Most employees don’t think about the telecom service that their company uses to keep them connected. It’s either up or down, and if your connection is down, it’s a big deal.
IT professionals, however, do think about telecom and carriers. They see the bills. They see the performance. They see the traffic. And they get the phone calls if the connection is lost or slow.
Your company’s telecom is fundamental to many aspects of its operations. Let’s look at a few...
1. Connection to your customers
This is the big one. If your customers can’t contact you because your connection is too slow or too unreliable, it takes them only a few seconds to find a competitor that is easier to do business with. Or as Harvard Business Review puts it “Consumers’ impulse to punish bad service - at least more readily than to reward delightful service - plays out dramatically in both phone-based and self-service interactions.”
2. Connection to your employees
If you have employees at remote sites or on the road (or both), a reliable connection can improve both communication and a sense of everyone being part of the same community. If your employees can open up a video chat session with the sales rep in a different geographical location, both parties feel more connected. When they finally meet face-to-face, they already know the face, the voice and the person.
3. Connection to your tools
More and more, the applications you use are not on your computer, they are running on your network and connected using a telecom carrier. If you can’t use your applications, how do you get work done? You most likely can't.
4. Connection to your hosted services and the Cloud
Companies are using hosted services like hosted email and hosted voice to be more efficient. These hosted services do, however, depend on a reliable connection to networks and the Internet.
The advantages to the Cloud are many, but they quickly get erased if your connection through your carrier is poor or unreliable. It may seem like we are only talking about storage, but also includes accessibility to all applications using this telecom carrier connection.
5. Connection to online sales and ordering
If customers want to do business with you by purchasing online, it better work seamlessly. We are past the time where an ineffective online purchasing site is acceptable. Oftentimes, your telecom connection is crucial to this functionality. Our expectations have accelerated, so having a carrier who overpromises and underdelivers when it comes to bandwidth availability is one big reason to start looking for a better telecom carrier.
How is your performance and relationship with your telecom carrier? If it is suffering due to cost, performance, reliability, response time and support (or any combination of those), let Marco help. We can help you find the right carrier and ensure you have the support to manage your important telecom connections.