AOTMP Research: Contract Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Favor Telecom Carriers, Not Enterprise Clients

While well-rounded telecom carrier contracts include SLA provisions addressing technical integrity, account management/customer care performance and billing/financial performance, AOTMP research reveals these items are not properly addressed in the majority of enterprise contracts and that an alarming 11% of enterprises reported not having any SLAs in their telecom carrier contracts. According to AOTMP's research, only half of enterprise telecom carrier contracts contain SLAs addressing customer care, with 50% containing SLAs addressing customer service response times and 49% containing SLAs addressing customer service issue resolution timeframes. Although billing accuracy was noted as a top frustration for enterprises, only 31% of the enterprises surveyed had SLAs addressing billing accuracy in their telecom carrier contracts. When asked the two most common relationship management activities performed, enterprise responses were very aligned with 82% citing rate reviews and 80% citing billing dispute resolution reviews. "After reviewing the research it has become clear that enterprise opportunity exists to improve SLAs in telecom carrier contracts," says Timothy C. Colwell, senior vice president of global information management at AOTMP. "It would be to both parties' advantage to include comprehensive SLAs containing clear performance measurement criteria, defined remedy for out-of-scope performance and remuneration for out-of-scope performance. Enterprises would also benefit by adding more carrier incentives (additional service awards, service winbacks and increased service volume) for outstanding performance to serve as incentives for desired performance in all areas." ABOUT AOTMP AOTMP, an information services company, is a leading authority on driving efficiency and performance into enterprise fixed and mobile telecom environments. Working hand-in-hand with both enterprises and industry suppliers, AOTMP leverages information to drive results. Organizations seeking to reach peak performance turn to AOTMP's industry thought leaders, global knowledge, proprietary performance index, certification programs, and unparalleled benchmarking data for a complete environment management approach. For more information, visit www.aotmp.com.