Is the grass really greener?

In an industry as competitive and price driven as ours, it isn’t surprising that on occasion we aren’t always able to win every element of a customer's telecoms. The good news is that often when a customer reviews their choice, we are then re-approached because the service we offer frequently outweighs the cost savings promised by other providers.

TSSI Systems Ltd, the Swindon based, award-winning UK manufacturer of biometric security and document security products are one such customer. Whilst Total had installed their telephone system and provided their system maintenance, their mobiles, fixed-line calls and line rental were won by another provider who promised lower pricing. Cost is an important consideration for all companies but what are the cost implications of poor service?

As a leader in business security, TSSI know the importance of offering streamlined and efficient solutions, and although initial cost savings were seen with their new provider, several issues emerged which were primarily service related. As Phil Launchbury, IT Manager at TSSI explains: ‘Handset costs were a major issue. We had a budget allocated to us when we joined but the handsets that we purchased were not attractively priced, being not far short of retail price, or in one case over the retail price and supplied locked to the network.’

Without a named account manager to offer continuity when assistance was required or to undertake any tariff reviews there was no possibility to identify cost savings. Indeed, excessive costs for transfer of data via mobiles emerged and remained unidentified. Going on from this, limited billing information did not illustrate call profiles accurately, allowing identification of high users and this also led to time consuming manual analysis by TSSI accounting staff to calculate personal call totals.

When the time came to review their telecoms TSSI’s criteria were ‘features, price and service’. Total were approached and according to Phil: ‘On the features front we were looking for a service provider who could fulfill our requirement of handling both the fixed-line and mobile telecoms. Most providers would handle one or the other with very few providing good coverage of both - Total was one of the few! They were also professional throughout the bidding process.’

Already aware of the high levels of service at Total, TSSI were further encouraged to choose Total by a number of new developments. Phil commented: ‘Access to the online billing platform ‘YourView’ was an important consideration for us. We needed access to online call records. It's much easier for our mobile users to look through their call usage online than to trawl through pages of numbers and records trying to find those elusive private calls!’

To find that we were also offering a personal service by assigning each account a designated Field Account Manager to conduct quarterly reviews, as well as a named Customer Service Contact, was also an important factor. Phil adds: ‘The general inertia of dealing with a large organisation can sometimes lead to an inflexible approach to customers needs with an ‘it's up to you to take it or leave it’ attitude.’

Having made the move, Phil says: 'It is refreshing to deal with Total. As an example, our new SIM cards arrived within a day of the signed contracts being returned and to be able to stagger the phone transfer because our Chief Operating Officer was abroad and didn't want to lose connectivity was very helpful.'