Heritage Operating LP  

Business Need

"We started off doing this basically just looking at land lines and trying to get rid of a lot of bogus long-distance carriers that were attaching themselves, and then it grew into looking at our current corporate long-distance plan that we had and trying to find something that was a little bit cheaper.

Heritage likes to go out and purchase more propane companies because their goal is to be the number one propane company in the United States, and so part of that was going through and finding out where we were wasting our money, and the phones were outrageous.

So when you try to meet your bottom line, we were trying to find out where we could cut costs. Well, we found a lot of numbers and things that we were paying for that were not even ours anymore.

So when we first started this, we had Verizon as a corporate account. We had purchased a company; they had AT&T as a corporate account. We purchased another company and they had another corporate account with AT&T.

So one thing was we wanted to get everything all on one corporate long distance, so we were trying to also consolidate everything to one to where we could just send out one payment a month because a lot of the districts were also sending out payments for an individual or separate long-distance bill at each plant, and so we kind of looked at it and figured it cost about 25-30 dollars to send out a check because of payroll and everything, and this would be a little bit cheaper and easier for us just to have it all on one bill, and then also when it comes to repairs or anything go wrong, it's nicer just to have one person or one company to contact."

Why Qwest?

"A big plus was we had a local person here. One of their account reps came over and talked to us personally and worked with us and wanted to make sure our contract had everything that we wanted on it, and she worked back and forth and negotiated with our CEO here and going through Qwest to make sure we had everything we needed, and they were able to do that. They were very willing to even put amendments in the contract to meet what we needed for our company.

And then, of course, the price was much better than any other company that we found.

Since I worked for Qwest before, I knew the process on how to remove freezes and how to get them put back on again. When I would call them, it would be done within minutes. Other companies, you would call and they would give you a three to four [day] due date going out, and by knowing the process through Qwest, because I knew we had a lot of freezes on our accounts, I knew they would work with me to make sure all the numbers get brought over to Qwest and then I would still keep the freezes on my long distance so nobody could go in and change anything without my permission.

A lot of it was with the customer service. When I would call and need something repaired even on just local land lines and other things that we have--T1 lines and stuff like that--you call them and I never got passed around; if I did, I always had somebody who stayed with me to make sure the next person would be able to take care of me before she basically dropped me on the call.

And then they always had things fixed within 24 hours. Things were always working, whereas other companies, other vendors, I would call for just a little simple--for example, have an 800 number rerouted--and they would put an order in and next thing I know, they're telling me it's 24 to 48 hours to have it done. But when I call Qwest and do the same type of order, it's done in 5 minutes. So that's one reason we went ahead with Qwest."

Customer Service

"When we first started this with the customer service, I would just call the regular 800 number on our bill and I would always get somebody different, but they were always very helpful and were able to fix the problem. But it was getting to where, since we were having so many numbers coming across over to Qwest, that of course we ran into different problems--like, for example, with repair.

When a few of the toll-free numbers were entered in, the ring-to number might have been entered incorrectly, so I would have to call repair and have them reroute that 800 number--and they were always very helpful.

It only takes about five or ten minutes and they have it fixed where other companies, when I did the same thing, it took them two days to get the ring-to number changed.

And then they assigned me one person to help me with the problems with all our PIC and our LPIC freezes, and he sends me reports anytime I want to let me see where we're standing on all of our phone numbers coming across as to which ones have completed and then which ones are still being rejected.

But overall, I mean, every time you call in, you get somebody very friendly, very personable, and it's almost like they're part of your team trying to fix the whole solution, be a part of everything.

If there's a problem, they're willing to help fix what their part can, and then they work with another person to help fix another area--like, for example, I have a gal that helps me with any billing problems, and while she's looking [at] that, if she sees there's a number that should be on a different account, she'll e-mail someone else there and let them know this number needs to be moved and she'll cc: the account rep that we have and cc: me on the e-mail so I know everything that's going on all the time. She stops by, makes sure everything's going okay, and she wants me to cc: her on all the e-mails when it comes to billing problems, problems where we need to have numbers moved, even address change--because she wants to make sure she keeps in contact to make sure everything's going okay.

And if she's going to be out of the office, she will call me in the morning and let me know that she will be out driving around and she will even give me her cell phone number so if I run into any problems. And it's nice because if I need her, she's always accessible."