Monthly Archives: November 2014

American Thanksgiving Money Saving Tip!

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B3dL7e1IIAACDliHappy Thanksgiving to all our pals south of the border. If you want to call and save on your long distance (USA 2¢ per minute) here is a a cool Worldline #Moneysavingtip, even if you are not a Worldline customer: 

  • If you want to save on a call, dial first 10-11-295 then the entire number you want 
  • 2. Simply hold as we connect your call 
  • 3. Savings appear as “Worldline” on your Bell phone bill (minimum $.35 charge)
  • 4. No new bills to pay – convenient!

10-11-295 was one of the first residential telecom products launched by Fibernetics, Worldline’s parent company. 10-11-295 is a dial around number that allows you to dial around your current long distance provider without having to switch phone companies.

By dialing 10-11-295 you save, anytime to anywhere. And it’s just not in Canada and the US, it’s basically anywhere on earth. Here’s a list of the world wide calling rates.  

Taking Worldline from good to great. It’s a culture thing

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John and Tracy Fischer

John Stix and Operations Officer Tracy Fischer

Worldline is the residential division of Fibernetics, one of Canada’s largest telecom companies.

Over the past decade Fibernetics has gone from a three-guys-in-a-basement operation to a major corporation with hundreds of employees and hundreds of thousands of customers.

Starting out, the corporate culture was simple; everyone was on board because they had to be. That is how it is in the start-ups. The fledgling company’s survival depends on all hands being on deck and just getting stuff done.

With time, and success, that start-up spirit tends to fade and is replaced with a certain amount of complacency and sameness due to systems being in place and roles finely defined.

For John Stix, co-founder and Fibernetics president, that’s not the company he envisioned. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.

That’s why he decided that the company needed a shot in the arm. An adrenalin kick in the form of a cultural shift.

From the Fibernetics Blog:

How does one become a culture warrior for a company? That’s a question John Stix asked himself 18 months ago when he realized that some of the passion and excitement  in and around the company he co-founded was lacking.

He noticed it in himself when he discovered he wasn’t bouncing out of bed to get to the office. He noticed it with some staff members grumbling over their coffee in the cafeteria, and worse he discovered it talking to a customer over a beer, who was complaining about how they were  being treated as a customer.

To John, that was the final straw. The company had enjoyed rapid growth over the ten years of its existence, yet it was clear that that exponential expansion was resulting in a few things falling through the cracks. Having an unhappy customer was just not “us,” so John set out to change that.

Typically, he went about the process just like everything else in his business experience: He tackled it as an entrepreneur, developing his own culture initiative around the motto, “I’m in!”

Read more….

We’re Hiring: Are you ready to fill Mike Brown’s shoes?

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Mike BrownSee this guy? He’s Mike Brown, one of the founders of the company. Over the past 18 months he’s been running the marketing for NEWT, our business services division.

He’s been spectacular  – as brand awareness, sales and market share are all through the roof compared to when he took on the role.

Despite that success, he’s about to take on a new gig. He’s been named our Happiness Officer. 

It’s not just an awesome job title, it’s a huge responsibility. Inline with our mandate to be the most customer-focused telecom in Canada, Mike will soon take on the overall responsible of keeping all of our customers, be they Worldline, NEWT or any of our other associated companies, happy. We pride ourselves in the level of service we currently provide, but we’re not satisfied. I doubt we ever will be frankly, because there will always room for improvement.

And if they are not happy, to make sure they get that way – and fast!

There’s no one better in the organization to take on this seminal role – one that will define us going forward. We are all looking forward to helping Mike get us to where we all want to be.

All that said, that means NEWT will soon be without a marketing chief. NEWT’s marketing is focuses on an inbound strategy. We produce material and information to educate our potential clients. We strive, through customer testimonials, white papers and other assets, to provide a business case for NEWT products that makes that buying decision easier.

If you are a B2B Marketer with telecom experience, this is probably your dream job as you will have virtually a free hand to help raise NEWT awareness across Canada.

Do you have the stuff to fill Mike’s shoes? Check out the job posting on the NEWT website and see.

Toronto Star: Workplace happiness? There’s an app for that

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John Stix, courtesy of Sara Mojtehedzadeh/Toronto Star

John Stix, courtesy of Sara Mojtehedzadeh/Toronto Star

How do you make a good company great? The best way, according to Worldline’s president John Stix, is to make the workplace, the working environment and the overriding culture in and around the company better.

That’s why he dedicated himself this year to making what was a good culture, great. An ongoing process, he’s engaged with and enabled Worldline employees to work with him to make our company better.

Besides the obvious advantages; improved employee happiness and talent retention and attraction, it’s also a good business decision.

We here at Worldline are on a mission to be the single best telecom provider in the country, both with our technology and the superior customer service we provide. The only way we’ll be able to do that is to have the most engaged, emboldened and passionate staff in the industry.

John partnered with Plasticity to help Worldline’s amazing staff become even more enthusiastic not just about their jobs, but the company as a whole.

Learn how they did it in the Toronto Star.article, Workplace happiness? There’s an app for that

CRTC Dumps Telco 30-day Cancellation Advance Notice

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CRTCFor Canadian consumers, this is great news.

One of the biggest complaints we get from new customers who are looking to switch to Worldline is the 30-day wait period for cancelling an existing service with their provider. Not only is it annoying and adds to the already far too complex process of switching, but it looks like a cash grab.

The CRTC, after listening to the Canadian public agree.

From the Toronto Star: Canadians should have an easier time cancelling their [phone and Internet] starting early next year.

The Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) has announced a decision that consumers will no longer have to give advance notice if they want to switch television, Internet or phone service providers.

This is the first decision to come out of the CRTC’s Let’s Talk TV: A Conversation with Canadians hearings on the future of television that were held earlier this year. It decrees that consumers will no longer have to give 30 days’ notice if they want to cancel a service.

The order goes into effect on Jan. 23, 2015. It’s hoped the move will allow consumers to better take advantage of a competitive marketplace.

The 30-day cancellation provision was a source of many consumer complaints.

We here at Worldline couldn’t be happier- and for a couple of reasons. First, it will make switching to us far easier, which is will allow far more Canadians to take advantage of the superior products and the service we can provide, while saving them hundreds of dollars along the way. And also a customers old ISP will no longer have that 30-day window to try to convince customers out of switching.

DSLThe Big Three ISP’s have whole floors of people dedicated to their “Win Back” strategy. I’m sure you’ve experienced their tactics like the price matching or special promo right? It turns out that those discounts are usually short-term so you end up spending as much overall  as you would have anyway. Or the promo comes with you purchasing yet another product in order to save.

Regardless of their tactics, the sad truth is, in many cases, they work. We lose a significant number of newly signed up customers to their old ISP because they were talked out of it.

Not any longer. Come this January, the 30-day advance notice is gone for good.

Which is very good.