VoIP customer service has problems, challenges

I've been reading a new article called The Growing Pains of VoIP: Managing Customer Care. It's in this month's edition of Billing World and OSS Today magazine.

When it comes to customer service, some VoIP providers are doing better than others. The ones that are lagging seem to be battling against problems that include:

Poor database integration. Product feature data often is in a different database than customer data. This can slow down customer service.

Lack of remote diagnostic tools for customer service reps to analyze customer technical problems. "Those diagnostic products do not exist," Business Edge VoIP practice analyst Yaron Raps tells Billing World.

Provisioning hiccups, indicated by a high percentage of inability for customers to hear a dialtone when they first hook up their service.

Occasional CODECconflicts when a customer's existing broadband provider is a different company than their VoIP provider.

Lack of phone support, particularly among smaller VoIP providers.

And on, and on, and on...

Do these issues concern you enough to think twice about ordering VoIP? If so, we'd love to know. Why not post a TalkBack?