In this growing era of global interconnectivity, multinational corporations such as the ones I've worked for have more options when it comes to telecom services. It's a lesson the American Telcos seem determined to learn the hard way.
For too many suppliers, there is still a revolving door between the customer and supplier, with the customer never sure who's going to walk through the door next. How many of you actually know, right now, who you're dealing with when you sign that three-year services deal? And does that person know your business?
Currently, we have turned to an overseas supplier to provide us with a global VPN using MPLS, dedicated router support and supplier router network management for connectivity to our manufacturing plants and offices in Asia, Europe and the U.S. If there was somebody who I knew at our former U.S. supplier, I would tell them the reasons why we switched.
Unfortunately, my former supplier gave me plenty of justification to drop them. Prior to my choice to switch carriers and reject my patriotic duty to buy American, I noted that every time I called my U.S. telecommunications account manager in the past year, I got a different person with no clue who I was or what my telecom needs were.
The first time this happened, I set up a meeting with the salesperson to get to know each other. The first topic of conversation was the sad tale of the "last guy" and how "it" (the disappearance of the account manager) would not happen again. I was assured of this no less than five times within a one-year period, before I finally learned my lesson and took my P.O. elsewhere.
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