One Vendor, Multiple Prices, Wrong Answers and Outright Lies. What Gives?

Posted by Benny on Feb 9th, 2010 | no comments home title

If you’ve ever had to send out a Request For Proposal (RFP) or simply tried to find the pricing for a telecom product or service you know that it’s not always a simple matter. If you call up the local office, search for pricing on the company’s website, or compare prices from your neighbor down the street, guess what? Three different prices, with three different terms and conditions.

So what do you do to prevent information overload and even confused sales people from giving you the wrong information you need?

Here are a couple of tips to help remedy this problem:

1. Fully understand the scope of your services and what your REQUIRE. Too many times I see that price as the complete bottom line when selecting a carrier or phone system for instance, I’ll tell you now, there is ABSOLUTELY a difference in the quality of various providers of seemingly similar services. Not simply from a technological standpoint, but competency, feature sets and things like customer service and reputation still play a big part in your selection. We sat down with a client who bemoaned the fact that a phone system supposedly had a certain feature set and could be upgraded for a modest fee or simply “turned on” for them at no cost. In reality, they had to spend over $20,000 for this feature and since he had purchased the phone system last year he felt forced into buying this upgrade.

2. Your sales rep’s word should never be gospel. I have seen in more than one occasion where the sales team was just dead wrong about a question regarding a product or service. To move forward with your decision criteria based on false information can ruin your whole network configuration or have you paying for fees that you weren’t expecting. In one case, I actually was witness to PURPOSEFULLY false information presented to a prospective client because the sales rep was leaving in two weeks, but wanted to get the commission before she left. Luckily, the client didn’t pick that vendor. Yes – this really happens.

3. Check the website and pull tariff information if possible. In the cases where very specific information is needed don’t be afraid to do a little “heavy lifting”. I’ve seen a few times where simply checking some information on the website would have revealed that fees that were being charged in actuality were bogus, network coverage was handled by partner companies and not the vendor and where the customer service number when called yielded an hour long wait on the phone, not the claimed “immediate response”. Today, we have a great deal of information at our fingertips, be sure to use it.

4. Trust. It can be deceiving. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again, it is imperative that you have a good relationship with your vendors, but be careful that it’s not taken lightly. I enjoy a very comfortable relationship with some carrier representatives because that can be important for us to do a good job for our clients. But I never take it for granted, if I’m really unsure I’ll check with multiple contacts to verify critical information is accurate and that what we hear is relayed back to our clients confidently. Every now and then, and I believe to be a factor of laziness rather than malice, information is incorrect and I’m glad we checked and double checked. Make sure you do the same.

All companies that have significant telecom bills need to realize that you are given the opportunity to get the best services and prices in the industry, at the same time be sure you recognize that some may try and take advantage of that and see you as their meal ticket and a fat payday. Be sure you or have your telecom audit firm make sure it’s not you that gets the short end of the stick.

One Vendor, Multiple Prices, Wrong Answers and Outright Lies. What Gives?

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