More than a vendor

Bandwidth is not your traditional telecom carrier—and we like it that way. We want to be and do so many things that other carriers can’t, won’t, and don’t. There’s one core way we achieve that: we don’t just support or listen to our customers, we partner with them.

At Bandwidth, we believe that we’re stronger, smarter, and better together. That’s why we seize opportunities to partner with our customers and create products, networks, and software that didn’t exist in the space before. One of the central principles of our company culture is to “work for and love the success of others.” What that really means to us is that, internally or externally, we seek fulfillment in the accomplishments of our peers and partners. How do we do that? I want to share six core values of our customer operations strategy:

1. We listen to our customers. – This one’s obvious, but we try to actively listen, and not just answer or support within the confines of the products and services that exist today. We engage our partners and facilitate thinking and talking about what could be. Our motivation extends beyond growing our own business—we get fired up about helping our customers succeed.
2. We let customer feedback drive our software development. – It’s easy to get caught up in “the plan” when it comes to software releases, but we approach it differently. We interface our customers directly with our development team, and hold focus groups to let them drive the direction of our software. This isn’t easier (in fact it’s harder), but it means that we deliver true value to our partners.
3. We partner with customers to expand coverage. – When a customer wants to grow into a coverage area where we don’t have an existing network, we explore partnership opportunities to build it out. That might not help the bottom line, but if it helps our partner, we pursue it.
4. We don’t base our decisions on profit alone. – To us, turning a profit is secondary to unlocking remarkable value through partnerships. When our partners bring us growth opportunities, we actually consider negatively impacting margin to deliver increased value and grow our relationships.
5. We make rules to break them. – Rules exist for a reason, but knowing when to bend them has value. Making exceptions to process when and where we can let us keep support scalable but also deliver excellent experiences when our partners need us to go above and beyond.
6. We tell the truth, always. –  We don’t hide our faults; we work to fix them. Sometimes they trip us up, but we own the issues and address them quickly without posturing. That transparency is something we feel adds tremendous value to our partnerships.

All of these things make us more than a vendor—they make us a partner. And, the feeling is mutual. Our partners bring us the business that other carriers won’t or can’t support. Our partners bring us candid feedback about our software from the people using it every day. And, our partners come to us with new opportunities because they’ve seen that our doors are always open. At Bandwidth, we build partnerships, not customers, and we believe that makes all the difference.