Spiff Program Can Cause Hardships for Customers

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.

Reflection on the Qwest QMarket Place Event Jan 2010

Each year, the Qwest QMarket Place Event is a time for us to visit with old coworkers, channel sales managers, visit with Agents and meet new companies in the Telecom business. This year we had a great time catching up, sharing business practices and learning about new technologies and strategies.

The format was slightly different this year, than past shows. The Product Fair was held on Thursday, during breakout sessions instead of Wednesday evening after the on boarding training. The disadvantage for partners attending the breakout sessions, was the inability to participate in the product fair, but it also made the product fair less congested, giving those who had specific product questions, the forum to have one-one time with specialists. It would have been great for our AC & SE Teams to have been there, as these relationships are crucial to the building of sales, process & business functions for each Agent.

We found the breakout sessions we attended were comprised of very useful information, experts in the area and there was a lot of time for not only understanding the technology / process, but also question answer sessions. This was very helpful for a deeper understanding of how Qwest is positioned in the market for new technology trends.

If you have ever considered attending the QMarketplace Event, but never taken advantage of the opportunity, I would recommend trying to attend next year. When planning, schedule yourself to arrive to Denver by 11am, on Wed, giving you time to meet your CSMs in the partner lunch, attend the on boarding (or refresher) and stay for the full event with Awards Dinner Thurs. Plan to either join the group on the ski trip or head home on Friday.

It would be great to meet those of you next year who were unable to attend!

Channel Partners Expo, Las Vegas

March 1-3, 2009, our CEO will be attending the Channel Partners Expo at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Please look for us as we would like to visit with you & share with you some of our newly refocused projects & skill sets for 2009.

Project Management - Refocused on PM services with multiple carriers

• We have always provided PM support for multiple carriers, many of our partners are Qwest focused Agents
• We are seeking Agents that provide services from other carriers as well.
• We currently support Agents across the United States
• We only need a few items to manage projects for other carriers provided by your Channel Manager
• Call us today to see how easy it is to keep you in the field in sales, while we take the PM burdon off of your plate with ALL carriers

Commission Management - diving deeper for our Agents

• We have always provided commisisons management as a service to our partners
• We are re-announcing this skill set for all new & existing customers as another way to eliminate back office headaches & optimize your time for sales & business development
• We can support multiple tools including RPM, Tiger Paw, custom Access Databases & more

Please contact us if you would like to schedule a one on one meeting with our CEO & Founder.
Clere Communications - Here for you.