Choosing to partner with a local service provider instead of a telecoms Goliath has many benefits. In this piece, we take a look at five of the bigger ones.
If you’ve ever spent any time in the tech sector, you’ll know the phrase “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” The same is true in telecoms – when you’re making a high-value, business-critical investment, you go for the big name because safe bets don’t go wrong.
Or do they?
Even 20 years ago, the butt of the IBM joke was that everyone knew they were selling a flawed offer – old technology that was slow to move with the times and didn’t always deliver what was needed. But hey, it’s IBM. If it all goes belly up, you won’t get fired!
Thankfully, sayings like this are dying out. People are much more willing to shop around for the best telecoms partners, and that allows local consultancies like ours to not only go toe to toe with our larger competitors, but to stand head and shoulders above the alternatives.
Here are just five reasons why you might choose a telecoms provider who is a little bit closer to home.
1. Responsive Personal Service
We’re not saying that all large telecoms providers are difficult to get hold of when you need support … but it’s much easier to get hold of us! For instance, some of the direct networks have been operating through email only for most of the last 12 months. That’s really frustrating for customers who can’t get the answers they need straight away, and ambiguous response times can be harmful to their business.
Spend a few minutes on social media, and you’ll see that some of the big players have cultivated quite the reputation for missing the mark in customer services. Local companies like us are in a phenomenal position to offer a much more personalised approach. Because we’re in the same area as our customers, we can drop into our clients’ offices to help setup devices, transfer data, discuss bill reviews and offer technical support without delay. Need to get an emergency handset or SIM card? No problem, your account manager will drive it right over to you.
Work with TFM and we’re really going to look after you—heck, it’s the least we can do for putting your faith in us. Don’t just take our word for it, though, take a look at our Trustpilot page.
2. The Right Solutions at the Right Price
Telecoms is a highly individualised requirement – every business is different. A provider might have strong expertise in one market, but not really understand the pain points of another market (like SMEs). Working with a local partner means there’s a much greater chance that someone will look at your business holistically to find the best solution for your specific needs. At TFM, for example, we look at:
- Calling, text and data usage at a granular level, right down to the individual user
- Current services—speed, cost, gaps in service
- Premium requirements like international and roaming
- Existing network infrastructure
- Future demands—is user expansion or downsizing on the horizon?
- Contractual restrictions—can you even switch providers at this stage?
Once the review is completed, only then do we propose a solution that gives you exactly what you need in a cost-effective way. We’re a one-stop shop, meaning we can organise your mobile phone services, business-grade broadband, unified communications and voice over IP, as well as more advanced requirements such as security and ethernet circuits. You don’t have to waste time shopping around, because we’ll do it for you: balancing budgets, performance and resilience to your exact requirements.
And we’re not tied to any provider either, so you only ever get impartial advice.
3. Computer Doesn’t Say ‘No’
Because the big guys have such a stranglehold on corporate clients, they often view small and rural customers as afterthoughts. In fact, they may not work with these types of customers at all. Local partners can fill those gaps and provide solutions that hit all of the pain points for these challenging situations.
To give an example, we recently worked with a Northamptonshire-based commercial cleaning company, whose head office was located out in the sticks and several kilometers away from the nearest mobile phone masts. Their existing mobile broadband solution gave them dire upload and download speeds and staff had to go outside to make a phone call—not ideal for running a business!
We set them up with a rapid deploy system which provides instant connectivity to sites that have weak or no infrastructure. The company saw massive improvements in up and download speeds, dramatically improving their customer responsiveness and ability to win new business. Result? A very happy customer who was so glad they chose a local provider!
4. Superior Customer Service
As a local provider, we offer service levels to all our customers that our larger competitors tend to reserve for larger clients. And we can react to your needs and problems quickly, since we don’t have red tape and bureaucracy holding us down.
For instance, we’ve been around servicing our customers for over 10 years, and we offer everyone, from a single subscriber to customers with 300+ connections, the exact same value-added services:
- Face-to-face account management
- Advanced billing analysis to see where the money is being spent and help prevent bill shock
- Account set up and paperwork
- Renewal date support— one of the TFM team will be onsite to help with hardware setup and queries users may have on the day of port or upgrade
- Next day hardware delivery and next day delivery of faulty exchange handsets
- Direct delivery of multiple handsets to your site
- Multiple handsets and SIMS delivered with user names and mobile numbers assigned, so they’re easy to handout
- Local customer conferences, where we’re available to chat, help and support anyone who needs us
- Personalised advice for keeping usage and spend to a minimum
We’ll even manage the timing and termination of any old contracts you no longer need.
Can the big guys say that?
5. If Things Go Wrong…
There is nothing more frustrating than a service provider that doesn’t own up to their mistakes. Or worse, one that will bury their heads in the sand or deliberately pass you from pillar to post when a performance problem occurs. Local partners like us build our reputation on doing business face-to-face; on building relationships and establishing trust. And that means we’re going to look you straight in the eye and hold ourselves accountable when an issue arises.
Here at TFM, we work hard when things go wrong to get everything back on track for meeting your goals ASAP, so we can all enjoy a smooth and trouble-free future together. It’s just common decency really.
The bottom line is, there’s a practical purpose to choosing local. So when you have the option of partnering with a local consultancy or big provider, go with the local option for all the reasons that we’ve talked about. You won’t be disappointed …and we’re pretty sure you won’t get fired!
