Ann Higgins sent me another fun article; it’s about how broadband service providers need to focus on customer service. It fit in so well with the TISP meeting last night, where they were talking about multiple providers using an open access network.

There were two types of customer service issues discussed in the article (and to some degree last night). First is talking to people who are pleasant and helpful. Last night the folks at Jaguar said they liked having ISPs provide service to end customer because then the ISPs got to answer the question that may or may not relate to the Internet connection. (Questions that often start with statements like, I think the Internet broke my printer.) It was the closest thing to an endorsement to shared networks that I heard last night.

The article mentioned that SmartCity (a provider in Florida) trains their employees with Ritz Carlton techniques. They focus on service. Wouldn’t that be nice everywhere? (I have to say that I have always been happy with service from my ISP and mostly happy with my local telco.)

The second type of service related to having your technical ducks in order to the point where installations run smoothly and correctly. The article said that, “an estimated 15-25 percent of all first attempts to provision DSL circuits at the SAI [Serving Area Interface – like the Remote Terminals] cabinet fail due to incorrect information. This translates into service delays for the customer, as well as increased capex costs for the telco (it costs about $125 for each dispatch) who will have to reschedule yet another technician to go out to fix the issue.”

I think that gets into an issue discussed last night – it’s hard to provide service on someone else’s network because to some degree you’re not responsible for that network. I think we can all picture the blame game where the ISP says it’s not them, the telco says it’s not them, they’re both ready to blame user error or the computer – and I’m not saying they aren’t right; it’s just not great customer service.

In any industry I think customer service can be a great differentiator – because the only other market strategies are cost and only game in town. Debatably being the lowest price can be a hard way to make money. Being the only game in town is getting tougher as the broadband industry expands to more provider, more types of providers and more partnerships.