By Khali Henderson

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XO Communications Inc. has created a dedicated team to handle orders from XO Partners, including all tiers — Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond.

The new team includes 15 project managers (PMs) and service delivery coordinators (SDCs)  who are dedicated to the implementation of channel orders. For improved continuity, each XO partner is assigned a PM or SDC; some master agencies are assigned multiple representatives by subagent.

“We understand that tomorrow’s orders are solely dependent on todays delivery. That is why we have put so much emphasis on support,”  said Shane McNamara, vice president of the XO Partner Channel.   

The news is a follow-on to XO’s February announcement of dedicated teams of channel account managers (CAMs) and indirect client service managers (ICSMs), who also support partner customers.

XO has been gearing up for the move to dedicated order support since early 2013. “We needed time to hire and train to ensure that we had the right talent for the job,” said Tracy Hali, XO’s senior manager of partner customer experience. “We have since put a strong team together and rolled this out to the partner community.”

Specifically, the carrier’s goal with the dedicated support team is to complete installs in a timely manner in order to improve the customer experience as well as expedite commissions processing for XO partners.

“The fact that these PMs and SDCs understand the partners needs and the partner has one person to go to for all of their orders — that goes a long way in building a strong customer experience,”  Hali said.

The company plans quarterly surveys to gauge partner satisfaction levels and identify areas of improvement. However, early partner reviews of the dedicated support team have been good.

Kevin Miller, voice and data client specialist at CDW, said having a dedicated project manager has been a positive change for CDW’s clients. “We finally have that ever-elusive one throat to choke from an XO provisioning perspective,” he said.”Our clients are benefiting directly as a result with cleaner, more efficient and timely installs from XO.”

Megan Norman, partner relationship manager team lead for master agency X4 Solutions, has experienced similar results. “I have seen this help move orders along in a more timely manner. It helps to provide a quicker install. We are looking forward to all of the positive changes happening,” Norman said.