Posted 6/29/10 By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email
On a recent trip through Georgia I had the opportunity to stop by the Ernest Communications office to visit with my old friend Jeff Leshin the Sales VP and meet for the first time Paul Masters, Ernest's President & Co-Founder. Ernest is a TA vendor that specializes in providing POTs, voice & data solutions for multi-location businesses.
As with all my visits to TA vendors I bring my video camera so they can speak to you directly without filtering from me. Click the videos below to hear what both have to say to you, TA's telecom agent and channel partner vendors and see an additional video from Paul to see what he has to say directly to business end-user prospects that channel partners introduce Ernest to.
Below the three videos you can read my comments on where I think Ernest Communications fits in the multi-location voice/data/POTs vendor space and why I like their idea of dispelling the notion that a "free lunch" really exists from their esteemed competitors.
TA Vendor Videos
Jeff Leshin's Comments to Telecom Agents & Channel Partners
Paul Masters' Comments to Telecom Agents & Channel Partners
Paul Masters' Comments to Business End-User Decision Makers
What? No Free Lunch?
When visiting TA vendor in their own offices I'm able to get a true flavor of where they are in the world compared to their competitors. (The feel you get at a trade show is OK but quite frankly every vendor looks about the same in a 10x10 booth.)
Sitting across the desk from the channel chiefs & owners I ask them straight out, "Why are you better than your competitors? Why are agents and their customers better off with you?" I asked these questions of Ernest and following is what I heard. The bottom line they suggested for both telecom agents/channel partners and multi-location business end-users is, "There's no free lunch. If the price is too low on the quote then expect the price to go up or customer service to be bad."
Ernerst Advantages for the Customer:
1. The Invoice Matches the Quote - While not being so brazen to mention competitors by name (in spite of TA's request that they do exactly that), Jeff suggested during our meeting that they were winning over agents from their competitors because they wanted to avoid the challenge of the "bill not matching the quote". It's easy to look like the least expensive vendor when you don't show all taxes and surcharges (like PICC) or feature charges (like caller ID or call forwarding) in your quote, Jeff suggested. Paul mentioned that many customers get caught up in simply comparing line charges and miss that the local or intralata variable pricing is not accurately compared on many proposals. At the end of the day though the customer does have to pay all the line items on the bill, not just the base charge the prospect saw on the proposal.
2. Price & Term Stability - Ernest provides stability for the customer's telecom budget by providing for stable terms. Some Ernest competitors heavily promote the fact that there is no term commitment to suggest that they are confident their customer's will stay because of the great customer service and pricing. Ernest suggests though that lack of a one or two-year term can be a trap for the customer because it allows their competitor to raise all the prices as soon as the customer has finally ported over all their services which sometimes takes several months and a lot of aggravation for end-users with hundreds of locations. It's a rare customer indeed that will immediately switch again because of a price increase - but they certainly won't be happy about it and they may not be interested in giving the agent a referral or reference.
3. The Last Voice & Data Vendor a Multi-Location Customer Needs - While some of their competitors look s to only provide POTs consolidation and billing services, Ernest is expanding their business to be the last voice and data service provider the customer will need no matter what technology direction the customer wants to go into including VoIP and SIP. "Let's face it," Jeff stated, "Multi-location customers look to a provider like Ernest to provide a single call resolution to any voice or data problem. We embrace that trust and hope to never say, 'We don't do that'". An example is set by Ernest's recent roll out of their new "integrated T-1" product for multi-location business end users.
Ernest Advantages for the Agent:
1. No Direct Force to Compete Against You - "Bringing Ernest into an opportunity does not launch a 'first ink wins' race against our direct sales channel because we don't have a direct sales channel," Jeff stated. "This is a huge complaint with our new agents coming from our competitors," Jeff said. As soon as they told the carrier about the account they were under the gun to close it or risk having the direct side come in and close it without them.
2. No Protected Accounts - "We're told that some of our competitors will not let agents sell or get credit for an account if the competitor owns even a single location of a customer with hundreds of locations," Leshin said. "With Ernest we don't protect accounts from the agents like that. If we don't have the business and you bring it - you'll get paid."
3. Reasonable Margins that Afford Commissions - "Competitors that get 90% or more of their customers through direct channels do possibly have lower costs than carriers like Ernest that pay decent commissions to agents every month. We build decent commissions into our pricing so that we can then pay the commissions to the agents. We also make sure there's enough margin for Ernest after the agents are paid to enable Ernest to still provide outstanding customer support to the customer. "There really is NO FREE LUNCH here," Jeff explained. "If you don't charge the customer enough you won't be able to pay the agent and buy the service you're selling the customer. In most cases the difference is just a couple points on a true 'apples to apples' quote. Make sure all the taxes and surcharges are disclosed and Ernest is extremely competitive with all our competitors - even after we pay honest commissions!"
4. Guaranteed Comparative Savings - "This is critical for 'shared savings consultants'," Jeff said. "And it ought to be critically important to any telecom agent or channel partner that lives off customer referrals. After the customer gets their first or second full invoice after the cut-over is complete they are going to find out if they really did save any money compared to their previous provider. "Gross minus net does not equal real savings," Jeff advised. "If a business end-user customer spends $10,000 dollars a month (which includes all taxes, surcharges & variable costs) with their previous provider and a competitors quotes the same traffic at $8,000 per month before taxes and surcharges, that does not equal $2,000 of savings for the customer. If a telecom consultant gets paid a split of the savings then the consultant needs to make sure the comparative savings of old carrier versus new carrier is all but guaranteed. "With Ernest you can be sure that we will deliver guaranteed comparative savings because our invoice matches the quote. We don't leave anything out to surprise the customer or deprive the consultant of their share of 'real savings'"
Bottom Line
When searching for the right multi-location POTs, voice and data vendor to pitch to your multi-location client, ask them the following questions:
1. Does the proposal include all taxes and surcharges?
2. What does your tariff say about raising base prices, surcharges, PICC, variable toll charges and other feature add-ons like call forwarding and caller-ID during the term of the customer contract?
3. If I run into a customer of yours and attempt to switch them to another provider, does that violate my agreement such that you can cancel my contract for the customer I have placed with you?
4. If I bring you an opportunity where you already have one location but I can bring many other locations, can I get paid paid on the locations i bring or is the whole account "protected" from me?
5. Are you moving into IP VoIP & SIP solutions?
6. Does the customer have to switch carriers? What if they just want their current carriers managed?
7. Do you provide voice, data or IT "help desk" services?
8. Does the customer have a reports portal to view their billing?
9. How customizable is the billing?
10. Do you provide nation-wide "truck roll" service?
11. Do you provide premise service other than just voice & data like phone equipment, computers or POS?
12. Does the agent have a "white label" or resale option?
13. Does your data/Internet options include resale of all "best local" like cable, Verizon Fios/fiber, DSL, fixed wireless, 3G or 4G cellular?
Contact Ernest Communications:
To get more information about how Ernest can help you and your multi-location clients please contact Jeff Leshin at 800-456-8353, extension 217 or [email protected].
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