by Dan Baldwin, TAA Editor-at-Large (written in 1999)
On a regular basis TAA is asked the following question by agents, "I’m considering doing business with ________. How’s their agent program?" As well, we’re asked regularly by vendors, "We’re coming out with a new agent program, can you look it over and tell us what you think?" We’re only too happy to accommodate these requests on an individual basis, but since the question is asked so often we wanted to publish our thoughts and allow you to challenge our opinions. Here goes.
A good agent program needs the following 10 items in pretty much the following order of precedence.
Competent Order Provisioning
Agents are greedy. They’re supposed to be. Unfortunately our greed often leads to bad vendor selection. If a prospective vendor tells you he uses a Big 3 network, pays commissions that are 25% higher than everyone else in exchange for prices 25% lower than everyone else, it’s OK to believe him and sign a contract. Before you roll your entire base to them though, submit your own phone service (or your parent’s service) to see if they can actually process orders.
My own phone service is a mess on purpose. If a new vendor can competently process my own messed up service, then there’s a good chance they can process customer orders good enough. Half of my 1+ lines are PIC restricted, half aren’t. I have a dozen 1+ lines, but they’re on three different BTNs. I have a half dozen 800 numbers, but I habitually pay my 800 phone bill at 59 days.
To test a new carrier’s back office, I fill out the paperwork as follows: I identify only 3 of 4 lines on my main BTN. I give the other 8 line numbers, but I don’t identify them as being on two other BTNs. I sign the 800 resporg, but give them a business name that I know doesn’t match the name on my 800 bill. Then I wait.
Carriers with competent order provisioning will do the following: Within 72 hours the order processing supervisor will call and ask, "Exactly what kind of idiot are you?" My hope is that they’ll ask me if I want the unidentified 4th line on the main BTN PICed along with the 3 I identified. They’ll tell me the other 8 lines are actually on two different BTNs. They’ll inform me that some of my lines are PIC restricted and suggest I call the LEC to PIC the lines myself. They’ll finish by saying, "We can’t pick up your 800 service because your current carrier has rejected the resporg for a name mis-match and the fact that the bill is not current.
Carriers with less than adequate order processing never call. When I call them, they simply assure me, "No problem. That order went through. It’ll be PICed and resporged over any day. Don’t worry, we’ll call you if there’s a problem."
"Named" Network Reliability
Who do they use, does it work and will it keep working? Many customers like to know that the underlying carrier used by a reseller is someone they’ve heard of. Fast busy signals, "all circuits busy messages", static and echo’s do not instill long-term customer confidence or generate many customer referrals. The one and only way to test network reliability is to become a customer. Get an 800 number, PIC over a line and get a calling card. The best response to a customer or prospect asking you "Is their network quality good enough?" is "Well we’re using the network on this call right now, how does it sound?"
Reliable & Flexible Billing and Commissions
Can they bill it and, if so, will that bill amount be reflected on your commission report? See a copy of the customer bill. See a sample commission report.
The Ability To Stay In Business
If you’re contracting through a master agent or smaller reseller, this can be a real issue. How close is the entity just above you from violating their agreement with the next higher entity such that all the customers in the telecom food chain risk being "shut off"? Ask to see contracts and revenue or commission statements. If you’re a subagent under a master agent who’s paying you 14% of the 15% he’s making instead of the 10% you can make without the master agent, make sure the master agent’s 15% is reasonably rock solid. What’s the danger? If the master agent is making 15% because he promised to produce $20,000 per month of new revenue within six months and is still only producing $10,000 after five months, then the master agent is in jeopardy of losing when he’s obliged himself to pay to his subagents.
As well, maybe the master agent is meeting all his obligations, but the reseller he’s selling is badly behind in paying the underlying carrier. If the reseller gets into trouble, then all of the reseller’s customers (the master agent’s and all of the sub agent’s) can have their service shut off until the reseller becomes current with the underlying carrier. Happens all the time.
Recent Positive Customer and Agent References
What resellers or master agents say about themselves matters not. What a reseller or master agent’s customers and (sub)agents say matters a great deal. Does a carrier have an agent program that’s even been in existence for 12 months? Have other agents been getting their commissions and commission statements on time every month? And, what about the customers? Are the reseller’s statements about PICing all customers within 3 - 5 days borne out by the actual customer’s experience?
Ask for and check references! I can’t tell you how often I have ended a "bad experience with a master agent/reseller" agent conversation with the question, "Well how did their references check out?", only to learn that no references were checked.
Aggressive Price/Commission Combinations
Money comes in a poor 6th out of 10 in importance because if an agent program you’re considering isn’t squared away on the five items mentioned above it doesn’t matter much what a master agent or reseller says about their price/commission combinations. What does a 10% difference in commissions mean when you’re cashing that monthly commission check, if you’ve spent countless hours over the past 4 weeks correcting problems created by your master agent or reseller?
Good Customer/Agent Customer Service
In spite of your best intentions you can’t always "be there" for your customers or subagents. Sooner or later one of the two is going to call the reseller or carrier direct for something that you usually do for them. Do you shudder at the thought? If you do, that’s bad.
Ask up front. Can customers call in to add calling cards? If it’s an East Coast based reseller, do the customer service lines close at 2pm West Coast time? Can an agent or subagent verbally add new lines to an existing customer’s account, or is paperwork always required?
Good Agent Managers
Are they "there for you"? Will they give you their pager or cellular number? Will they fill out the data paperwork for you? Will they train your subagents on how to fill out paperwork? If you can guarantee to retire at least 10% - 25% of an agent manager’s monthly new business quota, you should be getting your calls returned. (Most agent managers need to have their block of agents bring in $20,000 per month in new revenue.) If you’re doing $5,000 for them month after month, your agent manager should be buying you lunch (or anything else you want) on a regular basis.
Agent Contract Fairness (Bad Debt, Customer Rolling, Etc.)
I have yet to meet an agent who was sued by a reseller or carrier. I’ve met many agents who stopped getting paid by them, however. Much is inappropriately made of agent contracts. "They’re all a bunch of crooks out to screw us" is the war cry made by many agents. In my humble opinion, what is written in an agent contract matters little.
The bottom line is that when push comes to shove, the carrier is going to do what the carrier is going to do. Few, if any, of us agents have the financial wherewithal to take on the legal resources of a reseller or carrier. We need to meet our own contractual commitments. If we say we’re going to deliver $5,000 per month in new business, then that’s what we have to do. If a carrier stops paying us, we move the traffic. Read several contracts to get a gauge of what’s generally expected. One of the fairest contracts I’ve read lately is Atcall’s - it makes a great benchmark.
If you’re an agent who can prove you can deliver new revenue every month, you can expect that an agent manager will help you get changes made to a standard contract. If you’re an unproven commodity to a reseller and you start squawking about getting a decent standard contract changed, the agent manager will label you a nut and stop returning your calls. Unproven agents need to pour on the business for six months and then ask for changes. Nine out of ten "money agents" get whatever they want whenever they want it.
Marketing Assistance
This is last because it’s all but non-existent. What can a reseller or carrier do to help you improve your marketing? What’s generally provided (and usually the biggest help) is a full product line. Do they offer data, internet and local network services, too? As we’re all so well aware, the time is coming when customers will want it all on one bill unless we can tell them why it’s not.