New Web sites offer to ease shoppers' search for telephone and related services. Ten CEOs check out six popular sites.
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A hassle. That's what business owners like Paul Frick expect to find when they shop for a telecommunications service by themselves. There's that dizzying maze of possibilities. Providers with names like Startec Global, OneStar, and Qwest offer everything from basic long-distance service to T1 Internet access and Web hosting. Plus, what about crunching the numbers for all those varying rates that presuppose different usage scenarios? And who's to say which service is reliable? "All you get is the high-pressure sales pitch to change carriers," says Frick, alluding to some telecom solicitations.
No wonder TeleBright.com caught Frick's eye. TeleBright is one of several Web sites offering interactive one-stop service to businesspeople shopping for a telecom carrier. "Long distance is a big chunk of our budget," says Frick, who is a partner in Home Front Communications, a public-relations firm based in Washington, D.C. In an E-mail message he sent this past summer, Frick asked TeleBright about the savings he might achieve by switching his long-distance provider. A TeleBright representative analyzed Home Front's long-distance bill and shot back the names of a dozen carriers that could beat the firm's average monthly outlay of $1,000.
"It was a no-brainer," says Frick, who chose a long-distance telephone company that he predicts will save him $500 a month.
Frick is in the vanguard of executives who are going online to shop for telecom services. But if the projections of Forrester Research, a high-tech-research company based in Cambridge, Mass., prove right, he'll soon be part of a new majority. Some 65% of U.S. businesses plan to buy some of their telecom services online by 2002, predicts a recent Forrester report, Buying into Telecom Online. Online sales of telecom services to businesses will amount to $47 billion in 2004, compared with $900 million this year, according to the report.
TeleBright, based in Rockville, Md., and Web sites like it serve as funnels that direct customers to telecom-service providers with which they've formed partnerships. Some sites invite customers to browse online databases that comprise packages of telecom services. (TeleBright falls into that category.) Others, such as Demandline.com, enable buyers to pool their requests with like-minded businesses and obtain customized bids at lower rates. The sites earn fees from the providers when they land customers.
If the sites have a bright future, not all their customers are as pleased as Frick with the results so far. "Only 15% of interviewees purchase telecom services online today ... and those who have tried it, pan it," notes the Forrester report.
To find out which sites were most worthwhile, Inc. asked 10 small-business CEOs to assess six of the most popular ones. The CEOs shopped for long-distance, 800-number, and Internet-access services, basing their evaluations on eight criteria, including such factors as ease of use, variety, and price. The CEOs also indicated which sites they would consider using to help select their own telecom carriers.
The tone of the feedback we got was often skeptical. Many of the CEOs weren't happy with the sites' design. Up-front requests for personal data tended to annoy them, making them wary of proceeding further. "Simplexity's first page requires a Ph.D. to figure out," complained panelist Ron Zemke, president of Performance Research Associates, a training and leadership consulting firm based in Minneapolis. However, once they overcame their initial displeasure with the sites' architecture, most of the CEOs said they had obtained some useful information.
The sites' offerings apparently vary in quality, depending on region. At least that's what the panelists' feedback would suggest. The CEOs who were based on the West Coast had a higher level of satisfaction with what they found for their region, compared with what their counterparts from other regions said about the sites' offerings for their areas. "I very easily got quotes for cell-phone rates and long-distance rates," said Christopher Butler, president of the Performance Engineering Group Inc., a management-consulting business based in Santa Barbara, Calif., referring to Demandline's coverage of western providers. In contrast, Leslie M. Fox, president and CEO of Fox & Associates, a public-relations company based in Chicago, looked at the site's offerings for her region and reported that it had "very limited products to offer."
The following is a site-by-site summary of what caused the 10 CEOs to turn their thumbs up or down.
www.telebright.com
What it's good for: Learning something more about vendors and their services and getting an idea about the range of rates. In other words, the panelists agreed that the site was a good place to do research.
Don't waste your time if: You live in the Midwest. The site doesn't yet have a broad selection of packages for that market.
What our CEOs had to say: The service didn't offer the complete range of products and providers they needed to make an informed buying decision. "It's appropriate for residential users and very small businesses that don't have ready access to strategic communications-services planning," said one panelist.
What you should know: TeleBright doesn't collect fees for booking business for carriers but takes a percentage of the users' monthly payments. So the company doesn't make a dime till you start paying your bills.
