One Technician's Sunrocket/Teleblend Post MortemExecutive incompetence made for rocky road... ( old news - 03:01PM Friday Apr 25 2008) tags: VoIPWhen independent VoIP provider SunRocket utterly imploded last summer, a company by the name of USA Telephone decided they'd take the opportunity to try their hand at the VoIP Business. The company created a new company named "TeleBlend," purchased "certain limited strategic assets" of SunRocket, and then paid SunRocket's liquidators to send fleeing sunrocket customers an e-mail calling Teleblend an "outstanding replacement service" -- despite the fact they technically didn't exist before SunRocket's demise. Except the tiny company really couldn't handle the influx of already annoyed customers, which made an already very messy situation considerably worse. One Teleblend support technician has written a short post mortem of sorts now that he's no longer supporting the service. He notes that CEO Bill Fogg (who failed to calm angry users in our forums) is no longer on board. A lot of the trouble you faced as customers in the beginning, and I did within the company really came down to some very poor managerial decisions. From what I understand, those people who were responsible are gone now. Michale Carbenou, Bill Fogg, and head tech McDougal have all parted ways for various reasons. I can say without a doubt, these people made it very difficult for myself and the people I worked with to be effective in any way, shape or form. Granted, not everything was their fault, but what made most people so upset was the lack of information, misinformation, and lack of support. While he notes that things are starting to smooth out at Teleblend, he can't in good conscience recommend them to anybody (go figure). According to the company's website, they still aren't taking new customers, which means they still exist solely to service SunRocket refugees with whatever executives remain. SunRocket employees also place that company's demise on dysfunctional management. The person who takes most of the blame is former CEO Lisa Hook, who is now making $450,000 a year for a directory services company named Neustar. Hook bailed from the failing VoIP provider a week before anybody bothered to tell Sunrocket customers the company was going under. Stellar managerial work all around, and a tale of telecom dysfunction for the ages.
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 Cogdis
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY | Thank god for BBR Or I would have woken up without phone service one day.
My brother kept teleblend and he's happy for the most part. At least sunrocket worked out the bugs before they went under. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Management always blames the employees... ... for their failures. "Our employees failed to execute our brilliant management strategy."
It's not the employees that run a company into the ground, it's the management. | |
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Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02 | Re: Management always blames the employees... Yeah I was going to say -- usually there's no admission of error of any kind, be it on the part of management or employees. Salaries certainly seem to suggest blame should fall with CEOs, but Hook was clearly rewarded for failure. | |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
1 edit | Re: Management always blames the employees... said by Karl Bode  :Salaries certainly seem to suggest blame should fall with CEOs, but Hook was clearly rewarded for failure. I think the only country where a CEO takes personal responsibility for the performance of their company is Japan. Wasn't it the Sega CEO who gave millions that he earned back to Sega for running the brand into the ground? | |
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ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | Re: Management always blames the employees... Or they kill themselves. | |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC | Re: Management always blames the employees... said by ptrowski :Or they kill themselves. Ha ha, there's that too. | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
 ·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| said by PhoenixDown :"Our employees failed to execute our brilliant management strategy." Can't say I ever heard that one... Ok, let me clarify. They don't come right out and say that...
... but here's what they do do. They add new programs and systems, procedures, all the while touting efficiency and time management. In order to save money and boost profits, they reduce staff and employees. Basically they start overloading and overstressing employees. They insist that they are adequately staffed to meet customer's needs, but employees are forced to cut corners and produce numbers and simply cannot spend the time on quality of service or tasks as is needed. Customer service standards and appearances fall, but management insists that the employees are to blame. Meetings are held and negative feedback or customer survey results are shown to the employees and you're told flat out by supervisors that the employees are failing to do their jobs properly and crack downs are coming.
This is often coupled with threats about performance bonuses etc being taken away and/or cut. In response to these issues, instead of addressing the staffing issues, they make standards harder and start holding employees personally responsible for dissatisfied customers (IE have supervisors enforce even more rigid guidelines, or add more to inspections, or make negatives count off for more "points" on performance evaluations or however each company handles it.)
This of course worsens the situation. People are forced out of their positions, or quit, or are fired. Morale is trashed.... Employees can't pass communications or problems up the line because it's viewed as "bad attitude" or "not being a team player" or even as "against the Company's values" etc which teaches the employees to keep silent and allow the problems to go on unchecked and unfixed.
Result: More customer service problems, and the situation continues to deteriorate. Unless something radical happens, this will go on for a long time and eventually the company will start to crater. Many good companies skate along on their previous reputation for a long time before this finally comes back to haunt them.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| | | | viperlmw
Premium
join:2005-01-25 | Re: Management always blames the employees... Krk, I applaud the insightfullness of your post. I think you have described the situation brilliantly! | |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
·AT&T Southwest
| Re: Management always blames the employees... Unfortunately I learned the hard way, from experience... 
/sigh I currently work for a company that while still is "Good" they are definitely headed the wrong way.... And the sad thing is, they used to be AWESOME to work for, the kinda company you tried to get your friends and family to come work for. Now if anyone asks (in private) you have to be honest and warn them off a fair bit.
It's too bad, really.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| Corydon
Cultivant son jardin
Premium
join:2008-02-18
Denver, CO
clubs:
·Comcast
| The fact that Lisa Hook... ...is running Neustar ought to fill everybody in the US with a sense of fear and dread.
Neustar is basically what holds the PSTN together. Without Neustar, you can't place a call. Doesn't matter if your on an old-school POTS line, a CLEC, or some newfangled VoIP. If Neustar goes down, calls don't get routed.
Not exactly the kind of company you want someone with her track record running.
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My opinions are my own. No-one else would want them! | |
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jjoshua
Premium
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ
1 edit | What's the point of this? The executives collected a salary and moved on - it was a good deal for them.
Who's stupid? Not them. | |
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DcGamer05
join:2001-07-05
Danbury, CT
clubs:
| Re: What's the point of this? Our last six months with Sunrocket they never even bothered to bill us. The switch over to Teleblend was less than stellar, we eventually opted out of their service. In the six months they forgot to bill us the service was much better than the few months we PAID for Teleblend service. The control panel still resides on sunrocket.com. Its just ridiculous that they tried to call themselves a new company when it was just really Sunrocket with a name change, and degradation of service. Now we have MagicJack equally as scary but for $30 a year how can you go wrong? | |
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Neo72
@cableone.net
| Lisa Hooker ole' Lisa is just a product of unbridled Capitalism. take the money and run. she went to the right schools and was born into the right family. the "rules" only apply to the other 90% of the population. she laughed all the way to the bank and now makes 450K/year for all that talent and hard work. when are American's going to figure out that their Country has been bought out and their government is owned by big business and the rich? so sad. America is going down the tubes and most don't even know it. but they DO know that something doesn't seem right in the "Greatest country on earth" | |
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