The Conference Coach™

Carolyn Bradfield

I remarried almost seven years ago and one of the decisions I made was to keep my last name; after all, I had that name for over 25 years.  There have been advantages and disadvantages to that decision, but a clear advantage is when you want your husband to “mystery shop” on your behalf.

Retailers, restaurants and other companies use mystery shoppers to shop the store or eat at the restaurant to point out things that need to be adjusted.  I decided to mystery shop my competition to find out what their customer experience is really like.  I sent my husband, Bruce, on a mission to become an InterCall customer, which should have been an easy task, right?

Here is a timeline and diary of that experience:

• September 2nd – Bruce fills out the online form on InterCall’s website requesting an account.
• September 3rd – A “channel manager” emails Bruce requesting a meeting about the conferencing needs of the company.
• September 3rd – Bruce responds stating that he just needs reservationless conferencing with a couple of people who may dial in internationally.  No web is needed at this time.
• September 4th through 11th – “Radio Silence.”  No reply from InterCall.  I guess Bruce’s insignificant 4 calls a week didn’t warrant any attention.
• September 11th – Bruce sends InterCall a note wondering why nobody has corresponded with him.
• September 11th.  The “channel manager” responds by asking Bruce what his address is (couldn’t that have been done on September 3rd?).  He also asks what countries international participants may dial-in from, offering an array of confusing options to get into the call.
• September 11th.  The “channel manager” promises to set up the account that day, but it will take 2 business days to deliver an email with the account information.
• September 14th – The email finally arrives with the dial-in information and account number.  (Wallet cards are to follow 6 days later.)

This is almost 2 full weeks between expressing interest in setting up an account and getting the information to dial in. Bruce intends to use the service.  The next mystery-shopping task is to see how the calls go and evaluate the charges on the invoice.  Stay tuned for more segments in the InterCall Diaries.

By the way, a Copper Conferencing account gets set up the day it’s requested and the system automatically sends out the moderator information immediately.   The customer also gets emailed login to the customer portal so they have control over managing their account.

This is one of the reasons Copper is all about The Conferencing Bill of Rights.  One of the key tenants is to be easy to do business with.  Two weeks to set up an account – really!