John Linton
When we started Exetel we simultaneously started a process of systems development aimed at building a web based business that would automate practically everything associated with finding customers and then accepting their orders, provisioning their services, allowing them to log problems and resolving problems, billing, collecting payment, resolving billing issues and.....in fact everything associated with any aspect of providing a service. Something practically no start up company would ever consider wasting scarce resources and money doing because the 'pay off' is so far in the future.
At the same time, and as a necessary 'support' to the automation of those processes we decided to provide total 'transparency' in terms of providing customers with information and 'visibility' of the 'mechanics' of the services we were providing to them and access to the views, reasoning and decision making of the people running the company and a true ability to take any concerns they had to the 'top' and have them instantly responded to. Together with those aspects we also decided to provide an ongoing capability for any customer who chose to do so to continually participate in Exetel's future decision making in terms of the services and 'plans' it offered and all other aspects of operating a start up and then constantly growing small business.
Sounds like a whole heap of meaningless BS? It certainly would be if it hadn't actually been meticulously carried out every day of Exetel's existence since January 4th 2004.
What has happened over the past 5 plus years is that we have done, and continue to do, all of those things and have stayed with those policies through the many, many difficult times we have gone through over the years. Some of those difficult times have been of our own making - many more have not. Throughout those years the directors of the company, and what constitutes 'senior' operational management in a start up company, have spent much of their time directly communicating with our customers either by reponding directly to emails or posting on our two fora and providing an unparalleled array of tools for customers to see exactly what is happening within Exetel's network and operating procedures.
We have never stopped automating our operational procedures and processes and have built a totally integrated management system that, according to a very large UK company that has looked at it in detail over twelve months, is superior to anything they have ever looked at (including their own in house developed systems that have cost them over 8 million euros so far) by the proverbial 'country mile'. Our view is that we have a long way to go in developing our systems but we know that, as long as we remain in business, that will aways be the case.
As part of the 'operating transparency' we have always provided our customers with full access to our Network Operation Centre in terms of minute by minute views of our MRTG reports on every key link that could affect a data customer (broadband, wireless) anywhere in Australia to assist them know whether any problem in speed they might encounter is actually being caused by network congestion/downs under Exetel's control. As far as I know, no other network service provider in Australia provides such 'confidential' information to their customers.
Yesterday, as a result of recently transferring our telephone facilities to our own developed software VoIP PABX, we have added the first of several new 'tools' to provide customers with total visibility of possible call wait times should they contact sales, support or provisioning. They now have the same view of call queues as our call centre and other management:
http://www.exetel.com.au/contact.php
This live report now supplements the 'historical' report that has been available for some time that shows average call wait times by day going back several months that is published on the Exetel User Forum here:
http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=324&t=27043
Over the next few weeks we will add to these tools to give more information on ticket answering times and status as well as some new customer 'self help' tools that will allow the end user to 'look into' and resolve some issues that may be affecting their service due to temporary issues with some common aspects of carrier line issues. These new tools, together with some re-working of the current Exetel User Facilities (themselves almost 100% designed to provide information based on customer suggestions over more than five years) will give Exetel customers more useful information, tools and controls than any other communications service provider of which I am aware and I base that statement on first hand knowledge of using the "user facilities" of ten of the larger, including the largest, ISPs in Australia. I find it interesting to check the facilities of other ISPs and check their marketing hype against reality - perhaps I have a jaundiced viewbut I find the user facilities of many ISPs downright primitive in many respects.
However, while it is just a step along the way, we are 5 years closer to developing a 'full service' communications company that has the lowest possible cost of operating of any competitor which is and was the over riding reason for putting in so much time, effort and money - and living with the down side that operating 'naked' sometimes entails.