Show Your Voice, Vote "Members Choice" at TAvote.com

2007 “Members Choice Awards” Voting Launched by

TelecomAssociation

By Dan Baldwin, Telecom Association President

Calling all agents, channel partners and solutions providers: Which telecom and technology vendors have earned the right to call themselves the “Members Choice” for 2007?

Once per year, the telecom agent, solutions provider and channel partner members of TelecomAssociation (TA) tell the industry which vendors are doing the best job in the nine categories of master agency, carrier, reseller, local, data, conferencing, VoIP, wireless and enhanced services by participating in TelecomAssociation’s annual “Members Choice Awards.

To make sure your voice is heard (and your vote is counted), click here or go to www.TAvote.com to register as a complimentary voting member of TA. Click here to see which vendors won the awards for 2006.

This past Spring, we conducted the 2006 Members Choice Awards just before the Las Vegas Channel Partners Show. It took a lot more work than we anticipated but after scrutinizing each and every one of the 123 ballots submitted we were able to make an objective claim as to which telecom and technology vendors our members really think are doing a great job. We even had a couple surprises in that some vendors that were rumored to be “hated by agents” were in fact very much loved by the agents actually doing business with them. The 2006 results really showed that “past sins” or misperceptions are quickly washed away or turned around by simply and consistently doing a great job for the agents that sign up and give a vendor’s program a chance.

This year, we’re going to bump the technology to a new level though so we’re not hand-counting and deciphering the ballots. Last year, our members simply wrote in who they wanted to vote for so we were not able to automatically tally votes in each category. This year, since we have more time, we’re going to let our members vote for those vendors in each category that have been nominated by at least five members. The other change for this year is we’re going to screen all eligible members for voting rights in advance of sending them a ballot. We want to verify in advance that those TA members who vote are actually working agents and not agent managers. To verify that members are genuine agents, we’ll check to see how long they’ve been TA members, check out their Web sites and/or call them on the phone.

Our first Members Choice Awards for 2006 were very well received and judged as credible for a first effort by TA members and vendors alike. For our second go-around, we’re going to be doing everything that’s economically reasonable to ensure that these annual awards are seen by all our members as setting the standard for objectivity. We’ve even invited the PHONE+ editorial staff to provide independent oversight.

So, Show Your Voice, Vote “Members Choice” at TAvote.com.

Dan Baldwin is president of TelecomAssociation and can be reached at+1 951 245 6877 or [email protected] .