Retail and Home Décor Company Cuts Through ISP Chaos with One Managed Network Solution
A Texas-based company follows Conectrix's recommendation to replace dozens of ISP contracts with a single managed network provider, consolidating invoices, reducing costs, and improving technical support across 15+ locations.
Client Profile
This multi-location, Texas-based company operates within the retail and home décor industries and employs between 500 and 1,000 individuals.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company transitioned to a remote model and then settled on a hybrid model.
The company had multiple contracts with various Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Challenges
Typically, companies can only contract with the set ISPs that have service in their area, meaning carriers will differ based on the address. As a result, companies will often have dozens of contracts, each with wide-ranging term dates, through different vendors, causing a huge headache for IT managers.
The retail and home décor company faced this same issue. Because they interfaced with so many ISPs (who are notorious for poor customer support and response times), they frequently found themselves in situations where their IT team wasted precious time sitting on hold and dealing with unhelpful call center representatives during internet outages.
There was also a mountain of contracts and invoices spread across different vendors over the client's 15-plus sites—if there were opportunities for cost savings, the IT team had no way of knowing.
Solution
To overcome this disorganization, Conectrix recommended that the client utilize a managed network provider to consolidate all their ISP invoices and provide more efficient technical support.
Often referred to as an internet aggregator or consolidator, managed network providers are vendors that resell ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum, Comcast, etc. at wholesale rates, and provide a high level of management service on top. Having this kind of model is very helpful for companies that have multiple locations spread across a state, nation, or even the globe.
Conectrix began by helping organize all of the client's bills, contract term dates, and locations. Next came the discovery phase, where the right managed network provider seemed to be an industry leader called Command Link.
Along with having very competitive pricing, which would create significant savings across all sites, Command Link offered unique differentiators such as a customer-facing portal, a dedicated pod of engineers as their support team, and a great relationship with the main regional ISP in the client's primary area of Texas.
Results
The transition to the managed network provider was easy and painless, with Command Link overseeing every installation, even sending out technicians to sites that needed minor construction or wire pulling.
Today, the retail and home décor company's IT team can manage every site and view all their invoices from one easy-to-use portal. This consolidation came with both hard dollar and soft dollar savings. Moreover, rather than multiple support lines that go to bots or a call center in a foreign country, the client has one support line to contact when any outages or downtime occur, meaning faster response and resolution times.
Command Link's professional support staff also provided extra help to the client's IT team, which already had a lot on their plates managing all aspects of their corporate IT network amid ongoing surges in the cloud infrastructure environment and cybersecurity threat landscape.
Put simply, the benefit of using a managed network provider is the power of one: one invoice, one support line, one contract and master service agreement, and one reliable partner.