[Asterisk-biz] ITSP Rant

[Robert Goodyear]

On Mar 29, 2005, at 10:19 PM, alex at pilosoft.com wrote:
>
> 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.
>

I think you're right, there: perhaps while the intent to offer a solid 
product is there, the dedication to ensuring the upstream provider's 
network (IP or Telco) is legitimate is being lost by the desire to 
compete against the rate whores.


>> 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.

I am not talking about end-user support; sorry if I didn't make that 
clear... I am talking about support requests like: "the ten DIDs you 
promised me 45 days ago are still not provisioned" and "the DID that 
worked for three months now rings disconnected." You know, stuff that 
would infuriate *my* end user if I had the balls to resell services 
that are supposed to be ready for prime time.

> 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.

Right. Clarified above. Still just talking about ticketable items like 
sales provisioning, failure reports, et al.

>> 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".

Counterpoint: when will some smart providers realize they could charge 
a premium for reliability or, heck, educated technical sales staff who 
take ownership of wholesale customers in their "territory" and manage 
the issue resolution process internally. I, for one, would pay for 
that. VoIP is offering such steep discounts below traditional voice 
networks that there would seem to be a lot of room to satisfy both 
worlds; that of the provider needing to make a profit and the 
implementer needing to sell a product that can be reasonably relied 
upon while being competitive to PSTN.

Again, I say enough of the rate whores and let's see someone shine 
here. The bar is VERY low. I spent the last 10+ years of my life 
working in the branding/product development world, and I see this as 
such a ripe sector to take a midsize player to the top simply with 
perception management and customer relationship building. It would be 
so easy for David to stomp Goliath, if David were to just wake up and 
get [him|her] self a Chief Marketing Officer or Product Development 
person and throw some effort into breaking through.