Last month Invosys’ Steve Glaister gave his take on how resellers can get the most out of inbound in the current climate. In part two, he offers more advice.
•Sometimes Hosted is not always the answer
As much as we love hosted telephony at Invosys, we appreciate that where there is poor connectivity, it sometimes is not the best solution.
Using our inbound platform, we can replicate hosted functionality without the hosted platform. In other cases, our services are used where hosted has proved unreliable and can add an extra line of resilience for the customers. If you go one step further and use hosted and inbound together as one seamless product this would give you an awesome portfolio which will lead to a great big yes from many customers.
•Demonstrate how systems can be cost effective
Customers naturally want to save money, so alerting them to the many ways that inbound systems can be cost effective is a key part of the reseller’s role.
It’s absolutely crucial to demonstrate how efficient call handling can cut costs in terms of man hours. For example, using an autoattendant recording rather than a call handler can reduce labour costs when the same question is asked over and over again (for example, swimming pool opening times).
It’s also worth highlighting how systems can be used to enhance the all-important customer journey and experience. In today’s market, first time resolution plays a key role in the success of businesses today in terms of getting through to the right person first time and thus keeping the customer happy - while also reducing costs.
Emphasise the importance of call reporting. If users are able to monitor all call recordings, routing plans and detailed call reports in one white label portal, as well as view live and real time call statistics, they can track where its most effective to spend their marketing budget. And let’s face it – everyone wants to be able to demonstrate ROI.
Highlight how revenue share on inbound can help fund other changes in the business, not just telecoms related items.
•Recognise where there is money to be made
Inbound offers the reseller the flexibility to charge for either the entire product or just elements of it, so including it as part of the portfolio gives provides the lucrative opportunity to capture an accounts whole estate.
Discounts on parts of inbound, such as call recording, can often mean that resellers win the whole account, as opposed none of it. Wholesale partners are most successful where they grey out where one product starts and another one ends, providing a bespoke, tailor-made solution.
•Aggregate, Aggregate, Aggregate
The ultimate of joy of working within the channel is that you have opportunity to put together whole deals which carriers cannot. You can create the crème de la crème, taking a bit from A, a bit from B and a bit from C and the end user need not be any wiser - there only concern is that you’ve given them the solution that their business requires.
Inbound isn’t a stand-alone product - rather it adds extra functionality to land line, mobile and hardware deals. It adds an extra layer of prerouting before switchboard features, it can even make 5 mobiles into a PBX if required. Put all these elements together and you have proposition which others will not be able to match nor unravel.