Seeing this start at voip.ms, progress to the Unlimitel sellout, comparisons to analog of the telco's infamous 5 nine's of reliability and inherit weakness of VoIP service and the natural digression to dissatisfaction with big companies...got me thinking about business coaches and recent experiences to engage them.
It seems we all loved Stephan's level of service but he did what many of us wonder if it's possible..progress to sell out to a big guy. Can you sell out to a bigger company - obviously yes... but at what cost... We have acknowledged that Primus has let us down a few times, not that they've had more failings than Stephan did, but more how it's been handled. Every business coach I've engaged has had exactly the same progression of discussion..how to change my business to make it appealing to a larger buyout. The first is more customers, followed by a more hands off approach to dealing with the customer, speed up the turn around on a customer and lower the expectations. The crazy part is I've put 15+ years of hard work into building a business that is exactly the opposite. We provide a premium service at what's now an above market price yet continue to sell it because we do exactly that, filling a niche that wants the premium service and will pay for it. We set an expectation of quality service, say what we'll do and then doing it. If we get a call that starts with "what's your price", I immediately tell the potential client that's we're not the company for them and they're shocked. We've become a society that seeks the best price yet want's the premium service...aka the Walmart service at Mercedes quality... Where am I going...Stephan managed to sell to Primus and as I said...I can't say the uptime has changed...someone may correct me here... But at the end, I haven't see a significant change in that myself... Outages however have been handled worse at least in the beginning...it's improved but still not what we used to or at least perceived to remember... Has it helped Stephan... I suspect he gets more sleep now. He's got a few more dollars in his pocket. Is it what he thought. Would he do it again... Has anyone else done this on this forum...and so publicly I might add... I'm curious... How did it start, what motivated you. Did you do it via business coaches? I'd love to do something similar to my business or more specifically, don't want to be hostage to the business - a feeling that comes up more and more especially lately - yet continue to provide that level of service that our clients have come to expect of us. We keep hearing the "go big or get out" but the "go big" unenviably, seems to lose the customer service aspect first and other attributes soon thereafter that many of us pride ourselves on. Thoughts, comments - I'd love to hear more - even offline if you wish.. D. -- Dave Bour Senior Consultant Desktop Solution Center 905.381.0077 x501 [email protected] Linked In: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/dcbour Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dcbour Providing Complete IT Peace of Mind On 11-12-08 9:35 PM, "David Craig" <[email protected]> wrote: >Ah Henry, wouldn't we all like the 99.98% associated with analogue >lines. Oh yes, it has taken longer than both our lifetimes combined to >get the analogue technology that far. >Eventually VoIP and IP technology will also improve. Until that day, I >would rather pay the MUCH better VoIP prices, not deal with an incumbent >provider, and manage with occasional outages. >Let's all remember that big telcos have a much bigger plant, huge >resources, lots of staff, are totally impersonal, and couldn't care less >about their customers. VoIP suppliers do a lot with a little, are real >people and actually might want to provide something old fashioned called >service. >End of rant - that's my 0.02% worth. >David >P.S. Just today I tried to make a few outgoing calls on a legacy PBX in >a large company, using Bell lines. Guess what, I couldn't get any of my >calls completed. About 10 minutes later, I was able make those calls. > > On 08/12/2011 12:38 PM, Henry Coleman wrote: >> IMHO Unlimitel provide a good service but they are not perfect as the >> latest outage shows. >> I just wish we could get 99.98% uptime that is associated with analog >> lines, then I would be able to get a good night's sleep. >> Henry >> >> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Bruce N<[email protected]> wrote >> >>> Unlimitel set expectations high so I really don't compare Voip.ms to >>> Unlimitel. There is a price gap between the two providers. Probably >>> Vitelity is a closer match in terms of the cross border competitor. >>>Hearing >>> less of the issues is not a solution for users. However, adding a >>>backup >>> server might be :-) >>> >>> Though, I agree on posting regarding issues from providers. Keeps >>>everyone >>> in the loop and probably saves time as well since one wouldn't have to >>>go >>> on checking their equipment for such issues. >>> >>> -Bruce >>> >>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Sean Healy<[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> VoIP.ms has generally been reliable, but it seems they've been having >>>> some issues with their Canada incoming DIDs this past week - >>>> specifically in Southern Ontario. >>>> >>>> Incoming calls to my Canadian DIDs are not working as I write this. >>>> >>>> Whenever there is a problem with Unlimitel, we all seem to converge >>>> here. And I think it's important to point out that it's not only >>>> Unlimitel that experiences issues. >>>> >>>> (And I suspect if Unlimitel had a similar "issue tracker" on their >>>> portal, we'd hear less about their outages as well.) >>>> >>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >>>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >>>> >>>> >> >> > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
