3 ways clients know I’m all in

Technology is the backbone of a business’ success, putting IT leaders under constant pressure to satisfy the demands of fellow employees, investors, partners and clients.

To meet what are often extremely high expectations, IT leaders have to demand a lot from others, especially their technology partners. They need partners who are just as dedicated to achieving their goals as they are, and, like them, go all in to move mountains in the face of tough challenges.

As a national account manager for Spectrum Business, I’ve committed myself to being that partner. Here are three ways I show my clients I’m all in on their goals:
 

I look at your company as my company too

I consider myself to be much more than an account manager to my clients — the way I look at it is I work for their company just as much as my own. Their goals are my goals. I show my commitment to those goals by learning everything I can about their business, including industry trends and drivers, their internal priorities and what their technology roadmaps are.

For example, two years ago, my team and I sat down with the CTO of Premier America Credit Union (PACU) to learn about his technology strategy and business goals. We found out he needed to upgrade his legacy MPLS network to support new digital experiences for their customers and employees. We ended up implementing a modern network solution to support those needs, and provided a solid foundation for future growth.

Those upgrades — driven by our understanding of the CTO’s strategic plans — provided the backbone they needed to turn their call center into a remote operation in just two weeks after the pandemic hit. We quickly changed where PACU employees did business (at home) — without changing how they did business.
 

I advocate for you

I stop at nothing to help my clients achieve their goals, even if those goals initially seem unreachable. I advocate for my clients tirelessly, demanding and mobilizing the resources needed to meet their expectations.

I’m lucky because I don’t have to move mountains alone — I’m able to rely upon a vast number of resources including client services, engineering, product management and sales support to meet even the most challenging requests.

For instance, I have a client who helped flip the transportation industry on its head. Because of this company’s work, consumers now summon rides with a few finger swipes on their phones. And behind that simple user experience is a modern network ready for growth, expansion and changes — whatever may come next.

This client’s infrastructure needed connectivity for more than 150 driver centers across the country. Some of those locations only had DSL available, and while that had worked just fine in the past, DSL’s limited bandwidth couldn’t support the emerging new technologies they needed to run their business. So we needed to find a way to provide those locations with high-bandwidth connectivity.

It was a huge project, and I had to pull together multiple Spectrum Business teams to make it happen. For the DSL locations, we devised a solution where we connected the DSL to our high-capacity broadband network, which then provided the required bandwidth to each location.
 

I deliver no matter what

Some clients request things that appear at first glance to be out of the realm of possibility. These situations motivate me to get creative and find a way to make it happen; giving up is never an option for me.

One client in particular, a global semiconductor and chip manufacturer, had a unique request to provide fiber connectivity to the CEO’s house so he could work there during the pandemic. There was no obvious solve for this because we only run fiber to businesses. However, I was determined to find a workaround, and engaged our network engineering and local construction teams. As it turns out, we were already providing fiber connectivity to a cell tower less than 100 feet from the house. So we were actually able to splice and pull that fiber to his residence, getting him the connectivity he needed. We had to get pretty creative to figure that one out.