This script goes with the interview at http://telptalk.blogspot.com/2010/02/finding-right-multi-location-enterprise.html
1. What's the classic definition of a MLE business customer and why are they
different from normal business customers?
Dan, from the
customer’s point of view they certainly expect more than for instance a single
location customer or traditional SMB customer. They are typically larger,
managing their telecom inventory is more challenging, and just scheduling the
opening, closing or relocation of stores or offices is more challenging, Often
there are help desks for telecom that you typically don’t run in to with a
non-multi-location customer. Managing, paying and auditing their telephony can
be daunting for some MLE clients. Now, from an Agencies or Carriers point of
view, besides the obvious differences such as their larger clients and are more
difficult to service due to their size and their expectations. Some agencies
and for that matter, some carriers have made a business of serving very few but
very large customers. As long as you perform, attrition is not as prevalent
with MLE clients, they tend to remain much more loyal than a traditional
customers for a number of reasons but most importantly because 1. Service is
more important than rates, 2. They can require managed services some carriers
may not offer and finally, it can be a project few customers want to pull the
trigger on over and over. This makes them a tremendously reliable revenue
stream for most agencies and carriers.
2. Since MLEs are often spread across many RBOC boundaries, what's
the best sort of "consolidation" partner or carrier for MLEs to work with?
That is a tough
question Dan simply because it differs by Customer. Regional carriers can do a
fine job, if the customer’s locations are regional. However if customer is
national, if their locations cross most ILEC borders and they have pockets of
independent LEC locations as well, a national CLEC that specializes in offering
this service is probably the right choice for them. Of course there are
agencies out there that although not CLEC’s, fill a
void as well and may offer their own consolidation solution that may involve
pulling together multiple CLEC and ILEC locations get the client close to what
they are trying to achieve. I’m sure some Agencies may even argue that they can
offer a better cost solution given their ability to cherry pick locations and
award them based on price. Those agencies however in my opinion are very far
and few between. It requires more staff, their own
help desks or customer service center often with extended hours. The good news
is this is a growing model and more and more companies, Carriers and Agencies
alike are adopting this model.
3. What's the difference
between a "POTs consolidation" type MLE carrier
and a "SIP/VoIP consolidation" type MLE
carrier?
Most often is
comes down to number of lines per location but also again comes down to the
type of customer.
As far as line
count, historically in the ten line and below per
location account that does not require a full or partial T1 for data, POTS
lines are going to win. It is by far the most reliable product for voice and
most customers will choose reliability over price, feature or functionality
every time. Now, if they already have the need for the reliability and
stability of a T1 for some data applications, and the Cap Ex of deploying VoIP for voice is not objectionable or it can be recovered
fairly short term, then below ten lines per location may still be attractive.
Once you get above 10 tens per, it comes down to cost and functionality and if
the CAP EX can be recovered either from some form of value proposition which
may equate to hard savings in the form of rates or even soft costs such as
improved productivity, that may have an impact on their decision as well.
As I mentioned
before, it also comes down to the type of customer. A National Legal firm that
has a 100 offices might have a need for the advanced
functionality of VoIP. Internal dialing, access to
list of associates on the device may be important to this type of client making
some of the applications found on VoIP valuable.
Conversely, the 3 line chocolate shop or 6 line clothing retailer, or 4 line
c-store may not. Some customers may benefit from both technologies and lets not exclude wireless, it too is an emerging product in
this space, particularly in the machine-to-machine MLE space such as ATM’s or
any other product-dispensing device that needs to communicate.
There are great
VoIP solutions out there and the technology is now
being adopted more and more each day. Its getting more
reliable, the quality can be every bit as good as POTS and in some cases better
but it requires bandwidth, and stable bandwidth at that. One day their may be a
product that performs every bit as well as traditional POTS lines over a low to
medium bandwidth product such as simple DSL. Until that happens, it is my
opinion, in this particular space of MLE clients, POTS remains the most viable
solution for the smaller line count per location MLE type account.
4. If money is no object,
what's the best situation a MLE can find themselves in
once they are "perfectly consolidated"?
I’m sure each
customer has his or her own definition of that but for me its quite simple.
What can my telephone company do so that I don’t have to? They can consolidate
my bills, they can deliver it the exact format my accounting department wants.
They understand how I want to process orders for service and how I want to
track MACD’s and they will adapt their processes to
mine. They have extended hours or they operate 24/7, I now no longer have no need for a Help Desk because I am confident enough in my
telephone company or my agency to be my Help Desk for my locations to call.
They convert and order services for me relatively error free; they are honest
and forthright when things go bad. They don’t blame an underlying carrier or
partner, As a customer, I don’t pay their partners, I
pay them. Their problem is not my problem because as the head of IT or Telecom,
my boss doesn’t care who was at fault, just that someone is on it and taking
every step possible to prevent it from happening again. Ideally, I want every
last line I have on them because now that I have entrusted them to be more than
just a telephone company, I don’t want to have to think about location, region,
which ILEC market its in, I want “one throat to choke. I want to be billed
accurately, I don’t want to have to remind my carrier I disconnected a line 3
month ago so why is it on my bill. They should have sophisticated enough
software and process that prevents that from happening. If I need inside
wiring, they will either perform it or sub it out but take responsibility. We
will have a very clear understanding as to how inside wiring is performed and
for how much. In other words, I wont have to expend
resources managing my telephone company. They will know what the right thing to
do is and do it without having to be told continually to do so. They will allow
me to focus on my core business while they focus on theirs. When its all done,
I have outsourced every possible function that is not core to what I do and my
reps that handle my account understand the process and the expectations as if
they were my own employees with the only difference being they are on a
telephone companies payroll, not mine. I’m not saying that is easy but is
possible, it is done today. Now, some are successful at it, others are close,
others, not so much. The problem is that getting close or does not define
perfectly consolidated.
5. Describe the situation
many non-consolidated MLEs find themselves in today.
The more
locations they have, the greater the opportunity to deliver multiple value
propositions. They are in no distinct order but they can include. There are too
many bills, they take too much time to audit, they arrive in different formats
on every day of every month, each location is rated differently often with no
rhyme or reason, they pay for features they don’t use and some they don’t need.
They talk to a different customer service rep that has no idea who they are or
anything about their business. They have to call a different telephone company
or a different office within each telephone company before they can be helped,
they sit on endless hold q's, automated attendants
and when they reach someone, have to start over from the explanation they just
gave five minutes ago or the day prior. They receive no reports, their business
is so fragmented, they can’t measure their telephone
company’s performance. They are constantly miss-billed and worse, can’t track
it down or are not aware of it due to so many fragmented products, policies,
processes, people. They have to make 3 calls to three
vendors for one solution. The list goes on and on and on. Its
really just nuts, it is total chaos.
You know Dan,
Let me just say there is no such thing as a customer who has gone from this
chaos to a good MLE
6. What are some reasonable
migration strategies that MLEs might embark upon to
achieve the ideal environment? What are reasonable time
and what do the mid-steps look like?
The first step
is to identify what you really want to accomplish from a service perspective
and identify the carriers, agencies or partners that fit that goal. Can they
deliver the type of solution you are seeking and do they have verifiable
references with accounts that are similar in size and scope. Once you’ve
narrowed your selection, my first question would be to get a copy of their
migration plan, get a hard proposal as far as rates, terms and conditions, the
resources both parties must apply to achieve success and then decide if their
plan is attractive and does their plan appear to be plausible. This can
include: do the steps make sense, is their performance measurable, will it be
performed in a manner that does not interfere with your normal business
operations, are their hours of operations in sync with your own. In other
words, if you are a retailer open evenings and weekends, are they as
well. Are there hot cuts, and if so, is your current carrier aware of
your plans, will they cooperate. Do you have independent LEC locations that
require rebilling, does your selected partner perform this service, how and for
how much. Which locations do you want to convert first or which locations and
in what order does the carrier suggest and why. Do you have an accurate
inventory, do you need a migration specialist or project manager onsite to help
you oversee the migration, will the carrier or partner
or the agency send one if you do? Is there a cost associated with doing so? Do
any locations have DSL provisioned on any of the POTS lines? Are they separate
accounts or intermingled with your voice lines, are any in a hunt groups? Will
those be migrated as well, or will they be left as is, will they be rebilled and if so, do they have a process in place to
address that? In other words, any migration strategy should dedicate an equal
amount of planning to the migration as the migration itself. Once you are
comfortable with the plan, then you can decide on the schedule that you both
agree to. Most MLE CLEC’s can adjust their speed of
provisioning to fit a customers timetable. Some are slower than others, some
plan better than others while others still may not
embrace the plan and process the way the customer may desire it to be
performed. Each customer has to make their own decision measuring all the value
partner will provide to decide on how flexible they are willing to be on their
partners plan to migrate and make that part of the provider decision making
process. If your not quite sure on your selection,
test one or more partners and measure their results before you award all of
your business, if they don’t pass the test without errors, tighten up the
7. When looking for the
right MLE agent, partner or carrier to work with, what are the "Top 5 (or
10) Checklist Items" a MLE end-user decision maker would want to seek or
avoid?
The most obvious
that come to mind are;
For everyone it’s Value such as rates or soft dollar savings they will
achieve by consolidating
Will they
provide dedicated resources pre and post conversion, not all do and some may
dictate this based on the size of the account
What services
above and beyond just servicing the lines can they provide, can they handle
being a help desk, do they perform other outsourced services you may want now
or in the future, will they rebill offnet ILEC’s, will they service
off-net ILEC’s
What do their
bills look like, are they paper, files, or via a portal or all of the above
Do they have a
robust customer portal and will it provide you with the information you need,
how is it tied into their OSS and BSS or does it require being manually updated
Will they
provide you an
For agencies,
how competitive is their comp, will you have to expend more resources taking
you away from selling with one carrier over the next, is the agreement
evergreen and iron clad.
How responsive
are they to their agents and partners, what is you peers experience, how
flexible are they, are you commissions paid on time, how does their proposal
support stack up, how’s their balance sheet, are you protected under a change
in control, etc.
Should you
spread your business around or should you put all your eggs in one basket, each
partner has to decide based on their own needs and objectives.
Just like a
customer may want to test the waters, so may an agency.
8. Can you share with us
some MLE success stories (or disasters) you're familiar with that emphasize the
points we've been discussing?
Every deal I
have been involved with became successful and was never disastrous however some
were not without their challenges. The more we planned, the better the
conversion. The more the customer is engaged in the process, the more potential
problems were avoided prior to them becoming a problem. The most common are a
result of accepting information without checking it first. DSL or circuits not
accounted for, resetting VM boxes without prior notice, over reaching related
to conversion timetables. That’s not to say I’m not aware of disasters, I’ve
spoken to customers and agencies alike involving virtually every carrier, they
do happen. Some are billing related some are service related some were
conversions gone horribly wrong. Some sales people over promise and under
deliver. But not all are completely the carriers or agencies fault but in the
end, if both the customer and the carrier or partner are
NOT completely on board with the plan pre-conversion, it is likely things will
go wrong. So don’t convert until you are in every way. Don’t begin conversions
if you have not agreed upon every aspect of their service, billing, people,
process, and systems. Don’t suggest you start a mass conversion or even a test
for that matter until you know exactly what to expect on the back end. You can
still have an error free conversion followed by complete disappointment when
you make your first service call or get your first bill. Over plan, set
reasonable expectations, measure performance to those expectations. If you still
unsure get an expert involved whether you select a Telecom Agency, a
Consultant, or onsite-dedicated resources to oversee it and to project manage
it. Want you don’t want to do is just award it and forget it. Every customer
needs a knowledgeable resource either internal or external to after the process.