We make predictive dialers for recovery and financial companies which means more often than not I need trunks from the CO instead of relying on the PBX to do call control.
I guess the secret to having provisioning done correctly is to become a master agent of the carriers.
Since I did that I don't spend time on hold, I have no mistakes when ordering circuits for customers, customers get the lowest loop and CPM available (I don't mark up and I take no commission so I can often give <1 cent on dedicated PRIs from Tier 1 carriers)
Before doing that it was a pain, mostly because customers are being sold on "voip" service to the CO, which is just marketing spin for an integrated T1 getting muxed out at the DMARC. The dialer fires up and starts dialing 1.5 calls per minute per channel. Its comical to hear CO techs cry when we've overloaded their class 5 switches.
I still have headaches when customers insist on having their in-house telcom people or the office manager get the services. It becomes a finger pointing game for a couple of days - verizon is worst.
Also, and one of my staff members and I have done what Barbara does in the early 90s so we do keep records and audit our customer's bills when they let us provide the services; just to make sure someone didn't enter the wrong thing on the order.
Just my two cents.
