits

August 11, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

How to Take Shared Responsibility for Securing Cloud

August 11, 2022

Seize the Application Modernization Opportunity

August 2, 2022

A Growth Mindset: Your Organization’s Strategic Differentiator

August 1, 2022

Webinars

View all

Outsmarting RaaS: Implementation Strategies To Help Your Clients Before, During, and After a Ransomware Attack

August 23, 2022

Why it is Important to Upgrade Aging Servers and How to use Live Optics to Upgrade Efficiently

August 25, 2022

Executives at Home are Not Alright: An Intro to Digital Executive Protection

September 8, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

ThreatLocker Preaches Zero Trust, Addresses Industry Competition

ScienceLogic Debuts New Partner Portal

August 9, 2022

Vonage a ‘Single Communications Stack Provider’ for Partners, Customers

June 27, 2022

IBM, Partners and the $1 Trillion Hybrid Cloud Opportunity

June 26, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

Say sayonara to contract renewals - @KaseyaCorp responds to mounting customer concerns with significant changes.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@Kyndryl, @Five9 partnership will focus on cloud-based #contactcenter solutions. dlvr.it/SWTFPx https://t.co/WGQedUjSB1

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

How cloud providers and customers can work together to safely share and secure responsibility in the cloud. @Cisco… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

See the latest updates from @verizonbusiness, @GetNerdio, @AppSmartcom, @CiscoPartners and other companies.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@nutanix said to lay off 4% of workforce by October, as company cites macroeconomic issues. dlvr.it/SWSMDN https://t.co/w6JeqkI7r6

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

#BHUSA Day 1 with Chris Krebs, @cybereason, @keepersecurity, @BreachQuest, @awscloud and @splunk. #cybersecurity… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

Have you registered for the @MSP_Summit yet? It’s just about a month away, so don’t wait. Here’s a sneak preview of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 11, 2022
ChannelFutures

Read about @adaptivnetworks's new distribution partner. dlvr.it/SWQFh3 https://t.co/az12SeMU7X

August 10, 2022

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X