Is Customer Service a Lost Art?
Over the past few years, customer service seems to have become a lost art. With
widespread company cutbacks and outsourcing, many customer service teams fail to meet expectations. This trend is especially noticeable among utility and telecom vendors, where downsized customer service teams have led to significant frustrations for customers.
For organizations managing multiple locations, teams, and operational needs, dealing with utility and telecom vendors can quickly consume a large portion of the day—even for something as straightforward as a single request. This inefficiency often has a ripple effect, delaying critical decisions and even causing financial repercussions.
At RadiusPoint, we’ve seen countless examples of clients turning to us for help when their own vendors’ customer service fails them.
The Cost of Poor Service
For many utility vendors, even the simple act of paying invoices on time to avoid service disconnection has become unnecessarily complicated. With delays in mail delivery, short payment windows, and lack of proactive support, many companies find themselves scrambling to keep essential services like electricity, water, and gas running.
Take, for example, a nationwide retailer we assisted. Each month, their local water provider—a county office—imposed a rigid 10-day turnaround for payment. This lab’s water invoice, totaling over $20,000 monthly, was critical to the production of products distributed across the U.S. Despite the urgency, an employee had to physically create a check and visit the county office in person to make payments. This time-consuming and outdated process was a major inefficiency caused by the vendor’s payment policies and postal delays.
With RadiusPoint’s intervention, we eliminated these roadblocks. By streamlining their payment process, we ensured the invoices were paid on time, preventing the looming threat of service disconnections.
High Stakes in Wireless and Telecom
The challenges aren’t limited to utilities. One of our manufacturing clients, managing thousands of wireless users, faced a $250,000 overcharge due to their vendor’s failure to input contract rates correctly. Despite repeated attempts to resolve the issue, their account representative was unresponsive, and four months passed without resolution. By the time RadiusPoint stepped in, the overcharges had ballooned to over $1 million.
Through a combination of strategic short-payments and persistent vendor negotiations, we resolved the issue, recovered all overcharges, and corrected the invoices moving forward.
Why Customer Service Matters
Utility and telecom vendors are not just service providers; they’re critical partners in ensuring businesses operate smoothly. When vendors fail to deliver on customer service—whether through ambiguous communication, inflexible policies, or unresponsiveness—it directly impacts their clients’ ability to manage operations efficiently.
At RadiusPoint, we understand these challenges. Over our 33 years of experience, we’ve developed creative strategies to identify and resolve client issues. Our team of problem solvers goes beyond managing expenses; we take ownership of our clients’ problems and deliver solutions that work.
Let Us Handle the Hassle
If your team is losing valuable hours trying to resolve issues with telecom, wireless, IT, or utility invoices, let RadiusPoint step in. Our proven expertise and forward-thinking strategies ensure your business runs smoothly—without the stress of unreliable customer service.