Taking Care of CLEC Customers

June 11, 2001 -- Obtaining a customer is much like working with a jewel in the rough. Some precious stones are dull and unassuming when located in their natural environment. It is only after careful extraction and time consuming polishing that they shine with that glimmer that we all enjoy.

Obtaining beauty from a precious stone requires a dedication and patience. A diamond does not spring from the ground completely faceted and in a perfect shape. Even a lowly opal must be handled properly to have that gleam which inspires a customer to purchase it.

The same is true for a telephony customer. He may be sold on your services, but only through diligent efforts will that customer truly be a gem in your company's treasure chest. Picture your customers as treasures and think about how you would handle a treasure of immense value.

Every step of the customer sale, install and support is similar to the development of that precious stone. The order taking, the order interpretation, the obtainment of services, the installation of services, the assignment of a number, the actual turn-up of those services, the entering of the services and billing information, the retrieval of call records, the rating and billing and the processing of payments are steps required to turn the rough customer into a polished, precious customer.

I have often seen orders for customers viewed only as paper to be stacked around an office. No concern about the treatment of the order, other than a passing reference. I have seen the inability of a company to know where an order is. I have seen the lack of reverence for the timely action on an order. I have seen disrespect toward a customer because they have the audacity to ask about the status of an order.

I have posed a question to departments who handle orders in the pass. Would they throw a diamond on the ground or leave one lying about? In every case the answer is a resounding no! But, these same departments do so with one of the most precious gems a company has, the customer order.

Whether its an initial order or a change order, the inability to maintain control on an order is a failure of amazing magnitude. When processing a gem, the stone cutter will extract the gem from the rough stone, carefully hand the rough stone to a polisher who will perform the initial polish, pass the polished stone to a cutter who will carefully cut the stone into its shape and size, then pass it on to a jeweler who will set the stone into an appropriate setting. During these steps, great care is taken to assure that every stone is counted and recounted. After all who in their right mind wants to lose a diamond?

An order is just as important as a diamond. If control is not maintained on the flow of the order, you might as well be throwing diamonds away. Order counts and dates are key to maintaining levels of control. When an order is delivered from the salesperson or obtained from the customer it must be considered precious to the lifeblood of the company. Another analogy is that of a tomato. If the tomato does not reach its destination in a timely matter, it will grow soft and turn rotten. Many of us have seen a rotten customer because of failures to meet service installation in a timely manner.

So how do we protect our gems and keep our tomatoes from rotting? The process is actually very simple.

Responsibility and Handshaking
Responsibility is easy, if you own the process or function, you are responsible. If you are a provisioner or order taker, you have a responsibility. If you are a manager, you are responsible for the actions of your department. If you shirk responsibility you do not deserve the title or the job.

First of all, understand the effort and time required to work an order within your area of responsibility. Second, track and measure every action within your control. If you don't take on the responsibility to control that which you are responsible for, then what good are you to the company?

If you are not taking measurements, start taking them. Many times I see managers waiting for the right metric to spring from the ground and solve their problems automatically. If you don't have industry metrics, create one. Never wait for someone else to solve your problems for you. That is why responsibility is a key.

Handshaking is as simple as two friends agreeing to work together. There are two forms of handshaking, an intermediate hand-off, where an order is passed to another group knowing that it will return to be finished and the final, where the order is completed within your responsibility and passed to the process next in line.

The intermediate handshake requires one to maintain a level of control more from timing than in an ownership role. If an order is passed to another group to perform a sub task, you must maintain control to assure the task is not only completed, but it is completed within your expected timeframe. If it is not your responsibility then make it so. Do not pass the buck and do not pass go. Accept the responsibility.

The final handshake is where you have completed your tasks and are now ready to pass responsibility. In the final hand-off, you maintain control on what to pass on and when it was passed. If you are responsible, make sure you cover your responsibility. Its too easy for handshaking groups to say the other hand was dirty. Every group has the responsibility to keep their hands clean at all times and not place their fellows is a dirty situation.

Managing the flow of orders is not a difficult task. But viewing customer orders as gems takes a little imagination and much determination to assure that everyone in the organization has the same viewpoint and considers the impact of throwing diamonds on the floor or letting tomatoes rot from inaction. The failure to minimize loss results in loss revenue, but more importantly lost reputation. The carrier that can't maintain their treasure will fail.

Jim Marsh is a senior consultant for The Management Network Group, a telecom consulting organization.  Jim has worked in telecom for 15 years and is an expert in revenue assurance, risk management and fraud. Jim speaks and writes on improving operational systems and functions to improve bottom lines.