This particular company that I was hoping to make my way in was also known as not being very “vendor friendly”.  They were a great account if you managed to get, but that was the entire battle – just getting in.  For about a year and half I managed to pester a particular individual about getting in until one day, the contact I had was GONE!  No longer employed at the company.  Scrambling, I somehow managed to find the name of his replacement and after some persistence, I finally managed to secure a meeting with the new manager in charge of telecommunications for the firm.

I was excited the day I met with him.  He was a very cordial and pleasant person, I learned that he had just moved from the West coast and it turned out we has some similar interests.  After some time discussing what we might be able to do for them, he decided it might be a good idea to see what we might be able to come up with as far as providing them some new services and perhaps even reducing costs.

We were given the opportunity to work on a portion of their existing telecom business and if our solution had merit, we would be able to implement it.  I was elated.

When it came time to review their existing services, what I managed to see absolutely left me speechless.  What our team discovered was a mishmash of convoluted and redundant services that was scattered with non-functioning services that, from a cursory view may have made sense but as we started peeling back layers of the “onion” we discovered what was pretty obvious to us was a sales rep who was looking to pad his own wallet.

I kept hearing conversations I had with the previous manager telling me how his sales team at the telecommunications company was “taking care of them”, in reality it was a mess.  In the end, we provided a proposal that lopped nearly 70% from the monthly costs of their prior account and reduced the number of bills significantly.  The lesson here is to make sure you’re aware of what you’re getting is what you need or at a competitive rate.  You have to stay diligent and on top of your vendor, while it doesn’t happen frequently your sales team may not be looking out for your best interests.

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.