What happened to local support and dedicated account management?

In the realm of Carrier services like: voice, data, connectivity, and network management there is consistent feedback we hear almost all the time in our very first meeting with new prospective clients.  It doesn’t matter whether we are meeting with  IT Directors, IT Managers, IT Administrators, Office Managers, Operations Managers, CIOs, CFOs, CEOs, or COOs, there is a consistent experience across all industries and business sizes that we come across.

First:  IT organizations and businesses are being tasked with doing more with less resources and sometimes shrinking budgets.

Second:

• They’ve seen the level of customer service greatly diminished over the last few years from Carriers
• Getting local support and account management has become a rarity, and nonexistent.  (this has been the case for most customers, especially small businesses.)
• They often can’t get Carriers to resolve issues quickly, or in a reasonable timely manner.
• They have new sales reps calling on them from the same company every 6 months to a year asking to meet with them.   They don’t know who to work with anymore.

The Reason:We hear these types of frustrations all the time. These frustrations are valid.  Customers don’t really know why or how things have drastically gotten worse than before. Here are a few key reasons:

Contrast Mergers & Acquisitions are happening at a rapid pace, such as:

• CenturyLink/Level 3
• Windstream/PAETEC/EarthLink/Broadview
• GTT/Global Capacity
• Zayo/Electric Lightwave

• Verizon/XO

• With the commoditization of bandwidth (like; fiber, coax, and EoC), and the increased reliability of wireless connectivity, there just isn’t enough room out there for everyone in the marketplace.  Thus, carriers are rapidly getting acquired or merging with other carriers, leaving fewer and fewer options in the marketplace for connectivity services.
• In our experience, after an acquisition, it is only a matter of time before consolidation of resources in the organization takes place.  This is a very natural progression: offices will be consolidated or closed, sales teams will get laid off due to overlap in the market, and departments will consolidate, leading to more layoffs in HR, Marketing, IT, Repair, and on and on…  Customer support and Account Management centralizes to one or few areas across the country, or even worse, small business accounts are outsourced overseas to be managed at a much lower expense to the carrier.
• Customers see their once appreciated local sales reps and account managers leave the Carrier, or get reassigned to larger more “strategic” accounts.  Hence, the IT team is left with legacy connectivity services, an expiring contract, and complete uncertainty as to what to do next.

When Integritas was started back in June 2015, it was founded on the basic principle that there was an existing need for premier customer service and advanced technical expertise for small businesses all the way up to enterprise customers.  This need, we predicted would only grow as the industry continues to shift.  Having years of experience working some of the largest telecom carriers in the world, we formulated a process specifically focused around the customer experience.  First, we listen, then we listen some more.  We want to know the issues you are facing today, and where you want to take your network in the future.  Then we get to work on available options.  Being agents of over 100+ carrier and service providers, we show all our available options to you.  Many times, it is a blended solution utilizing the best services from 2 or more providers from connectivity, Unified communications, and Cloud based services.  Consider Integritas the glue that holds it all together, and brings back that level of service, support, project management, and technical expertise that is all but lost today.

Contact:We want to talk to you about the challenges you are facing today.  Send us a note or give us a call to schedule a meeting.