Your company’s telecom solution is an important tool in providing the quality, value and support that customers expect when doing business with you. Is your current service up to this challenge? Here are some points to consider when you start to hear complaints about phone call drops and slow internet access.
Your Current Solution:
Are you experiencing slow internet response, garbled internet phone calls or internet video problems? This can result from more users on your internet connection or an increase in more internet intensive applications being used than were planned for. The resulting customer and employee frustration can cost your business in sales and reputation. A good first step is to audit your internet traffic to be sure that unauthorized traffic is not adversely impacting work related traffic, i.e. music or video services not related to work. How old is your network hardware? It may not be able to handle the level of internet traffic that your company is using now, i.e VoIP phone systems, video conferencing, data backups over the Internet and Cloud Computing. A competent IT technician can run the audit and call out ways to take better advantage of the Internet Service you already have.
Sometimes the solution isn’t an internal fix. If you are pushing your internet connection to its limits, increased bandwidth is the next step via a simple call to your
providers customer sales and service department. Before you commit though, service upgrades are always a good opportunity to negotiate better pricing. Check around with other service providers in your area and see what is available that will meet your needs, sometimes at a better price.
One more thing to consider when choosing to go with a new internet provider is the customer service side. Are you currently getting accurate billing? Is their customer service available and helpful? To avoid going from the frying pan into the fire, check around for other provider’s customer service reputation.
Planning your future:
As mentioned above, your company’s growth can have an impact on your internet bandwidth needs. If your marketing department is forecasting more sales, it is time to call a planning session with your management team to plan how the rest of the company will grow to meet the growth. If you’ll need to hire more employees, you’ll need more phones and use more internet bandwidth. Will you be expanding your internet presence through social media marketing, web sales, on-line customer support, etc? The all have bandwidth, hardware and software implications.
Emergency Preparedness:
From the construction crew cutting your communications line to natural disasters as evidenced by the recent hurricanes and wild fires, service outages will impact your business. More so as you get bigger. By building redundancy into your telecommunications systems, you can limit the short term impact of these outages while you implement your business continuity plan if the outage is long enough. No plan is foolproof but implementing redundant internet connections, on-line back ups, Cloud VoIP, and other off-site business services you can reduce the risk and limit the impact.
Understanding what your current telecom service agreement promises and making sure you are getting it requires an occasional review. More often if you feel that your internet is slow or erratic. A secondary concern is will your current provider be able to support your growth. That answer requires knowing which providers service your location and meeting with their sales teams. It is a time consuming effort and you’ll get a filtered sales presentation. Your other option is to engage with a Telecom broker that will identify your needs and provide you with a list of providers along with their pricing in a much quicker timeframe.
For more information on what a telecom broker does, here is a link to a blog we wrote a while back regarding the benefits of using as telecom broker.
Teledata Select offers a whole range of services that will help you meet your business goals. Starting with a complimentary review of your current telecommunication bills to identify errors and find opportunities for savings, better service and more functionality. We also offer project management for new service implementation and infrastructure installs, including fiber and low voltage cabling. Call us at 404-257-1502 to discuss your current Telecom Service Solution and what you would like to get out of it. Or send us a note via Contact us to start a no obligation discussion of your specific business technology needs.
Don Miller is a PMP certified Project Manager located in Greenville, SC. He has come to Teledata Select via Seattle, New York and Washington DC. His experience running small to multi-million dollar projects in the Banking, Software, Telecommunications and Insurance Industries across the US has given him a wide range of business experience.
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