Ever have a problem with an IVR, auto attendant or operator trying to locate a specific function at a communication vendor’s location? You found the provider phone number and by calling it you may or may not be provided with the answer. Some websites are not particularly helpful either.
I have been conducting a survey of the hosted voice communications providers in North America for a paper I am writing. I expect to write one or more blogs on the state of the hosted provider market. I was looking for the e-mail address of the person who would be the best for forwarding the survey form to for completion. Looking at about 200 websites and making about 230 phone calls (some I had to call 2 or 3 times), I wondered how some of these providers expected to acquire business.
My survey does not cover the cost of the services but covers:
* What services are provided--IVR, PBX, call center, UC
* The geographic coverage for the service
* Did the provider sell their own service or were they a reseller?
* The customer size, 25, 100, 1000, 1000+ phones/seats
* Solution type--on premise, remote, cloud based
My success in locating the best e-mail address has been fraught with problems. Here are some of my experiences:
* One provider's operator was suspicious of my call , told me they would not participate in the survey and would not direct my call to anyone else in the company.
* A provider's website was operating and so were the phone numbers. No one answered my call so I went to voice mail. Both the sales and technical support voice mail boxes were full and there was no other option for my call.
* The phone number on the website was not correct. I connected to a hot (sex) line instead.
* Several providers seemed to not be in business; their lines were disconnected. However, their websites were still up and running.
* When I connected to operators, many did not know if the provider offered hosted services.
* Many sales personnel were unsure of how to respond to my call.
* At several providers, leaving multiple voice mails did not generate a return call or an e-mail.
* Most auto attendant functions provided only sales, tech support and billing forwarding with no other options. Some were better and listed media relations and marketing but these were rare.
* In the past few months, there have been several mergers and acquisitions of providers. There were problems in determining who was now responsible for responding to my inquiries.
* One site posted a nine digit phone number.
* One contact phone number would never ring.
* Some of my searches for hosted communications voice providers came up with lists that were partly incorrect. I found a few providers listed for voice services that only supported hosted.
I am not criticizing all the providers. But, I am surprised that some providers who want to support enterprises and SMBs present such poor images of their services. The first contact for a company that is looking for hosted voice service is probably the Internet. I expect the website information selling the service to be accurate. If this is how some of the providers operate, then I anticipate that their customers are in for a rough ride, poor service, incorrect billing and questionable technical support.
