Many carriers offer a spiff program where the Agents can quickly input minimal data to process an order, then get paid a decent spiff & be on their way. Downfall to this is; the amount of time it takes the carrier to then process the order – in which the customer & agent ultimately suffer.
A spiff isn’t always ALL it is cracked up to be when you sacrifice the quality of implementation for your customer. Look at the life cycle of an average order: Let’s say it takes about 30 days to get a standard T1 order processed, scrubbed, keyed, FOC received, circuit delivered, then turn up is ready to schedule. If you add another lesion in the mix between your PM and the customer, you are waiting for them to communicate with the customer, phone tag, questions, documents to be signed, more questions, then the process will finally begin . . . you are looking at a two week delay to your already 30 day interval. Sure, if you establish this with your customer ahead of time – you should be ok, but if you have a high priority order – what do you do when service is delayed due to mediation process?
Good rule of thumb in cases such as this – if it is worth it to you to get paid a few $100 for an order upfront rather than rely on your tried and true methods of order processing, feel free. We encourage the engagement of the spiff & would prefer all of our partners get the most money possible for each deal. We just suggest that instead of entering the minimum required information document- then hoping it all goes well; you should continue to engage your PM from initiation to mediate the communication, process and updates on the project daily so the order gets processed in the quickest, most efficient manner. You and your customer can not afford time lost between phone calls. Be sure that you & your PM have developed the action plan prior to the request getting submitted, finalize all paperwork so the order gets processed quickly. Only you & your PM can achieve success in the delivery of these types of orders.
No comments:
Post a Comment