Internet Service Providers Are Sitting On A Gold Mine

In this podcast, Shoaib brings together the Fieldproxy team to take a look at why Internet Service Providers from tier-2 and tier-3 cities are going to explode in growth in the coming years, and how they can better prepare their service teams for it.

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Shoaib (00:00)

Hey, everyone. Welcome to field radio. A Fieldproxy podcast. This is Shoaib Ahmed, your host and I guess by the previous episode you already know what Field Radio is. But for those of you who are listening, if this is your first time, welcome to Field Radio. We are a one-stop solution for everything related to the field service we'll be providing in the coming episodes. We will of course be providing expert advice, news, or insider information into trends and a lot more information basically on how field Service technicians and managers can improve their field teams. In this episode, we are going to do something different. We have a few experts from the Field Proxy team themselves. And gentlemen, I just like to allow you to introduce yourself. We'll start with maybe Tajan.

Tajun Vijaiyan (00:48)

Yeah, sure. I'm Tajun Vijayan. I'm a senior Enterprise account executive here at Fieldproxy. I have been doing SaaS sales for the past four and a half years now and I have predominantly worked in the field service industry for the past three to 3.5 years I've come across various ISP use cases and various implications that these business owners were facing. So we'll talk more about that in detail during the purpose of the podcast now.

Shibi (01:20)

Hi, I'm Shibi Kishore I am an account executive at Fieldproxy, and recently joined here. But in terms of the Field Use case, I have been in the sales and service industry. I have closely worked with sales and service technicians. I have understood how they are practicing their daily activities and hope in this podcast I'll share my experience in that regard.

Aadil (01:42)

First of all, thanks for having me shoaib. My name is Aadil and I'm an inbound account executive here at Fieldproxy. So this is the first day and I've been here for over two years. And personally, with respect to Fieldproxy, I've been a part of this journey. I have personally seen across a lot of the field industry ranging from Fiber Connections, ISPs, FMCG models, HVAC models, and servicing models and I personally talked to over 600 customers currently we have around 300 happy customers in Fieldproxy. So hopefully we look to talking more about all this.

Shoaib (02:16)

Yeah, great. So yes, to those of you who are listening, I think aadil and Tajun did give a brief intro about what we are going to talk about, we're going to talk about today. It's ISPs internet service providers. What we're going to do is basically tackle the problem of what ISPs are doing currently, what is not working for them, what is working for them, and how we can sort of improve or help these teams improve their operational efficiencies. So with regards to this, I believe Shibi, you had done a few social experiments right over the past few weeks. I guess we'll just let you take over, maybe start this conversation, and get it flowing.

Shibi (02:56)

Yeah, sure. So for the past one week, I've been doing a social experiment to understand how these Internet service providers are working in tier 2 cities. But one of the major things that I got, was shocked in the customer reviews in terms of service. So I have been doing research in Google where I had seen a lot of interest service providers from the large scale to the medium scale in ties to cities. The thing which I come across is that their service quality and the service reviews which the customers gave, it was not on par with the brand that they have been. So in terms of their product, in terms of the quality of the product, they are being rated at a good rating.

Aadil (03:43)

Like when you went into the social experiment, you must have one end goal in mind, right? So I just want to understand your thought process before tackling this experiment. What kind of target providers were you going for? Do you have any filtration based on regions or, you know, because mindset matters a lot? Right? So, obviously, having bad service on a Tier 1 city obviously differs from having tier 2 cities. Right. Because infrastructure is also a major concern. So before doing the social experiment, what kind of factors do you have to take into mind, and what is the end research when you conducted this experiment?

Shibi (04:16)

Okay, so I have targeted Tier 1 cities, and I have targeted organizations dealing with customers of sizes around 100 to 200. So I was not targeting the big players, where you can see there are a few big players who have their network across the country who have a system in place to work.

Shoaib (04:35)

Are these 100 to 200 employees that you are saying, all field teams, or is it like the entire size of the organization was 100 to 200 employees?

Shibi (04:44)

the customer base. Is around 100 to 200, and they'd. Be getting service requests and then installation requests from the area. so what I understood from the perspective of a type two or a type three city is that there are different players. Based on different regions. They have segregated regions based on how they are offering service. So few of the big players are there. They have been giving service throughout the city. But there are a few players who are specific about where they are going to play. They know their market. Okay, this is the region, these are the two-three areas where I'm going to give service. And if someone is calling from the other part of the city then they'll have to go and check whether that is a feasibility to do this installation from their end. So what I came to know is that most of these players have a customer base of around 100 to 200 and they have been giving services to them. So one of the pain points which I saw from their thing is that on one side as a customer you need the best experience right. On the other side, in terms of business perception, I have to give good service to my customers. That is why that is when they'll come back to me again. But what I felt after talking to around 50 to 60 medium scale businesses with these Internet service providers, I came to know that the system that they have is very common. For example, I spoke to a few of them a kind of analog kind of thing.

Aadil (06:28)

As possible. Any reasons why? Because they preferred the older method.

Shibi (06:32)

Well, apparently is one thing because they have been in this business and we all know that the industry is evolving, and the expectations of the customers are evolving. But if you see 10 years back what we have expected from an Internet service provider and what we expect now, if you see the difference in that, you can see there is a huge difference in terms of customer expectation.

Aadil (06:57)

Even when Cohen has to do a lot of it's. Also a major contributor to it. The way we approach ISPs because everyone's in hybrid mode. But that backup primer has always worked from home and in current trades, the Internet is one of the basic requirements. They always say in Hindi, they say roti kapda makaan, that means food, clothing, and the house is the most important. I think the internet is also something that is very close to all this in the current coming as a fourth pillar. I think that's actually very important to make sure that your ISP is keeping up with the trend and that you try to make sure that you're always in connection with the world.

Shoaib (07:34)

So Shibi, you said that in your research. This is something that you face with the tire 2 and tire 3 cities, right? I believe Tajun and aadil have had a similar experience with tire 1 cities as well. Is it the same kind of problem or is it like are there any different expectations of what the clients have?

Tajun Vijaiyan (07:55)

We'll come to the problem statement in a moment, but before that so you told me that while speaking, while you reached out to all of these ISP providers in tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, you said that they were all doing their business in a very authorized manner. Right, Internet Service Providers, has been around for a really long time, but bypass it came recently. Right. So any reason why they haven't updated or scaled to an automated kind of a solution?

Shibi (08:28)

Well, you can categorize the pre covid and post covid in this case, if you see like in a pre covid era, the people who needed internet, high-speed Internet, the fiber connections are required by those who are working in.

Shoaib (08:50)

It wasn't necessarily something that people

Aadil (08:54)

it's not necessarily, that's the Zion case.

Shoaib (09:00)

Right.

Aadil (09:01)

I think around 2016 or 2017, when jio came out, it made accessible towards everyone on the part of the site. It wasn't limited to one aspect of the social and economic part. It was a common history across the area, covid and jio, it made a very influential combination for it. And it started giving rise to all these partners. So Airtel and Jio, I think are the major contributors to pan India. So I think you have these smaller players who partner up with them and try to provide, if not similar service to what they provide in tier 2 cities because infrastructure is also a problem. Right.

Shibi (09:46)

One major thing which I felt was, you think about it, even the workforce from the Tier 2 cities, they'll come to Tier 3 cities and they'll work in the company and because of COVID what happened, the major workforce.

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