Librarians are often responsible for selecting a phone service for their library. Let's examine my experience with one.

What are the pros and cons of using ITC^DeltaCom as your phone service in the library, at home, or in another business? Let me share some of my experiences, and interpretation of those experiences, with ITC^DeltaCom.

ITC^DeltaCom employees have business cards that carry the company "Value System" on the back. Don't put your faith in it.

We are fair and honest in our dealings with others.
I don't know who the "others" are, but it they were not fair or honest with us. In the contract there was a line about a cancellation fee if the contract is canceled before three years. We stated to the representative that we didn't feel comfortable making that type of commitment for the phone service. We were assured that if the service was not satisfactory the fee would be waived. We canceled service in January, but heard nothing from ITC^DeltaCom until recently when they sent a bill for $1,500! We have called and discussed the situation with various service representatives, faxed in the paperwork, but they are insisting that the $1,500 be paid.

We demonstrate commitment and diligence in our efforts.
Diligence? The phone lines were late being run into a new facility. We ended up routing phone calls to employee homes so that needed calls would not be missed.

We made it clear that it was an absolute must for the phone numbers to be included in the new telephone books. We were assured that it would happen. When the new phone books arrived we discovered that our phone numbers were not listed. Our calls to ITC^DeltaCom went unanswered for days. When we were finally able to speak to a human being we were told, sorry, we'll get them in next year.

This attitude contradicts another value that is listed on the card.

We are customer driven. We listen and respond with a sense of urgency to matters related to our customers.
There was no sense of urgency when for days and months we attempted to address the overcharge for our long distance service. We had agreed to a long distance service of 5 cents per minute. We never received this rate.