This morning, when I was on a call with a potential client, I was asked a question by the head of this company, and it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard it. After we agreed to the possibility of working together, we reviewed his current technology environment in brief (number and type of systems, phone and fax lines and Internet services, etc.). We also discussed what IV would accomplish both now and in the future to simplify his life and reduce his monthly expenses. For me, this is a simple concept because it’s something I do on a daily basis, but the reaction from this client was, “Ok. This sounds great, but I don’t know that I want to spend the money on that type of comprehensive service right now.”

Now, all things having to do with my less than perfect presentation skills in the early morning aside, is it really that hard for some of us to imagine that we can still get great service and a valuable partner for a decent price? I went on to explain that his investment would be minimal and in reality, the savings he’s going to see from our services will more than pay for our involvement in a very short amount of time. But this got me thinking… When buying a car, we expect to pay for an extended warranty if we want the extended service (for the manufacturer’s own product, of course). Or when we make purchases for our homes like TV’s, lawnmowers, etc., it’s always a question of whether or not we should purchase that extended warranty. Is that service worth the added expense?

Well, an extended warranty is really just a SERVICE plan that will guarantee we won’t have to shell out $100 for a new mower blade when it breaks in 2 years. So what about when we purchase services that aren’t associated with a product? Do they have to be expensive? Let me let you in on a little secret: When your car (while covered by that $3,000 extended warranty) needs to get serviced, the authorized service center which performs the work gets paid for it, right? Well in the IT and Telecommunications world, when we talk about services, we also may receive compensation for managing your on-going relationship, i.e. doing our job, but that cost doesn’t have to fall on you and your bottom line.

Take your telecom provider as an example: Imagine the number of support calls they receive everyday. Let’s look at just the ones involving billing mistakes. It happens, let’s face it. You get your bill; you realize that there are calls and/or services on that bill that shouldn’t be there. Now, you call your provider and go through the automated prompts which all tell you to visit a different website and after about 15 minutes (if you’re lucky) you get a live person on the phone. This fine individual, who unfortunately can only answer questions regarding your local service (“long distance is handled by another group, although it’s best to go online…”), informs you after another 15 minutes of “services review” that the billing error will be taken care of and apologizes for the mistake, maybe… This makes you happy, right? Well, at least until you receive the next bill and they are now charging you a late fee for not paying the full amount “owed” to them. ***Sorry, can’t look at that now, the mail server just went down again!***

My point in all this rambling is this: We have avenues of support escalation, long-time contacts in the industry and the know-how to get this done. And your carrier may even pay us to manage your billing, moving, service issues, etc. because how much do you think all of that support time, billing errors, etc. costs them? And where do you think that money comes from?

Let me know what you think… Is exceptional service before, during and after a sale really that expensive? Can you afford not to have this helping hand on your side for much longer?