After the MCI acquisition, for the western US my group had to check on reported revenues for mci metro. many buildings had no mci fiber, equipment or even type-2 circuits, thus revenue was falsely reported. When this was reported back to the legacy Worldcom management, I was told “keep quiet and fix it”. With little budget, no authorization over other areas, this was impossible.

The “gutcheck” was that something wrong was happening, and it was bigger than me/us. It led to myself and a number of other (former MFS) people to leave within a short time. When it all came down (wcom), we just had to shake our head… as Seth stated, sometimes the right thing to do is not always the easiest decision, and can cost you in the short-term. But, long-term, you keep your integrity and will be fine.

Just my two cents…

I was told in no uncertain terms, “Sandi, you are working for a new company with new expectations. If you don’t like the way we do business, then you should leave.”

I did.

“Churn” is a very broad term. But in each instance, the account executive should position to make the best of it. And in all cases, is shouldn’t be a surprise.

The AE should know that a customer is exiting a location, or a line of business. Can’t change a customer’s business. Can alert management to timing. If there is no underlying cost commitment to Zayo, I don’t believe in ETLs in a situation like this. A flexible business partner has a better shot at new/ongoing business if the customer is not punished for changes in their business.

If a customer is disconnecting because they got a better offer, the AE should have known that other offers were being considered. And, what the competition is offering. And be positioned well enough to have been given the opportunity to compete. And have offered the best solution to the customer’s needs.

Bring all advantages to bear. Leverage the operations person who has a good working relationship with your operations people. If it all comes down to price, the AE and the company haven’t done their job.

Much more could be said. But if the customer is choosing another provider because in some way the company has let them down, fall on every sword they hand you and try for a better late than never fix. If that doesn’t do it, and they are determined to leave, tell the customer that you are really sorry that you’ve lost their business. Make their departure as efficient as possible. Because the next step is to try to win back their business.

Assuming you are on a Blackberry Enterprise Server, you can also mark a non-urgent outbound message as “Low Priority” on your blackberry. They will show up in the messages list with a little downwards arrow next to them, signifying that it is a low priority message. Depending on how she sets up her blackberry profile, she can set it to not vibrate or alert on low priority messages.

Similarly, you can set truly urgent messages to high priority. The default is to sent all messages as normal priority but it is two clicks away to change it. (Options-Priority while writing a message)