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TeleBright.com Appeals to Smart Telecom Shoppers
By Richard Springer
India-West Staff Reporter
August 18, 2000
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Chet Thaker, the chief executive officer and founder of TeleBright.com in Rockville, Md., gets positively excited by the prospect of reducing phone bills. "The results will absolutely amaze you, " he told India-West recently in discussing his online telecom shopping assistance to small businesses.
In the comparison of online telecom service marketplaces, he said, "our service is the best, fastest and most thorough." It is also completely "unbiased" in favoring one telecom provider over another, he said. One investment banking firm in Richmond, Va., that looked at the service viewed it the best against two of the top competitors, Thaker said.
More than 50 service providers and over 2,600 different service plans are available, according to Kristie A. Hughes, vice president of marketing at TeleBright.
For one company, Manufacturers Distribution Services, Inc., in Knoxville, Tenn., "we found they will save over 66 percent by switching their long-distance provider-this amounts to a projected $9,438.24 savings per year," she told India-West.
Founded in 1999, the company launched its site in June. TeleBright.com was recently named by dbusiness.com as one of 50 companies to watch in the Washington, D.C. area.
For Thaker, the keys to the company's success are support system follow-up and live help "on our own call center. I'm dead against outsourcing such a critical part of the company." "A Web solution by itself in Telecom is not complete. You need a warm-blooded person talking to you," he said.
In the follow-up support, company representatives check back after 90 days and 180 days to see if small business customers are satisfied with the service arranged through TeleBright. The online telecom service assistance area is drawing a crowd these days and others have been there first. Does that bother Thaker? "I do not believe there is a significant first-mover advantage. What does it matter if you are a first mover and you are not serving the marketplace? We want to create a totally different experience."
Thaker said his company's scalable technology and approach will make the difference. "We want to help our customers make more informed decisions. He pointed out that customers can "test the site without registering." Many people turn away when they are asked to provide personal data before even entering the useful content of other Web sites. The service is available in the top 13 metro markets "and we intend to go up to the top 40," he said.
TeleBright announced in July that six new small business sites have agreed to co-brand the company's comparison shopping services under revenue-sharing agreements. They are: Salesforce.com, GoLinQ.com, MyGovClub.com, OpenAir.com, ExpensAble and BusinessFinance.com.
Thaker, who in his 22 years in the telecom field has worked for PacificBell, Bell Atlantic, Bell South and NYNEX, is now seeking about $10 million to $15 million in second-round funding. He used some of his own funds in the $1 mission raised in the seed round.
Born in Ahmedabad, Thaker is a registered microbiologist who gravitated to telecom after he received his master's in science degree from Cal State Long Beach. He and his wife, who is a senior executive with Bell Atlantic, have two children. "My dream is to create an Indian presence for TeleBright," he said. "Wireless services are proliferating (in India), and with deregulation and market fragmentation, although it will take time, it will really become a competitive market there. When that happens, we want to open a site in India and duplicate what we do here, there."
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