[Asterisk-biz] ITSP Rant

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005, Robert Goodyear wrote:

> How is it that companies can push a wholesale/reseller product and not
> offer ANY sort of SLA or financial recourse? I'm not talking five nines
> here, but how about something like "if your DID is down for more than
> five days, we'll credit you for the month."
>
> Why do none of the providers generate the equivalent of a monthly 
> invoice? Why do *few* of the providers have a reliable trouble 
> ticketing system that actually generates some sort of paper trail?
> 

a) Customers buy anyway

b) There's very low barrier to entry, thus lots of lemonade stand ITSPs
with a server at a ghetto-colo-of-the-month facility reselling a reseller
of a reseller.

> Here's the thing: Customer Relationship Management is not difficult. It
> requires very little overhead to build a relationship with a customer in
> such a way that those customers become that company's evangelists and
> stick around for the long run. When things level out, it's going to come
> down to where the customers have gravitated that determines the lifespan
> of an ITSP. And customers will gravitate AWAY from a provider that
> thinks customer service should only be directly proportional to cost per
> minute. I firmly do NOT buy the argument that because minutes are being
> offered at such a steep discount, you're on your own for support.
Actually, *that* part is not wrong. You are buying wholesale service - you
shouldn't really expect handholding similar to one that Vonage (say)  
provides (or should provide anyway) to a grandma with a SIP adapter.

Note: Support is not customer service. While I don't think its
unreasonable to have little to no *support* (as in, people who will tell
you how to configure your asstricks) - actual customer service is far more
important for a wholesale customer than retail.

> I'll sign off with a quote from one provider's sales page; the place 
> where one customarily *begins* the process of wooing clients.
> 
> "Don't waste our time trying to get the costs down if you are not going
> to do a higher quantity. You will be wasting your time as well."
That's also a testament to sad state of industry. People take the cheapest 
offer and complain when their service is down. Yet, when you tell them 
"why did you choose the company that does not have a merchant account, 
that you can't find the last name of the owner, and hosted in a 
ghettocolo" - all I get are blank stares and "but but they were 0.01c 
cheaper than you".

/me gets off the soapbox.


--
Alex Pilosov    | DSL, Colocation, Hosting Services
President       | alex at pilosoft.com    877-PILOSOFT x601
Pilosoft, Inc.  | http://www.pilosoft.com