Starting a CS Org for a Telecom

Bernard Nieto

Hi Everyone!

The company I'm with has tapped me to start and lead a CS department in our organization. We're a telecommunications company with clients of varying sizes and ranging from Banks, other telecoms, down to small businesses.  We provide internet connectivity, VoIP and private site to site connectivity.

I don't really have any formal experience in CS, I started with the company as the very first technical support rep, moving to different departments from network ops, service delivery, inside sales, carrier sales and eventually currently as the manager of our sales engineering team. 

I'm struggling with where CS would fit into the other departments, and when would they would get engaged. 

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Eric Cheshier

Bernard - I also work for a telecom company and we have implemented a CS model this year.  What we have learned is that you can assign, segment, strategize however you would like, but buy-in from service delivery, billing, sales, etc. will be critical to your success.  

Also, not sure who you are planning on moving into the CSM roles, but a majority of our CSMs are former sales support, so we are struggling a bit to get them to act as owners of the revenue.  They tend to want to stay in the background acquiescing to sales' direction.   As sales is paid on sales order value rather than revenue, this is a huge concern and contrary to the CS model. 

We can chat more and I would love to talk with you about it sometime.  

Eric Cheshier

Bernard Nieto

Hey Eric!

Thanks for your response! Would love to connect. I've sent you a private message!

We had 2 CSMs and I just lost one 2 weeks ago :-(. Right now there's no revenue tied to the CSM role but something we're considering but have not really thought of that would be structured for the CSMs.

I'd love some guidance on how to get buy in from other internal departments given at the moment everyone's really up to their neck with work and urgent issues. 

Thanks again

Tamir Ben-Zion

Dear Bernard,

i would first start with defining the mission of the CS department.
Once the mission is clear it will be easier for you to build the department and the profile of the CSMs.
Beside the mission you should also specify the target population and segmentation.
For example (from my past telco experience) the amount of customers is huge and assigning a CSM per a finite number of customers will bring low ROI.

I have no S in telco experience but i would be more than happy to connect and discuss

Cheers

Bernard Nieto

Thanks @Tamir Ben-Zion! Would love to connect. I'll drop you an email.

Kevin Mitchell Leonor

I've worked for two telecom CS orgs and can provide some assistance. I worked for RingCentral and now Zoom. Make no mistake, those are telecom even though they are more known for video conferencing