Cavalier and C2: Small Businesses Enter at Your Own Risk

There have been few vendors out there that have angered me as much as the infamous Cavalier/LDMI/Talk America - whatever, take your pick on what their name is this week. Being a small business IT consultant part of my job is to find decent, affordable telephony and Internet service solutions and I have had the unfortunate first hand experience of working with this company. To be fair, in the first 3 months of working with them (over a 18 month process) things were fine. The remainder of the time was a nightmare for my clients. Installations were botched, service was shaky at best, telephone and technical support were next to nonexistent. When you did receive support it took 4 days for a ticket to get completed. There wasn't a single facet of the Cavalier service that was good.

Well, let's talk about their people then. If I thought their service was bad, their CSR's and salespeople were worse. I have since spoke with peers that worked at Cavalier in sales and they told me first hand about their terrible sales tactics and lack of ethics. Things like making empty promises, changing contracts after signatures were given, and long contracts with no way out clauses were a common business practice. This is why people are filing complaints with the State of Michigan because Cavalier's gig is up.

Sitting at home the other night, I see a corny, low-budget commercial for something called C2. This just happens to be Cavalier's home telephone and Internet service. I laugh out loud at their proclamation of how they are "partnered with Google" and how using their service you get access to Google Apps. Obviously, anyone has access to these tools and I highly doubt Google would waste their time with such a joke of a company. Amazing on how such an example for the "C2 service" marketing speaks to their business practices by making such deceptive "offerings."

Cavalier, in any environment, is a joke. They have no room in the small business, home, or any market until they make some serious infrastructure changes and clean up their act. I received a phone call from a friend who is high up at AT&T the other day - he was giving me a heads up that Cavalier is apparently not paying their bills to AT&T and they are in danger of being shut off for all LDMI based customers in any state. What a laugh I had at that. Cavalier can't even pay their bills for the copper they rent from AT&T and as usual, their customers will pay for it.

My advice - when looking for phone or Internet service - avoid LDMI, Cavalier, Talk America (whatever) like the plague.

Lean and Mean in Michigan

Michigan's economy flat out sucks and in times like these it is more important than ever to run your business lean. Lean - cut the fat. Lean has no fat and fat is waste. Small businesses that have too much waste end up out of business. Waste (fat) equates to time, money, and loss of business. In a hostile economic environment, too much fat will make you sink.

Being lean doesn't mean not spending money. The name of the game is quality and efficiency and if your company can provide great service while maintaining both quality and efficiency then you are lean. I prefer to let my company's service speak for itself versus dumping resources in to aggressive mass-marketing. As a matter of fact, Vision's biggest source of new business is referrals and that is marketing you can't beat.

A lean business hires the best people and pays them what they are worth while maintaining high expectations. Being lean means wearing multiple hats and wearing them well. Lean companies will put the customer first and do what it takes to make them happy. Lean companies will also identify and fire "problem customers."

If you are a small business in Michigan and rely on other Michigan businesses; if you are still in business today then you are doing something right. I prefer to think of this as "survival of the fittest." Let all the marginal companies fall by the wayside - more business for us to serve and when the economy swings I will be ready to hold on for the ride.

Hosting Your Services

Hosted services are becoming a more attractive and realistic options to the small business owners. Realizing that proper client/server setups and hardware can sometimes carry a significant investment - many small business owners are opting to take the monthly fee approach.

A hosted solution provides a user or users with the power of a larger software package for a fraction of the cost. You also offload the responsibility of administrative tasks to the hosting company. Management items such as updating, monitoring, troubleshooting, securing and backing up servers are delegated to the host and not the customer.

Some examples of hosted solutions are:

1. Mail - from simple email POP3 hosting to Exchange hosting services - email has become a staple of the modern business world. Exchange hosting is extremely beneficial to small businesses because it allows you to take advantage of the full capabilities of Microsoft Exchange. This includes features such as calendar and contact sharing.

2. Web - most small businesses do not want to bother hosting their own web site. With so many web hosting options and companies nowadays, there is no common reason that a small business needs to take on the responsibilities of hosting their own website.

3. Sharepoint - An up and coming software suite in the eyes of the small business. Sharepoint is a powerful collaboration utility that is very customizable to suit the needs of almost any business. It allows for a company intranet right out of the box and offers many free templates and user community online.

4. Anti-Virus - Yes, even anti-virus is offered as a hosted solution. If you have multiple computers but have no server, the benefit of using hosted antivirus is the control you have over those particular AV installations and the ease of keeping licenses managed (i.e. renewals). Most of the time, not only is hosted AV easier to manage and more effective, but cheaper too!

5. Backups - Automated off site backups are a convenient way of making sure your data is protected and backed up with little to no intervention on your part. Online backups can be a "set it and forget it" type of deal - simple to implement but invaluable to have.

For more information on different types of hosted services, please visit http://www.vcsolutions.com