Frontier Communications is hoping to enhance its competitive standing in the Ethernet market by enhancing its quoting and order process for its small to medium enterprise (SME) customers and wholesale carrier customers.
The telco has developed tools and systems that focus on two areas: selling services where it has built out its own network and automate the approval process on what pricing is, as well as what capabilities are to those facilities.
“We have streamlined the Ethernet quoting process to improve turnaround and customer experience for SME customers,” McCarthy said. “As a result, we are seeing an expanded sales funnel and expect to see the benefits in revenue in the coming quarters.”
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McCarthy added that the funnel is “30% to 35%, and we're improving the cycle time of provisioning to the point where we're getting towards best-in-class we think of getting Ethernet installed.”
To deliver Ethernet, Frontier will be able to leverage its collection of 30,000 on net fiber-fed multi-customer buildings in its territory. Having a large amount of on-net fiber buildings means that Frontier can not only attract businesses with higher speed services, but also control the customer experience. The fiber-based connections can also be used as a way for Frontier to differentiate itself from local CLECs that may rely on renting off-net circuits and cable operators that have eaten into the CTF markets after Verizon largely left these markets alone.
Additionally, the service provider is now using a mix of direct and third-party channels to on board new business customers.
“We're focused on commercial customer acquisition in both direct and alternate channels,” McCarthy said. “This simplifies the process of doing business with Frontier, improves billing and product pricing evolution, and drives growth with cloud-based VoIP and data networking solutions.”