ACS vs. AT&T
A couple of days ago, I mentioned that I dropped a bomb on ACS. It turns out that our customer-vendor relationship is peculiar. It’s peculiar because they have proven that they really care about their customer. I wanted to do a little comparison between my two major vendors: ACS and AT&T.
I called into AT&T today to upgrade one of our church cell phones. I have called them dozens of times about our various lines and services, and every call is complete with some new frustration. I guess I’ve never called about this line before. To my surprise, the representative said that I was not authorized to make changes to the account, nor is the guy who uses the phone every day.
I asked who the authorized representative is within our church, and he said that he could not release that information. I asked if he could contact the authorized representative to let them know that they are indeed authorized, and he said he had to ask for authorization to do so. I thought he was joking with me when he said that. After a brief musical interlude, he returned to the line and informed me that he was unable to obtain authorization. Are you seeing the humor here? We have a problem - none of us know who is authorized to make changes to the account, and we have no way of fixing the problem.
So, as a smart comment, I asked if I was to have each of our 50+ staff members call in and ask if they are the authorized representative for the account. I was blown away by the frank reply, “I believe that’s the only thing you can do, sir.”
AT&T gets a HUGE chunk of my annual budget, and our vendor-customer relationship is full of frustration.
ACS also gets a huge chunk of my annual budget, but our vendor-customer relationship is happy. See, they noted my post a couple days ago, and I received personal responses from three upper-level corporate representatives including the product lead of the product I was having difficulties with, the executive director of research and development, and my account representative.
They are always quick to respond, listen intently to the needs of their client, and make changes when appropriate.
I understand full well that not every enhancement request I enter will end up in the product, but I have already seen dozens of my requests come to fruition - and we’ve only been customers of ACS for a year.
So, if I had a choice I would ditch AT&T, but I’m keeping ACS. They’ve got rock-solid products, a proven track record, and a genuine concern for our ministry to the world.