Back from the road

I spent most of this week on the road talking to current and potential Cypress customers - which is always good for my soul.

One visit in particular made the whole trip worthwhile. We stopped in at an existing Cypress customer in NYC. They've been with us just around six months after having a very bad experience with a different hosted provider. The sales process to bring them on board was, shall we say, confrontational; since they were jaded by their prior provider and viewed our claims of service and functionality with an appropriate degree of disdain and suspicion. And early on in the installation phase, the slightest less than perfect experience from Cypress was viewed as proof that we were incompetent liars too.  

But that was then - this is now. The CFO of this very cool company made it clear that though business for them is good, there is pressure to cut costs everywhere. And then he offered up to us the ability to replace his other service providers (on the data side of things) and to hopefully bring savings as a result of the consolidation. The impetus behind this offer was in his words - our service; which he described basically as the best he has ever had from a communications service provider. His evaluation continued with him stating that in technology things can go wrong, and that the judgment of a good provider is how quickly they respond - and we respond fast. He finished by noting an incident where he called in a bad phone on his way to the office and we had it swapped before he got in - something that amazed him.

Now somewhere in mid 2008, Gartner did a report, on Verizon, and mentioned Cypress in it (which of course made me smile). The reference to us centered on where mid-sized business would receive the highest level of service, and the answer to that query was not with Verizon but with the smaller Technology Service Providers, like Cypress. I of course shouted AMEN as loudly as I could when I read that. And I felt like shouting it again as this CFO gave his narrative of his experience with Cypress.

Beyond the economic and technological benefits of the UCaaS model there is the experiential benefit of doing business with a partner that is almost myopically focused on the "customer experience".  And that is not defined by the technology working; it is defined by how the enterprise user community "feels" as they use it on a day to day basis. Cypress and other folks like us are dedicated to a high touch customer experience for all of our clients. We don't just want stuff to work, we want you to love it - or as the book's title states, to become "raving fans" of it. The commitment is manifest in how we take care of our clients every day.

So come on into the pool, the water is warm, and the drinks are served fast and cold by a happy staff  J

(This is dedicated to the entire team of Cypress's NYC branch office.)