Telecom Agent Priorities

David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
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Telecom Agent Priorities

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?It seems like every time a discussion regarding what is important to a telecom agent is conducted, the service providers begin with compensation plans. However, the agents tend to spend more time discussing support resources. The dilemma is in determining which party is accurately stating the true priority. I decided it may be more of a “Which came first, the Chicken or the egg?” type of issue. The two go hand in hand with one not more important than the other. If an agent is not receiving fair compensation for sales, then the agent will look for greener pastures. However, if the agent also discovers that the service provider cannot service the customer well, then at the risk of losing the customer and the agent’s reputation a change will also be made. So, the correct answer regarding priority is that it’s probably a tie. Agent compensation is important, but the agent is exposing a “trusted” relationship with the customer with each proposal or quote. It is the agent’s accountability that is also at risk with each opportunity.

Other than network infrastructure and product, ANPI’s greatest business investment is in its support organization. Any carrier that uses an indirect channel for sales should make a similar level of investment as it is a key criterion in the decision making process of an agent. Building a business and making money may motivate the agent, but choosing the right vendor or set of vendors is the only way to achieve success.

Support for the agent begins with the channel managers. The channel managers should have experience in working with the agent community, a deep understanding of their company, product, industry and the target markets of the agent, and have an internal company presence that allows them to sway pricing, service delivery, customer care and billing. The face of the company to the agent is the channel manager. The customer for the channel manager is the agent.

The next level of support for the agent is service delivery. When the order is accepted, the agent does not want to lose visibility of the process. The agent needs to be aware of every step in the process and prepared to intervene in the provisioning, implementation and turn-up of the service. Agent portals are good for visibility. However, having the ability to directly contact support is sometimes necessary to providing a positive customer experience.

Finally, there is post installation support which includes billing and customer care. Billing must be accurate and if a problem is discovered quickly rectified. Customer care must be available and responsive to customer requests or agent interventions on behalf of the customer.

When carrier or vendor support is not an issue, then the agent has more time available to solicit and close new business. It is important for an agent to diligently research vendor options and make the correct agent program selection.



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