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.

The Staggering Evil of My Phone Company

One of the value added services I provide to my clients is to have a look at their phone and Internet bills in order to hopefully give them an option that saves them money or gives them more of a bang for their buck. Only after reviewing no less than 200 plans and bills have I begun to realize that the telephone companies do their best to make these plans and services as confusing as possible. To make matters worse, in their attempts to clarify their billing and itemizing charges they actually confused the consumer more. I get to say this because the review and renewal of my own plan just came up and I find myself looking for someone to explain why I made the switch to AT&T from TDS Metrocom to begin with.

I was offered a plan that saved me money for one whole year, and now I either get to argue over rate hikes or I get to go through the hassle of changing providers again.

Here's a thought, be competitive and be fair with your pricing. Then try laying information out in a manner that can be easily understood. You would be amazed how successful this makes you and the high level of customer retention you maintain.