Improve your operational efficiency and customer experience by automating number management.
We often meet CEOs whose operations teams still manage numbers manually for their customers. These "swivel chair operations" start out easy enough when your business is young. Here is the reasoning we've all used at the beginning:
One or two people can easily handle order volumes from our customers. We fulfill most orders within the same day, and our customers are happy with that.
We only have one, maybe two, providers that we order from, so it's easy to figure out where to place orders.
It would cost me more to automate the process than just keep doing it manually for now.
These points are mostly true when our businesses are small and just getting started.
Unfortunately we often find our teams are still manually processing orders long after our customer list has grown and operational complexity has increased.
If your team is still manually fulfilling phone numbers, let's explore the risks and challenges of this manual activity to your business. Then let's talk about how to solve these challenges with automation.
The Challenges of Manual Number Management
1. Headcount Costs
One number administrator may cost $50,000 - $70,000 per year. It doesn't take long to grow to a team of 3 number administrators that costs more than $200,000 per year. And when you need to backfill a number administrator, your managers lose time to recruiting, hiring, and training.
What could you do with another $200,000 per year in your budget?
2. Longer Fulfillment Timelines
Some customers may be happy with 24 or 48-hour fulfillment timelines. But what happens when your customers see that other providers fulfill orders immediately? What happens when you are managing orders across multiple vendors and it takes even longer to complete a large order?
Immediate turn-around on number orders will streamline your customers' internal workflows, increasing your value as a communications provider.
3. Mistakes and Quality Issues
Manual operations are prone to errors. One- and two-number orders are simple enough. But what about that 100-number order sitting in your queue? And what about orders that spans multiple underlying providers? Your number
What's the impact to your company and your customer when you get an order wrong?
4. Suboptimal Allocation and Cost Management
Efficient number allocation is crucial for cost management. Does your team have a giant spreadsheet they use to track prices and reliability across your underlying providers? How are they managing complex orders across multiple rate centers, countries and providers? How are you managing orders for numbers that have a higher risk of fraudulent activity?
Manual processes lead to suboptimal allocation and mistakes, increasing costs for you and your customers.
5. Missed Rate and Coverage Changes
We all have customers who need numbers in other countries or high-cost areas. Rates and coverage for these areas tend to change frequently. And keeping up with these changes creates a lot of work for your vendor management and number admin teams. When you miss a rate or coverage change, you risk setting inaccurate expectations and missing customer promises.
What happens if you miss a customer promise because your team missed a rate or coverage change?
The Benefits of Automated Number Management
1. Simplified Operations
Automated number management significantly streamlines operations by integrating directly with your customer management portal:
Orders are automatically placed with your downstream providers based on your pre-determined rules, and numbers are automatically enabled on customer SIP trunks and other platforms.
"Swivel chair" order entry is eliminated along with all of the risks that come with it: delays, mistakes, and misallocation.
Your team is freed up to focus on higher-impact activities such as vendor quality, customer relations, and further operational efficiencies.
Eliminating manual number management significantly reduces your operational headcount requirements.
2. Improved Customer Experience
Customers, partners, and internal team members are able to complete their workflows faster. Rather than placing an order, stopping their workflow to wait for the order to complete, then coming back to their workflow, your customers are able to complete all of their tasks in one session.
Automation turns number management into an activity that blends into customer workflows rather than something that interrupts customer workflows.
3. Increased Customer Innovation
We have seen this time and time again: when customers are able to do things immediately, they find new ways to integrate those activities into their business workflows. Your partners will likely ask to integrate your number management into their systems. And your customers will think about how they can integrate your number management into their HR workflows and other business services.
Automation opens up opportunities for your customers and partners to innovate on top of your services.
It's Easy to Get Started
At Creo Solutions, we have two great ways to get you started with automated number management.
Do you already have your own customer portal?
We can integrate directly between your customer portal and your downstream providers. Our team of AWS, Google, and Microsoft-certified developers has experience working across providers including Bandwidth, Sinch / Inteliquent, Infobip / Peerless, Syniverse, and more.
Don't already have a portal
Our Service Management Portal delivers a fully self-service experience to your customers, partners, and operations team:
Manage Voice, SMS, and Routing through one portal
Bring your own providers
Manage trunk assignments and SBC configuration
Are you ready to streamline your operations, save time & money, and deliver a better experience to your customers?
Contact us today and let's get started!