Change Is Scary, But Porting Doesn’t Have To Be

Case Study w/ Victoria Koski of InfoStructure

“Every aspect of my job is always changing,” said InfoStructure’s Victoria Koski in her recent interview with ATL Communications, “I’m just sick of change and I’m a skeptic when it comes to changing things.” We know the feeling – not being able to predict whether the changes will positively or negatively affect a particular pain point in a business. Victoria said, “I was just so comfortable with NPAC that I was afraid to change.”

This is a common viewpoint from many employees across many different industries. People are comfortable with what they are used to – what they have already learned and practiced. Knowing this significant barrier of entry, ATL Communications set out to make sure that the PortingPro platform would create that comfort immediately while minimizing the learning curve for existing or new employees. For Victoria, PortingPro quickly alleviated her fear of change and offered her improved efficiency, cost savings, and the support she needed to accomplish the essential functions of local number porting. “I was afraid to try something new, but we went for it and it’s worked out really well,” she commented.

What necessitated a change in your business?

According to Victoria, there were a few reasons why a change was in order and even though she was “sick of change,” a change was the only way to progress. “Neustar NPAC was going away, so we were forced to go with iconectiv or find another solution,” she admitted and added, “I realized that if we had to go with the new administrator, it’s going to totally suck for me. Anytime there’s an issue, I know it’s going to take me forever to get a hold of someone and get my issue resolved.” During this time, InfoStructure’s Owner, “Jeff Rhoden was looking for ways to look up the ownership of phone numbers, so we were trying out the #View product,” Victoria said. She had called ATL with a few questions and addressed her concerns with the NPAC transition. To her surprise, ATL mentioned that they had a revolutionary new platform for local number porting – promising ease of use, access, affordability, and world-class support. Victoria and her team scheduled a demo. Victoria said, “Your product, after seeing the demo, really simplified the process for me. I needed something simple.” Local number porting shouldn’t be a complicated process; however, with outdated technology being the only viable option before PortingPro, a massive gap was left for advancement aimed towards ease of use. For example, “In NPAC, you can’t see anything. On your platform, I can see everything that is going on. I really like your dashboard. I like how I can look to see all the port-ins and port-outs that are happening at any given time,” she said. “It seemed easier than NPAC because I don’t have to sit there and enter in the CNAM and LIDB codes. I could simply pre-set all my profiles,” and, “I don’t have to go into so many portals every day,” she proudly proclaimed. With the move to PortingPro, Victoria has not only simplified a complicated process, but she managed to take a giant leap forward in her fight against the fear of change.

How did PortingPro address these pain points your business was experiencing?

When asked, “Not having to go back into other company’s portals to see if they had given me F.O.C. It saves me time,” Victoria said instantly, “Concurrence happens quickly or I don’t have to worry about it. I can go back in later in the week and see that it has happened.” This alone has reduced operating costs at InfoStructure because Victoria now only needs to log in to PortingPro to see everything revolving around all of her port requests. Also, “We were spending $400 – $600 a month with NPAC and now we’re down to spending much less with PortingPro,” she added. The cost savings was not the only upside that Victoria is currently experiencing. She began describing her job in an effort to highlight just how busy she is and how valuable each minute is for her at work. She said, “We’re a small team. We have about 30 employees. Most larger companies have provisioners whose sole duty is porting. Well, I do all the parts of the job. I write the ports, order the circuits, and do all of the scheduling. I take the sale from our salespeople and complete the process. I just don’t have time to think about any one aspect in-depth due to how busy I am. I just go in [to PortingPro], it works, and I like that part of it. It’s really simple and I don’t have to think about it. Porting should be this easy.” ATL completely agrees – porting should be easy. In almost every facet of Telecom, we’ve seen technological growth with local number porting being the only real exception. It had been roughly 10 years since advances had been made to the mundane, complicated, and highly outdated process. Coupled with industry-leading customer service, which is always available, PortingPro checked all of Victoria’s boxes. She appreciated the fact that she always gets her questions answered immediately, from a knowledgeable employee, and reiterated, “I don’t want to call and have to pick through a menu of items, or speak to a robot – I just want my questions answered quickly by a person.” Once again, ATL completely agrees with Victoria. The training was less than a half-hour and Victoria was processing her ports with PortingPro.

What PortingPro features are most impressive to you?

“Cost, according to the powers that be,” Victoria said jokingly as she doesn’t have to bother with the accounting department. “I know it’s saved us time and I don’t see the bills, but I bet it’s saving us at least a couple hundred dollars a month,” she added. Her favorite PortingPro features revolve around ease of use and customer support. She said, “I can log in to it from any browser and any location – whether it be my home or my work,” and “we can have multiple people using it at the same time.” PortingPro unique and powerful dashboard has enlightened her as well. “I’m realizing that we do a lot more porting than I thought we did. Without being able to see the dashboard, I never would have imagined the volume of port-ins and port-outs we have going on,” she mentioned. With support being her top requirement, ATL continues to deliver. “If I get in a crunch, you guys are willing to help out with whatever is happening. That’s the number one plus for me,” making light of the myriad of PortingPro features she enjoys daily. ATL Communications has simplified local number porting so much that support is what truly stands out now. Users see a platform that simply works while automating a large portion of what used to be a manual process. Victoria added, “We’re positioning ourselves to go nationwide, so we will definitely be doing more porting in the future. PortingPro will help with our expansion.”

What can we do to improve PortingPro?

“I’m pretty much the person that always finds salts with things,” said Victoria before she began laughing, “If there was a problem, I’d probably find it, but actually I haven’t found anything so far. It just works.” She added, “I just don’t know what else I could even want it to do at this point. It does everything I need as is.” While we pried for negative feedback, in an effort to address these concerns and improve our platform, Victoria said, “I’ll find something.” ATL Communications accepts your challenge Victoria – we truly hope you do!