8 Questions to Ask When Choosing Your Business Phone & Internet Provider

In the midst of the AI revolution and the rise of remote work, businesses are requiring enhanced computing power at faster speeds to keep pace with evolving customer demands and to optimize operational efficiencies. Needless to say, selecting a business phone and internet provider has never been a more important decision. We’ve rounded up eight questions to ask any telecom provider you’re “interviewing” to ensure you’ll be happy with your business communication solutions for years to come.

Find out what you want to hear from experts:

1. Will you provide me with a dedicated account team?

What You Want to Hear: Absolutely! You’ll have a full team of industry experts to work with, including your account director, sales engineer, construction manager and project manager. And it’s not a different account rep every month; the vast majority of our account directors have been with the company for several years.

We’ll start with this one because it’s so important. Telecom providers are traditionally notorious for their subpar customer service (more on the consumer side, but the point stands). This question is one good way to suss out the level of support you’ll really experience as a client.

2. What’s the process I’d follow if there’s an outage or any other issue?

What You Want to Hear: If there’s an outage or an issue that we didn’t prevent or resolve immediately, we’ll probably already know about it and have a technician headed your way. Our expert support teams offer immediate trouble-shooting engagement.

You want to make sure to avoid the dreaded, slow-turnaround ticketing system. If there’s a serious concern, such as an outage, it’s important to be able to get someone on the phone and to secure a quick solution.

3. What kind of fluctuations in bandwidth should I expect throughout the day?

What You Want to Hear: The provider who can get as close to “no fluctuation” is ideal.

Residents and businesses alike often notice fluctuations in internet speed throughout the day. On many ISP networks, your latency will increase during peak times of the day. In general, fiber is faster than cable internet (technically, this means it offers higher bandwidth and lower latency). With Segra Internet, you’ll receive dedicated symmetrical upload and download bandwidth, ensuring you’ll receive the bandwidths you’re paying for regardless of time of day.

4. Is your network entirely fiber?

What You Want to Hear: Yes!

Various technologies are usually involved in a network – some copper here and there, with stretches of fiber and intermediary equipment. A fiber-only network boasts fewer points of failure, easier management, lower latency and stronger signal strength. This is highly unusual; many telecom companies have a network that’s mostly fiber, but very few offer a 100% fiber-only network.

5. How important is customer service in your daily operations?

What You Want to Hear: Customer service is our top priority!

Your satisfaction should be the number-one priority for any vendor or partner. And it should remain the top priority throughout every phase of the customer journey — from initial planning to ongoing general support to issue resolution. At Segra, our customers are at the center of everything we do and every decision we make. We listen, have empathy and show respect. We also employ tools and technology to improve ease of doing business with us. This year, we launched SegraOne, a key part of a large-scale transformation for Segra, with ServiceNow as a critical partner. Segra chose ServiceNow for its telecom-specific workflow automation capabilities running on a single platform with a single architecture and single data model. ServiceNow’s intelligent platform and telecom product portfolio will ultimately help Segra streamline the end-to-end customer journey — from the initial network planning to sales and order management, installation, maintenance and ongoing service assurance.

6. What’s your uptime?

What You Want to Hear: As close to 100% as possible; “five nines” (99.999%) is considered to be a strong uptime. Have a healthy skepticism, though. If you hear the answer “100%,” ask which timeframe the rep is referring to.

Much like the customer retention rate, sales and account reps should know this number by heart and proudly assert it. If not, you have to wonder if they’ve got something to hide.

7. How is your network protected?

What You Want to Hear: Through a multi-layered network protection strategy including network diversity, metro access ring protection, DDoS protection and more.

Network redundancy, security and resiliency are more important than ever. Every day, about 30,000 websites are hacked, and organizations all around the world detect millions of ransomware attempts. The financial repercussions of security breaches are staggering. A single data breach in the U.S. costs nearly $9.5 million. Of course, every enterprise must tackle cybersecurity from many angles, including internal security measures, such as password management, education on phishing scams and more, but network security is a key ingredient.

8. BONUS: Which other communications solutions do you offer?

What You Want to Hear: If you’re looking to receive all of your telecom solutions from a single provider, you may want to hear about the company’s colocation offerings, cloud connections and more.

If you’re looking for business phone and internet as a package deal (which is a smart move to streamline operations and billing), you might also be interested in other telecom services as well. If that’s the case, common supplementary services include colocation, disaster recovery and cloud connections. Also, be sure to ask how many data center providers the company partners with.

It’s also a great idea to ask if the ISP offers lit and dark fiber. Dark fiber refers to the practice of leasing out unlit fiber directly from the carrier to the customer. If you’re the customer leasing dark fiber, it’s your responsibility to purchase and maintain the optical equipment that will “light” it, and you have more control over the situation. School districts and governments used to be the primary consumers of dark fiber for years, but it’s become a much more popular model for enterprises lately. Unfortunately, many business internet providers don’t offer dark fiber as an option since it’s often not as lucrative for the carrier.
Though it may feel like business internet is a commodity and all providers are the same, that’s quite far from the truth. We encourage all businesses to shop around and ask the above questions of potential business phone and internet providers. These are basic questions that all telecom service providers should be willing to answer in a transparent, straightforward way.

Interested in learning more about Segra and how we answer these key questions? Find out more about Segra’s superior connectivity solutions and dedication to customer service.