This blog is in reference to this case study. 

Heather Adams is the Operations Manager at Access Tech. 

When I first heard about the phone issue at our client’s company, I was annoyed but not surprised. The outage was frustrating but wasn’t unheard of. Fiber gets cut, things happen, and it can take days to be restored.  

The client went without phone lines for days. They were unable to make or take calls and perform vital work functions. The client relied on personal devices to make their company run. Their regular responsibilities took a backseat to the phone issues, disrupting their workdays and delaying other vital tasks.  

We found out it was a decommission order, on day 3, without any notice. It was frustrating that the service provider did not communicate with us efficiently or timely. I escalated this up to our channel manager and the VP of the West. Numerous calls and emails were sent without any response. They left us in the dark, acting like they were working to get the disconnect order reversed. Once told it wouldn’t be undone, they washed their hands of it and closed out the help ticket.  

I spent 14 hours out of my week trying to get these services back — half of those hours in a single day. The lack of preparedness from the client and service provider kept me from providing services to other customers and my daily tasks. It made an already overbooked schedule an absolute nightmare. 

The lack of guidance from the clients also made things difficult. It was hard to know how much effort to put into solving the issue, or what the client’s priorities were. But eventually, we decided to focus on upgrading to UCaaS instead of trying to fix the old phone system. It just made more sense to invest our resources in something that would be more reliable in the long run.  

I’ve learned a lot about project management from this experience, all in all. It’s critical to be open and transparent with all parties involved when discussing the dangers and significance of the services. It is our responsibility to ensure that we are ready for anything that may occur because we can’t always count on service providers to provide more than the absolute minimum.  

Disclaimer: This blog is written on behalf of Heather Adams by the Marketing Administrator of Access Tech. The Marketing Administrator had no personal involvement in the situation. This blog is based on Operation Manger’s personal accounts and opinions.