“Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” I wonder if Virginia is all grown up now, ever asking “Is there a phone company out there, anywhere, that doesn’t suck” …good question. I spent the last 30 years working for phone companies, starting in the early nineties at Cellular One, which became GTE wireless, which became Verizon Wireless. Then I spent the next nearly 20 years in one position. The best way I can describe it being “EarthLink, formerly Deltacom, Now Windstream” and therein lies the first and most telling clue as to why so many phone companies suck, and people love to hate them.
Many phone companies are publicly traded and or have likely gone through years and years of mergers and acquisitions. On the surface that sounds smart, build a bigger, better brand. But pull back the curtain and what you typically find is a wellspring of operational dysfunction. Each time a company merges with another company, the goal is to realize synergy through the merging of products, networks, people, and systems. For my story here, specifically back-office I.T. systems. The idea being the two companies would settle on the one stronger set of back-office systems. In practice, it rarely works out that way. Have you ever tried to sunset or retire an IT system? There’s always a reason it needs to remain in use, somebody’s using it, and for whatever reason, you cannot eliminate it. Take this scenario and play it out repeatedly, one merger after another, over and over, hundreds and hundreds of disparate systems, and you end up with a dysfunctional cluster muck. Hard-working well-intentioned employees are stretched to their limits trying to figure out how to work with so many old and or aging legacy systems. Training new employees on so many various systems is insanely difficult. This should start to give you a sense of what creates this seemingly never-ending customer exasperation.
Like pouring fuel on a fire, many companies look to “increase wallet share” by offering more products and services (beyond traditional phone service). From cloud-hosted infrastructure, storage, security, backup, Wi-Fi, to all the above. With each added product comes additional complexity. With these complex installation challenges, and so many disparate systems, the probability of delivering a positive customer experience quickly evaporates. From the start, the odds are against these providers. It’s next to impossible to deliver on the promises made. Customers end up irritated, angry, pushed to their breaking point. Many unsuspecting customers stake their careers on significant transformation projects that end up going to hell in a handbasket. Working with the provider’s back office, you’ll begin to sense the immense pressure they’re operating under. Many project managers would tell me they feel like professional apologists, in that many times when they speak with the customer, they end up apologizing repeatedly. In the eyes of the carrier, it’s not simply increased wallet share, but also what’s called creating a “sticky customer”. The more products the stickier the customer is, sticky meaning the harder it is to leave. At SpectrumVoIP we sell one product, Cloud Hosted VoIP. We stand in stark contrast to so many other phone companies that aspire to be the jack-of-all-trades and sadly end up master of none. A final note on “increased wallet share”. Many phone providers operate a similar business model. The strategy is to “monetize” the cloud hosted phone switch by charging for feature packages. Need call waiting? that’s “Basic”, need call recording? that’s “Enterprise”, want soft phone, or mobile app? that’s the “Executive Premium Deluxe” package, each package costing incrementally more, i.e., the ~$29, ~$49, and ~$79. It’s creative revenue generation at best, all basic cloud switch functionality, packaged to generate the most revenue. In layman’s terms, I’d call it systematic nickel and diming. Phone companies are notorious for nickel and diming their customers to death, another primary reason people love to hate the phone company. At SpectrumVoIP we are the antithesis of nickel and dime. We offer a single flat rate that provides full access to our Cloud Hosted VoIP switch, every feature, all functionality (including call center) all one flat rate.
With most providers, there are immense company-wide frustrations related to constant service delivery delays, installations taking forever, equipment continually shipped to the wrong address, 3rd party technicians continually showing up on the wrong day, incomplete programming, chronic outages. This constant cycle of mistakes and apologies, failed and or delayed installations, sales rep turnover, and tyrannical leadership, is a vicious cycle. Right on cue, many customers end up hating the phone company with a passion. It explains a lot about why the phone company sucks, and people love to hate them. After being in the industry for so many years you become callused. I learned to accept it, honestly believing it was just the way it is. I assumed every provider was similar, that it was simply the nature of the industry. You either learn to accept it, or you’d go clinically insane.
Good news now though, there are genuine options. A little over two years ago I ended up taking the reins of a small 15-person sales organization at SpectrumVoIP in Plano Texas. I was intrigued as this was a family-owned-and-operated, 25-million-dollar Cloud Hosted VoIP provider, that happens to be in Legacy West, the coolest hip trendy part of North Texas. The office and the NOC were stunning. I immediately knew something special was happening here. My office now sits right a top J Crew and Victoria’s Secret. I suppose you could say it was love at first “site visit”. The most intriguing part was SpectrumVoIP being 15 years old, yet had never bought or merged with another provider, had never had even a single iota of debt. The company was 100% organically grown, 100% bootstrapped from the very beginning. Our owner founder and CEO, Dave Leidy, and our Chief Operating Officer, Jake Leidy, had explained how they were never in a hurry to grow, rather focused for years on cracking the code related to repeatedly providing an exceptional customer experience. Feeling as if that was now the case, it was the right time to laser focus on bringing this extraordinary experience to the masses, i.e., to grow the business, exactly what we did.
Our sales organization alone now stands at 150 hardworking dedicated individuals. We have all, collectively, grown the business from 25 mil to a sales run rate of $100 million annually, with a forecasted $200 million run rate by end of 2022. All while staying in the black, zero debt, smart measured growth. Our “hyper growth” strategy was set to kick off in March of 2020, as such we applied for, and benefited from, Paycheck Protection Program funds. We are proud that we used those funds exactly as intended, meaning we never had to lay off or furlough anyone, and continued to aggressively hire right through the toughest times of the pandemic, we protected paychecks. Without the program, I’m sure the outcome would have been much different. Most other phone companies are under significant pressures to increase wallet share, lose less customers (reduce churn) and constantly cut expenses. Many times, the choices they make have a devastating effect on service level. At SpectrumVoip, our focus has been on “smart growth”, specifically meaning not growing beyond our ability to deliver on our signature “extraordinary customer experience”.
It’s all about our people. More than anything our off the chart’s growth is because we’ve been able to recruit and hire extraordinary talented individuals, and we bring them into a company culture that respects and dignifies them. An example would be, we use our own W2 install technicians (and they’re really good). We empower these techs with “unlimited authority” to do whatever it takes. That “Unlimited authority” is key. It’s what assures the installation occurs exactly how the customer wants it. Our owner Dave Leidy likes to point out our experience with several other SAAS providers. An example is we signed up with Salesforce.com, they got our signature, and handed us the keys to the car. Years later we paid a vendor to “set it up” exactly the way we needed. Turned around and did the same thing with HubSpot, signed up and they handed us the keys to the car. A year after signing we got a contractor to “set it up” exactly the way we wanted it. Compare that with the way we deliver service. Our technicians work on-site with the customer to “set it up” exactly the way the customer wants and assures it’s “set up” and working properly. Then and only then do we hand the customer the keys to the car. That is hands down one of our best secrets to providing an extraordinary experience.
The most significant difference I can point to is, we are the only phone provider in the country that requires no commitment, no contract, up front. Rather we install the new system, train everyone, assure everything is set up and working, and only then do we ask the customer for permission to begin billing. “May we please have your permission to begin billing, now that it’s set up and working” Most other providers start billing the day your order is submitted, regardless of your new system being installed or not, and that causes significant customer frustration. Our policy and process speaks to our confidence in our ability to deliver a white glove experience. Every phone system we install is in effect a “test drive” where the customer can say at any time they don’t wish to move forward. If we don’t live up to our promises, the customer is under no obligation to stay with us, and the onus is on SpectrumVoIP to recover our equipment and put that customer back to the way they were. This means we are held to an unbelievably high standard. Installation challenges, problems, and issues happen all the time, it can’t be avoided. The difference is we keep going and going to get it right or the customer will simply say “no, you don’t have my permission” and walks away. No other phone provider is held to that standard or can take that risk, primarily because they’re not confident their installs won’t go bad. Contrast that with SpectrumVoIP where our technicians will stay on site, and work through all issues and challenges until we get the customer back in a good space, ready and willing to give us that permission to begin billing.
It sounds crazy, but we want the customer to hold us to that high standard. Our core belief is that when we work hard to get it right the first time, the support burden down the line is significantly diminished. It’s an indisputable fact we’ve proven over and over. Our Project Managers and Field Technicians working in harmony is key. Our technicians don’t just install, they also configure auto attendants, and call queues on site, train employees, all at the same time. Something that no other phone company typically focuses on. Many will even ship phones requiring the customer to call in for help setting them up. Or they exclusively use 3rd party techs that operate within a very small very defined scope of work. The difference with us being, for example, if a customer needed a POE switch, or a cable run, most every other provider would say “get with your sales rep, they’ll create a quote and order, submit it, and service delivery will contact you to arrange a date and time to perform the work” With SpectrumVoIP, it doesn’t work like that at all. Our technician simply runs the cable or goes out to his truck and gets a POE switch and installs it, no ticket, no order, just gets the job done. That’s what I mean when I say our technicians have “unlimited authority” to do whatever it takes to ensure an exceptional customer experience.
Lastly, my core belief is that employee quality of life and job satisfaction must continue to be one of our highest priorities. We work hard and aspire to do our best to build a culture where employees can enjoy coming to work every day. Don’t get me wrong. it’s still hard, it’s work, you need a hustle and grind spirit or perhaps you’re not a good fit, not everyone is. But when you do, the returns are remarkable. We try very hard to keep it fun and interesting for everyone that works here. We just this last year introduced the first ever SpectrumVoIP Presidents Club. We created an Employee Morale Committee (now called the Culture Club) We introduced Core Values and a plan to live by those values, the “Values in Action” program. We have an owner that buys lunch for all 150 corporate office employees every Friday. The Culture Club just held the Halloween Costume Contest, the North Texas Food Bank Food Drive, the Ping Pong championship, the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest, and so much more. Last Saturday night we had the biggest ever company Christmas Party, it was truly EPIC! Close to 300 people here at our corporate office with a live band and ticket drawings for over $25K in super cool prizes all handpicked by our CEO. (Each employee receives 15 tickets to drop in the boxes at anyone of the 30 or so prizes they wanted to win)
So many things we try to be so very intentional about, ways to inject fun and excitement into our everyday lives here. Even though we’re fifteen years old, we still very much have a start-up vibe. We approach each day as a team with energy and enthusiasm. I’d say even an Apple, Google, early days vibe. The energy and intensity are palpable. I can’t stress enough how different SpectrumVoIP truly is. I’m sure I overuse the word “unicorn”, but it’s just so true, we are a “unicorn” in the phone service industry. A phone company that customers actually enjoy doing business with. A phone company that tries super hard not to suck, a phone company you’re not compelled to hate, but rather you can enjoy engaging with.
Yes, Virginia there is a great phone company out there, it’s SpectrumVoIP!