A business is only as strong as the people and customers it supports. When companies begin prioritizing internal efficiencies over customer experience, cracks start to form and customers notice. These cracks don’t always show up immediately, but over time they create friction that’s difficult to undo.
This shift often comes in familiar forms: outsourced support that lacks context, onboarding processes that feel rushed or incomplete, or sales teams that overpromise and underdeliver. While these decisions may be driven by cost control or growth pressures, the downstream effect is almost always the same. Customers feel frustrated, disconnected, and unsupported. Eventually, that frustration shows up where it hurts most—churn, reputational damage, and lost revenue.
Customer experience isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s a direct reflection of how a business operates internally and what it truly values.
Price will almost always be one of the top factors in any buying decision. Ignoring that reality would be naive. But businesses that rely on price alone to win deals rarely win for long.
Markets evolve. Customer expectations rise. What once felt like a competitive advantage quickly becomes table stakes. When a company’s primary strategy is to undercut competitors, it puts itself in a dangerous position. To maintain lower pricing, costs are often reduced in areas that directly impact the customer such as support, onboarding, tooling, or visibility.
The short-term result might look positive. Deals close faster. New logos come in. But the long-term consequences are harder to ignore. Customers leave when the experience doesn’t match expectations. New revenue fails to stick. Over time, the company becomes commoditized, competing in a crowded field where differentiation disappears and growth becomes harder and more expensive.
Once a business enters a race to the bottom on price, it’s incredibly difficult to climb back out.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is defining “cost” too narrowly. Cost isn’t just the monthly rate on a bill or the price listed on a proposal. It’s the total effort required to operate, support, and maintain a solution over time.
Hidden costs show up in ways customers feel every day:
These costs don’t always appear on a balance sheet, but they compound quickly. They drain internal resources, slow down teams, and create friction that impacts decision-making and trust. For many customers, these operational burdens matter just as much—if not more—than the price itself.
This is where real differentiation begins.
At Altaworx, we don’t compete on price alone in the traditional sense. Instead, we focus on changing the conversation around value.
Value is created by reducing friction, improving visibility, and simplifying complexity. It’s built through strong onboarding, responsive support, and systems that make life easier, not harder, for the people using them. When customers can spend less time managing issues and more time focusing on their business, the impact is tangible.
By addressing the full scope of cost, time, effort, and operational drag, we help customers see the bigger picture. That shift in perspective often leads to better decisions and stronger long-term partnerships.
Recently, our CEO, Rickie Richey, and President, Keith Singler, discussed this philosophy on the ETMA podcast, sharing how our software, AMOP, has helped resellers succeed by acting as a guide for their customers and not just a provider of services. The goal isn’t to win a deal at any cost. It’s to build something sustainable.
At Altaworx, we believe long-term success comes from helping partners and customers win in ways that scale. Competing on
that endure.