Account Team / Sales Executives and Service - V22.0
Description
The CenturyLink™ Account Team will be your first point of contact and will assist you in conducting business with CenturyLink. In order to handle the complexities of your account and the challenges of a highly competitive marketplace, your CenturyLink Account Team consists of a Sales/Interconnection Team and a Service Team.
As you are getting ready to do business with CenturyLink, a number of steps must be completed by both you and CenturyLink. These steps and a checklist are available in Getting Started for Facility-Based Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) or Getting Started for Resellers. Activities to obtain a Sales/Interconnection Team and a Service Manager are detailed in the checklist.
Refer to CenturyLink Wholesale Team Tool (CWTT) to identify the CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Manager assigned to your company, please contact our Wholesale Service Management Group for assistance.
NOTE: References to Service Delivery Specialist in CWTT are synonymous with the term Service Manager in published Product Catalogs (PCATs) and Business Procedures.
In the event that it is necessary to reassign you to a different CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive or Service Manager, the former CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive or Service Manager will be responsible for familiarizing the new CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive or Service Manager with:
- Your corporate profile and all contact information
- Your sales and/or service objectives
- Your network
- Your Interconnection Agreement and any pending amendments
- Your meeting schedules
They will also:
- Transition all current open issues/sales proposals to the new CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive and/or Service Manager along with all background information, parties involved, commitments and timelines
- Establish a conference call or meeting with you to introduce you to the new CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive or Service Manager
- Provide your files to the new CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive and/or Service Manager including emails and any pertinent document
Your CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection and Service Team is prepared to assist you with:
- Answering your telecommunications questions pertaining to your CenturyLink account and ensuring you have access to information, documentation and/or facilitate access to CenturyLink resources regarding product knowledge and uses, overall questions regarding telecommunication interfaces with CenturyLink and other billing, ordering or service related issues that may arise
- Providing you CenturyLink product and sales information via notifications, individual meetings, product and sales documents, such as brochures, sales proposals, CenturyLink web sites and product training
- Generating sales proposals to address your sales needs for the various CenturyLink products available
- Planning and developing your network interconnection with CenturyLink by providing information on CenturyLink products, assist in facilitating meetings with various CenturyLink representatives regarding delivery of interconnection products with CenturyLink
- Handling pricing inquiries, ranging from simple inquiries to tariff rates or more complex pricing for wide-ranging systems, for CenturyLink products and services you may wish to obtain from CenturyLink
- Establishing Interconnection Agreements and Amendments, and Product contracts and amendments, and ensuring you are introduced to the appropriate contract negotiations groups to establish your Interconnection Agreement with CenturyLink. Your CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive is responsible for monitoring the implementation and progress of your Interconnection Agreement and, once your Interconnection Agreement is established, will facilitate the completion of any additional contracts or amendments to the Interconnection Agreement requested by you. Amendments may be required to purchase/order additional products, not originally available when your original Interconnection Agreement was negotiated
- Assisting you with certain special requests, such as Bona Fide Request (BFR) and Special Request (SR) Processes, for special assembly of products to meet special or specific needs
- Providing for order escalations and expedites assistance as needed
- Contact the Product Manager, Process Specialist, or other CenturyLink SMEs, as appropriate, when an issue arises that may be need to be considered a Change Management Process (CMP) issue
- Assist you with contract compliance issues
- Assist you with issues of isolated poor performance by a CenturyLink employee that was not resolved through contact with applicable service center
- Responding to complaints regarding any of the above topics. If a service related problem is brought to the CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Team, they will contact the CenturyLink Service Manager to determine the steps already taken and when necessary, will work with the CenturyLink Service Manager to jointly develop an alternative resolution.Service Managers may become involved with escalations, along with activities that are associated with escalation resolution. See Expedites and Escalations Overview for additional information.
The CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Team consists of the following positions:
- Sales/Interconnection Representative: Your main point of contact at CenturyLink for sales/interconnection functions identified above.
- You are assigned a CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Representative who is responsible for addressing your day to day and emergency needs. CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Representatives are available by telephone, email, pager and/or cellular telephone.
- Sales/Interconnection Director: Director of group of Sales/Interconnection Team who have direct responsibility for managing the sales/interconnection functions identified above.
- If your needs are being addressed or issues you believe need to be addressed at a senior management level, the Sales Director is available to assist both the CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive and you in meeting your needs.
Your CenturyLink Service Team is prepared to assist you with:
- Handling order acceptance, delayed orders, and cancelled orders. Answering your questions surrounding acceptance testing, delivery of an order, investigation and explanation of the reason an order is delayed or cancelled, and to resolve and communicate issues to you in a timely, thorough manner. Responsible for understanding CenturyLink's service delivery process, your CenturyLink Service Manager has contacts within other CenturyLink departments who are responsible for the actual ordering and delivery of products. Through these contacts your CenturyLink Service Manager negotiates the best resolution, and interval to the problem that is practical for both you and CenturyLink based on the individual situation.
- Answering questions related to signed Interconnection Agreements. Your CenturyLink Service Manager will work with the CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive depending on the specific question or issue involved.
- Handling escalations, delayed order escalations or expedites, assisting you if normal processes do not produce results. For more information refer to the Expedites and Escalations Overview.
- Providing information on major outages. Information regarding major outages can be found in the Maintenance and Repair Overview.
- Handling maintenance and repair escalations if you are dissatisfied with the service you are receiving from CenturyLink. Refer to CenturyLink's Maintenance and Repair Overview to review an outline of the trouble report handling process.
- Handling maintenance and repair post mortems (root cause analysis) when you submit a specific request for a post mortem on an unusual repair event, e.g., event over eight hours. Your CenturyLink Service Manager will review the logged notes regarding the event and discuss the circumstances surrounding the event with the CenturyLink Repair Center to determine the cause, the process used to repair/restore service, and the process(es) implemented to prevent a reoccurrence of the event. Working with CenturyLink's Repair Center/Network Reliability Operations Center, as appropriate, your CenturyLink Service Manager will conduct the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and provide you the complete analysis in writing. Investigation and preparation of a typical postmortem takes from 2-10 business days depending on the complexity of the event.
- Obtaining project coordination. Depending upon your request, the Sales/Interconnection Team or the Service Team can assist with obtaining Project Management/Coordination. CenturyLink’s Sales/Interconnection Team will assist in obtaining project management for the installation of services such as new Optical Carrier (OC) systems, e.g., OC48, OC 12, etc. CenturyLink’s Service Team will assist with obtaining project management for a grooming request, e.g., moving existing trunks to your new switch or grooming existing Digital Signal Level 1 (DS1) to new Digital Signal Level 3 (DS3) hubs. Project coordination is assigned on an individual case basis (ICB). Contact your Sales/Interconnection Executive or Service Manager to discuss a Project Management/Coordination assignment.
- Providing testing and performance reporting is based on the various testing available for installation, maintenance and repair. Refer to the Maintenance and Repair Overview or the Provisioning and Installation Overview for information regarding testing. Specific testing related questions should be discussed with your CenturyLink Service Manager. Performance Reporting information can be found in the User Guide on the CLEC Performance Results Report.
- Responding to complaints regarding any of the above topics based on your need and complexity of the reason for the escalation/complaint. Timeframes are not established, as the response interval will vary based on the situation. Escalation information can be found in the Expedites & Escalations Overview.
- Assisting with the Change Management Process (CMP) for Product, Process or Operation Support System (OSS) interface. See CMP for additional information.
- Responding to your needs in various ways:
- Pager - While the CenturyLink Service Manager is in the office during normal business hours, you may expect a telephone call in response to your page within 15-30 minutes. When the CenturyLink Service Manager is out of the office or without quick access to a telephone during normal business hours, you may expect a response within four to eight hours. A duty manager phone number will be available on the voicemail of your service manager to provide you with any afterhours repair assistance.
- Voicemail - Voice mail greetings will normally advise you the availability of the person you are calling, their pager number and/or back up names and numbers. Once you leave a message, during normal business hours, and the CenturyLink Service Manager is in the office, you may expect a response from the voice message you left within four hours. During normal business hours, when the CenturyLink Service Manager is out the office or without quick access to a telephone, you may expect a response within eight hours.
- Written Correspondence (including email) - Your CenturyLink Service Manager will respond to written correspondence, including email, within one business day to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and advise you of a specific date by which you will be contacted regarding your correspondence.
- Conference Calls - Scheduled as requested.
- Face to Face Meetings - Scheduled as requested.
NOTE: While CenturyLink Service Managers will make every attempt to respond within these intervals, the timeframes outlined above are strictly for guideline purposes only.
The CenturyLink Service Team consists of the following positions:
- Service Director: Director of a group of Service Managers who
support service impacting issues identified above.
- The Service Director will address your needs and/or issues when the Service Manager's efforts are unsuccessful.
- Service Manager: Managers who support service impacting issues
identified previously.
- The CenturyLink Service Manager will be your contact for the items previously mentioned under "CenturyLink Service Team". They will also assist with your needs and/or issues when normal processes fail to resolve an escalation to your satisfaction.
Availability
CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers are available to you in the CenturyLink QC.
Terms and Conditions
Terms and Conditions are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Technical Publications
Technical Publications are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Pricing
Pricing is not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Tariffs, Regulations and Policies
Tariffs, Regulations and Policies are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Optional Features
Optional Features are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Applications
Applications are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Implementation
Product Prerequisites
If you are a new CLEC and are ready to do business with CenturyLink, view Getting Started as a Facility-Based CLEC or Getting Started as a Reseller. If you are an existing CLEC wishing to amend your Interconnection Agreement or Customer Questionnaire, additional information is located in the Interconnection Agreement.Pre-Ordering
Pre-Ordering is not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Ordering
Ordering is not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Provisioning and Installation
Provisioning and Installation are not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Maintenance and Repair
Maintenance and Repair Team not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Executives and Service Managers.
Billing
Billing is not applicable to Account Team / Sales/Interconnection Team and Service Managers.
Training
Local CenturyLink 101 "Doing Business With CenturyLink"
- This introductory web-based training course is designed to teach the Local CLEC and Local Reseller how to do business with CenturyLink. It will provide a general overview of products and services, CenturyLink billing and support systems, processes for submitting service requests, reports, and web resource access information. Click here to learn more about this course and to register.
View additional CenturyLink courses by clicking on Course Catalog.
Contacts
CenturyLink contact information is located in Wholesale Customer Contacts.
For questions or issues relating to Sales/Interconnection , contact your CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive. For questions, on provisioning or repair issues relating to Service, contact your CenturyLink Service Manager.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What are the key responsibilities of your CenturyLink Account
Team to you?
The CenturyLink Account Team has two key responsibilities:
Sales/Interconnection -to provide a wide range of advanced, affordable product and service solutions that enable you to meet every business challenge-large and small.
Service-provisioning and maintaining your service for maximum performance.
2. In the past I had an Account Management Team for both
Sales and Service needs, why has CenturyLink split their responsibilities?
Fulfilling each of these responsibilities requires specialized knowledge
and training. We believe we can do a better job of helping you face
today's complexities and challenges by refocusing our resources.
This new structure streamlines our ability to better respond to
your requests.
3. How does CenturyLink differentiate responsibilities between
sales and service?
Your Sales/Interconnection Team will be able to focus exclusively on understanding
your sales needs and recommending appropriate and creative solutions.
Your Service Team will be a single source of support for all issues
regarding ordering, provisioning, maintenance, and repair.
4. Who can provide information about the progress of my
Interconnection Agreement?
Your CenturyLink Sales/Interconnection Executive is responsible for monitoring the implementation
and progress of Interconnection Agreements and amendments.
5. Do I need an amendment to order (product name)?
Your CenturyLink Service Manager can verify if an amendment exists within
your Interconnection Agreement to order the product.
Last Update: April 6, 2018