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Choosing and working with telecoms suppliers

By Mark McLean

The results of Telephone Helplines Association’s 2006 survey of voluntary organisations about their telecoms supplier. Top tips for selecting a suitable supplier.

In 2006, the Telephone Helplines Association asked 231 voluntary and community organisations about their response to the following statements about their telecoms suppliers:

• Suppliers had a customer orientation (ie that they were needs-led rather than product-led).
• Products and services supplied met their needs
• Suppliers took account of the voluntary sector context of customers
• There were clear contact points between supplier and customer
• Suppliers were responsive to problems. 

The overall attitude to suppliers was equivocal, with the ‘neither agree nor disagree’ response being the most common in the areas of customer orientation (51%), meeting needs (46%) and responsiveness to problems (50%). Suppliers came off best in regard to clear contact points, with 36% agreeing or strongly agreeing that this was the case. They fared worst in regard to taking account of charity status, with 41% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing that this was the case.

Suppliers were especially unpopular with certain types of organisations. None of the respondents serving rural areas and none of the respondents with an annual turnover under £25,000 strongly agreed with any of the statements. There was a perception that telecoms suppliers only value the relationships that they have with larger organisations.  

From that analysis, it would seem that small to medium-sized voluntary agencies are not best placed to establish and maintain good working relationships with suppliers. However, with a bit of care and co-ordination, your supplier could actually become an ally rather than somebody you have to contend with.

Let’s start off at the commissioning stage. If you have decided what your business requirements are and have an indication of the likely budget, then you are ready to enter the market.

Ten top tips for selecting a supplier:

1. Consult the ICT Hub suppliers directory and look for suppliers in the area of telephony. Each supplier has been given references by two voluntary agencies and can offer a discount to the sector.
2. If the supplier you have in mind hasn’t registered, ask them to supply a reference and make contact with the agency they give you to check their experience of working with that supplier.
3. Be clear about what you want to achieve as an organisation with your telephony (not just for a single project), by when you would like to achieve it, and what the volumes of activity (e.g. inbound or outbound calls) are likely to be.
4. If you are looking at buying a system that is critical to your needs and costs more than a few thousand pounds, you may wish to issue a written tender notice to three or four suppliers and ask them to quote to your requirements by a specific (reasonable) deadline. That way, you will be able to compare the suppliers on a like-for-like basis.
5. If appropriate, ask to meet not just the salesperson but either an account manager or a technician, or ideally both. This will not just give you a more rounded discussion, it will also introduce you to the people you would be likely to work with after any deal is closed. Remember, you’re buying a relationship as well as a product or a service.
6. Work out which staff from your own organisation need to be present at the meeting with a prospective supplier. If you have an IT or ICT Manager, they should probably be there.
7. If you are doing something that relies on other suppliers, for example installing a switchboard supplied by someone other than BT but connecting to BT infrastructure, it may be worth bringing them in to the same meeting. In any event, be clear about who is responsible for liaison with secondary suppliers.
8. Prepare all of your questions ahead of the meeting, noting the responses as you go.
9. Score suppliers for how much they demonstrate interest in your work. They should ask questions both to establish rapport but also to find out about the total telephony requirement for your work. The nature of your work may be a welcome change from some of the more corporate environments in which they operate, so they may also be curious. But if they don’t seem interested in what you do at this stage, they’re hardly likely to be responsive to your changing circumstances later.
10. Once they have impressed you with their patter about a product or service, it is then important to touch, feel and test it out wherever this is possible. Many suppliers can showcase their systems for you on their own premises. Some can demonstrate certain things over the web and others may suggest you visit a site where a system is in operation. This is where managers should stand back and let end users have a go. A competitively priced system from a great supplier will fail if it is difficult to use on the front line. However, it is important to distinguish between reactions which are about change (‘I don’t like this system. We’re accustomed to the old system and it is fine. I don’t see why we need to change.’) and those that are about the actual operation of the system (‘Even when we get used to this system, it will take twice as long to do each of the most common things we will need to do with it, and it won’t be easy to train up colleagues’).

When it’s time to talk about pricing, it’s important to run though all the set-up and recurrent cost headings discussed in the previous section, so that before you start negotiating, you have a sense of the total cost of ownership of a new system. That’s when the account manager is useful to have in the meeting, because they are more likely to know about after-sales costs.

Investigating discounts

You can then investigate discounts as follows:

• Can you get a discount because you are a charity?
• Can you give the supplier a ‘free’ ad in your newsletter in exchange for a discount?
• Do they have any end-of-line equipment or software that they can offer at a reduced price?
• Is there any low-risk brand new equipment or software that they can pilot with you at a reduced price?
• Are there any related ICT services that the supplier could also offer, where you would end up with a net saving?

If you are not satisfied with what is being offered, be prepared to walk away from any negotiations, whether the sticking points are about price or not. You may have lost a little time in the discussions you have had with a supplier, but this is better than losing out in the long term with something that doesn’t meet your needs. If the supplier you walk away from doesn’t come back with a better offer, consider re-approaching suppliers that you have rejected in the past – their people, products and prices may have all changed since you last had contact with them.

Before you sign...

Before you sign any agreement, it is essential to read the small print, particularly in relation to:

• Minimum term of the agreement – it must be reasonable in relation to your known income sources and timescales
• Costs or penalties of any early termination of the agreement
• What happens at the end of an agreement period if you decide not to renew with this supplier
• Payment schedules, in particular regarding first and last payments.

Other considerations

Another area to consider, if you are replacing a critical system like a switchboard, is the potential for installation to disrupt your normal day-to-day work. You can help minimise problems by:

• Having a staged transition from old to new systems where this is appropriate
• Aiming to install a system over a weekend or at a time when you expect few or no calls (this may be more costly but less disruptive, as long as changes can be made to all relevant elements, eg new lines or broadband connections and new equipment, outside working hours)
• Arranging to divert incoming calls to a secondary site during any period of disruption, or setting up a message on the external telephone number so that anyone who calls your number(s) hears that you are temporarily unavailable by telephone but can still be contacted by email and so on.

It is also important to agree contract management arrangements. It is essential to have two or three contacts at the supplier end (one contact is too few because you will only ever need them when they are on leave) with a clear understanding of their respective roles and responsibilities. It is also necessary to channel your organisation’s contact with the supplier through a small number of people at your end. Misunderstandings can easily occur if several people in your organisation, all with different knowledge and skills about telephony and different expectations of the supplier, are having independent contact with several people at the supplier end. It is helpful to have a log of all contact with the supplier, particularly where things go wrong, so you have a central source of evidence if problems cannot be resolved.

It can be useful to agree a review point in any contract period where you sit down with the supplier and feed back on the product or service you have received. The supplier will be particularly interested in this if you give an indication that you may want to spend more money with them, but even if you don’t, it’s an opportunity for you to update them on future needs and for them to update you on industry developments. Prepare for this review by looking at what other suppliers are doing and how much they are charging, so that you are demonstrating that you are aware of the market – then ask for a discount!

Where problems do occur, you should focus on making clear the gap between the service you have been led to expect and what you have actually experienced. Be calm but persistent in your presentation - letting off steam or getting angry with the supplier might make you feel better in the short term but is more likely to generate a defensive response than an immediate resolution. Facts, rather than feelings, may be more constructive, particularly in writing.

If you are unable to resolve a dispute with a company providing a telephone service, that company will be a member of an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) scheme. The ADR scheme brings in an independent agency that can investigate and decide what action needs to be taken. Most UK telephone companies belong to the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman (OTELO) which is open to consumers and small businesses including charities. Details of the relevant ADR scheme appear on your phone bill.

If you are unhappy with the costs, reliability, customer service or other aspect of your telephone company, or even if you aren’t, you are entitled to switch to another provider. You can compare service quality information (but not prices) for several larger telephone companies at Topcomm. In theory, it should be easy to switch provider and to keep your existing number (this is sometimes called ‘porting’ your number). In practice, however, this is not always quick or even possible because the process depends upon the existence of agreements between telephone service providers and the networks that operate on their behalf. Before you agree to move providers, check that porting will be possible and, if so, how long it is likely to take.

For more information on meeting your telephony needs please read the Good Telephony Guide (8.2 MB PDF file. Requires Adobe Reader. If you don't already have this, download it from Adobe).