Main reason to go to HD Voice for ITSP's? In the battle with CLEC's and ILEC's, HD Voice could be the differentiators. Between low quality VoIP calls and the wonders of 8.5K on cellular calls, HD calls woul dbe music to my ears. Wideband codec makes VoIP rival PSTN. (See more at TMCnet).
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We hear a lot about Unified Communications today. UC this and UC that. Even Cloud Telephony and UCaaS. It's kind of crazy.
The main buzz is around the savings from UC. If you have a distributed workforce, then Unifying on a Communications platform with a collaboration module can improve productivity. "IT leaders argue the technology can help businesses increase productivity, cut costs and reduce their carbon footprint," according to a NetworldWorld article.
The productivity gains only come if the technology is easy to use, reliable, and intuitive. By intuitive, I mean, that unlike some CRM and telco software platforms, the software was created with the user in mind and doesn't require a lot of thinking on how to do something. It needs to be like WYSIWYG. "Getting people to change the way they work required his team to pay special attention to training," states Mike Close, CTO of Danone, from the same NW article. Danone rolled out a UC system globally.
Anything done by committee means it will be drawn out and frustrating. The current collaboration software I have seen are really just document sharing applications and some white boarding online. Users need something like Bud Light's Drinkability and Drawing. Maybe a desktop sharing app or white board where everyone can "take control". But I digress.
UC's benefits come from a geographically dispersed workforce or a virtual office setting. It's similar with VoIP. If you are making a lot of in-state calls to other branches, the cost savings from VoIP diminish. When people are working on the same project but aren't in the same building or city, making progress is tricking because audio conference calls, IM/chat and email are one-dimensional. Video conferencing, webinars, document sharing, white boarding - all can lead to productive gains. It isn't a monetary gain per se, but what company doesn't want to be more productive? Plus when you are getting stuff done, employees are more satisfied. No one likes being stuck on the perverbial treadmill.
The carbon footprint is a big issue today. All about Being Green. With video conferencing, especially tele-presence and UC, travel will shrink some. This has a tangible benefit in budget savings but don't discount the carbon footprint shrinkage.
It looks like a lot of the UC hype is based on Productivity gains and time savings, not so much real actual dollars. Aspect rolled out Microsoft OCS globally and is seeing over $1M in real savings. (Read the story here). So there are real dollar benefits to UC if it is rolled out correctly with proper training.
The main buzz is around the savings from UC. If you have a distributed workforce, then Unifying on a Communications platform with a collaboration module can improve productivity. "IT leaders argue the technology can help businesses increase productivity, cut costs and reduce their carbon footprint," according to a NetworldWorld article.
The productivity gains only come if the technology is easy to use, reliable, and intuitive. By intuitive, I mean, that unlike some CRM and telco software platforms, the software was created with the user in mind and doesn't require a lot of thinking on how to do something. It needs to be like WYSIWYG. "Getting people to change the way they work required his team to pay special attention to training," states Mike Close, CTO of Danone, from the same NW article. Danone rolled out a UC system globally.
Anything done by committee means it will be drawn out and frustrating. The current collaboration software I have seen are really just document sharing applications and some white boarding online. Users need something like Bud Light's Drinkability and Drawing. Maybe a desktop sharing app or white board where everyone can "take control". But I digress.
UC's benefits come from a geographically dispersed workforce or a virtual office setting. It's similar with VoIP. If you are making a lot of in-state calls to other branches, the cost savings from VoIP diminish. When people are working on the same project but aren't in the same building or city, making progress is tricking because audio conference calls, IM/chat and email are one-dimensional. Video conferencing, webinars, document sharing, white boarding - all can lead to productive gains. It isn't a monetary gain per se, but what company doesn't want to be more productive? Plus when you are getting stuff done, employees are more satisfied. No one likes being stuck on the perverbial treadmill.
The carbon footprint is a big issue today. All about Being Green. With video conferencing, especially tele-presence and UC, travel will shrink some. This has a tangible benefit in budget savings but don't discount the carbon footprint shrinkage.
It looks like a lot of the UC hype is based on Productivity gains and time savings, not so much real actual dollars. Aspect rolled out Microsoft OCS globally and is seeing over $1M in real savings. (Read the story here). So there are real dollar benefits to UC if it is rolled out correctly with proper training.
Over the years I have worked with many VoIP Providers. A good chunk of my consulting is on The Channel, Referral Systems, and Sales Compensation.
There are a number of landmines that can destroy a relationship with an independent sales agent. These include but are not limited to:
- Your quoting system (or time to quote)
- How you track the sales and provisioning process.
- How you track Compensation.
- How you handle agents calls / issues / sales / payments.
All of these mines have subsets as follows:
- What is your number porting process like?
- What is your training like for customers? for Agents?
- What does your marketing collateral look like and say?
- Issue Resolution
It is no small thing to acquire an Agent. You are asking someone to spend the effort to:
- examine your service offering
- negotiate and sign an Agreement
- Learn all about your service offering to the Comfort Point
- Now go market & sell it
It is similar to buying a franchise agreement. Foremost, you are asking for the Agent to trust you and to lend his reputation to your company and its services. That's a Big Step.
You have to ask yourself: Why would he take a chance on me? Here are some things for you to think about:
- Do you have a clear USP?What differentiates your company?
- Do you sell to Verticals with a clear and concise ROI or TCO?
- Do you know who your best customer is and why?
- Do you do any marketing?
- How much time and effort can I give each agent to get off the ground?
- What happens if he sells something?
- What systems do I have in place for that?
- Will those systems Scale?
Some companies have a Referral Plan now. (I won't even call it a system because it isn't.) What does it consist of? Mentioning that free month if they refer someone? WOOT! Yeah. That won't cut it. A System is a consistent process that involves a plan, a goal, and how to get there. If you want a Referral Plan to work, you have to work the Plan. By that, you have to remind folks that you have it in creative, mentally sticky ways. You have to even give them a script on what to say or a coupon or email link to send to their family and friends network. You have to reward them tangibly and thank the best referrers publicly. Then start all over again. (It doesn't happen automatically).
Now back to the Agent Channel that you want selling your VOIP Service. Why not just hire a Sales person? Too expensive, right? Too time consuming? Don't want to manage a sales guy? These are reasons that your channel will fail as well. Imagine spending money, time and effort on people you have Zero Control over. Imagine them forgetting to propose your services for months, then call with a White Elephant and not close it. And disappear. Lots of work; little return. Welcome to the Channel. The Channel is a case study in Pareto's Principle - the 80/20 Rule. About 80% of the sales will come from 20% of the agents. About 80% of your time will be consumed by the least productive 20%.
How do you get it going then? A system. A plan. A goal. In reverse order.
What's the perfect VoIP Service?
I have seen so many VoIP Providers, I can't keep track. But that also means that the VoIP providers are not doing a very good job of Messaging, Positioning and Differentiating their offerings.
The only VoIP provider I know that has married Hosted Exchange with Broadsoft is Simple Signal. It makes to me because what is UM (unified messaging) but voicemail to email - everything in one box.
Unison Offers VoIP, E-Mail, IM to SMBs in New York City
Google Voice does it as well. One inbox for Gmail and Google Voice. And GV has some nice features like a transcript of your voicemail; recording calls;
Recently, I read that a company had instituted a who-is-calling-please response into every call before th ephone rings. I love this! No more dumb dialers. No more UNKNOWN or OUT OF AREA on the Caller ID.
Quick rant: I pay Verizon $22.35 for Worksmart which includes Caller ID, but most of the time it is Unknown. WTH? How does it not even known when AT&T calls me? Or almost any other CLEC? Lazy. That's why you are losing customers.
Presence (not to be confused with tele-presence) was supposed to integrate IM/chat, email, mobile and desktop phone. I haven't seen much of that in real world implementation. (I understand why, but I'm just pointing it out). Skype does a decent job of video, voice or chat - plus recording.
Broadsoft has allowed many ITSP's to hook to SalesForce.com. Why not offer a hosted CRM software that is married to your PBX and email offering? VoIP is just one application.
M5 announced that the marriage of the M5 Genband-based Hosted PBX with SalesForce.com and Call Metrics has been a hit.
I have seen so many VoIP Providers, I can't keep track. But that also means that the VoIP providers are not doing a very good job of Messaging, Positioning and Differentiating their offerings.
The only VoIP provider I know that has married Hosted Exchange with Broadsoft is Simple Signal. It makes to me because what is UM (unified messaging) but voicemail to email - everything in one box.
Unison Offers VoIP, E-Mail, IM to SMBs in New York City
Google Voice does it as well. One inbox for Gmail and Google Voice. And GV has some nice features like a transcript of your voicemail; recording calls;
Recently, I read that a company had instituted a who-is-calling-please response into every call before th ephone rings. I love this! No more dumb dialers. No more UNKNOWN or OUT OF AREA on the Caller ID.
Quick rant: I pay Verizon $22.35 for Worksmart which includes Caller ID, but most of the time it is Unknown. WTH? How does it not even known when AT&T calls me? Or almost any other CLEC? Lazy. That's why you are losing customers.
Presence (not to be confused with tele-presence) was supposed to integrate IM/chat, email, mobile and desktop phone. I haven't seen much of that in real world implementation. (I understand why, but I'm just pointing it out). Skype does a decent job of video, voice or chat - plus recording.
Broadsoft has allowed many ITSP's to hook to SalesForce.com. Why not offer a hosted CRM software that is married to your PBX and email offering? VoIP is just one application.
- HD Voice
- conference-on-demand (web and video)
- call blocking
- Portal as easy as AT&T CallVantage
- call logs that can match up caller ID
- simultaneous ring
- find-me-follow-me
- 3-way calling
- caller ID
- voicemail
- vm-to-email
- call forwarding
- Do Not Disturb
- what you are doing
- who has the best message
- are you a cutting edge ITSP
M5 announced that the marriage of the M5 Genband-based Hosted PBX with SalesForce.com and Call Metrics has been a hit.
If you Google VoIP save money, there are a million hits. There is the article, "How to Save Money with VoIP Service" with 5 lame tips. VoIP News has one titled, "15 Ways to Use VoIP to Save Money During the Downturn", that lists ways to use different vendors for differing free services based on VoIP. VoIP News has another one which asks, "Will VoIP Really Save You Money?" The answer of course is yes.
Where does VoIP save you the most? Inter-office dialing, In-State calls which cost more than inter-state calls, and international dialing. But the key for Hosted PBX isn't about cost savings. It's about business productivity and efficiency. It's about Business Continuity.
In a new article by FreedomVOICE, "9 Ways to Slash Phone Costs and Increase Productivity", the push is to a distributed workforce via tele-commuting, tele-work, or virtual office space. And that doesn't mean permanently. What if the receptionist has a sick kid? If you had a Hosted PBX set-up, in many cases, she could still work from home and the office does not experience a disruption. That's a productivity gain. Isn't that better than saving money?
Well, AT&T is calling it game over on the VoIP game. I have been using CallVantage since 2004. It has worked very well with some pretty decent quality. It has an easy to use portal; call forwarding; simul ring; click-to-dial; voicemail-to-email; and more. Oh, yeah, the Simple Reach number so I can provide clients with a local number.
If you offer a similar service, start advertising to take over the 150K customers.
If a business is moving to UC, how does the decision get made on the platform?
In many cases, the IT Administrator has some responsibility for the phone system (even if that means he calls the PBX vendor). When the IT Admin is tasked with replacing the phone system, what goes into that decision?
Certainly, if the admin is Cisco certified, he will be leaning towards a move to Cisco Call Manager. You don't get fired for buying Cisco. You also go with what you know. If the admin is an MCSE, he may lean towards an OCS solution.
My guess would be that it would be difficult for a PBX vendor like Shore-Tel or Avaya to pitch their box. It's too foreign. A PBX is an unknown black box. In a business IT department, you go with what you know. It comes down to IT being familiar with IT vendors. PBX vendors just never bridged that gap. Likely that is why VAR's and MSP's (managed service providers) are having success selling Hosted PBX solutions. IT guy to IT guy. Trust is there because they speak the same language. Hosted solutions are a concept that an IT guy (or gal) can fathom. After all, what is a server or Exchange or Novell or the mainframe?
Keep this menatlity in mind when heading out to pitch PBX. (Don't call it that!)
In many cases, the IT Administrator has some responsibility for the phone system (even if that means he calls the PBX vendor). When the IT Admin is tasked with replacing the phone system, what goes into that decision?
Certainly, if the admin is Cisco certified, he will be leaning towards a move to Cisco Call Manager. You don't get fired for buying Cisco. You also go with what you know. If the admin is an MCSE, he may lean towards an OCS solution.
My guess would be that it would be difficult for a PBX vendor like Shore-Tel or Avaya to pitch their box. It's too foreign. A PBX is an unknown black box. In a business IT department, you go with what you know. It comes down to IT being familiar with IT vendors. PBX vendors just never bridged that gap. Likely that is why VAR's and MSP's (managed service providers) are having success selling Hosted PBX solutions. IT guy to IT guy. Trust is there because they speak the same language. Hosted solutions are a concept that an IT guy (or gal) can fathom. After all, what is a server or Exchange or Novell or the mainframe?
Keep this menatlity in mind when heading out to pitch PBX. (Don't call it that!)
Talking to a channel exec this morning about UC. There isn't really a clear definition of UC. When you speak to UC companies like Altitude, the UC is about the contact center, first call resolution, and unified desktop. To me, first call resolution is a business process management (BPM) issue. And so is the concept of unified desktop.
At medium sized businesses, UC can be defined as VoIP plus email plus collaboration and conferencing. For Cisco, this is the sweet spot: Call Manager with Webex. Unfortunately, Cisco doesn't have that email piece. That email piece is missing from most PBX and VoIP providers. For Microsoft, this is exactly what they hope UC comes to stand for because that is what OCS is designed for. The downside to MS OCS is reliability, TCO, and E-911.
At the small business, I don't think they know what UC is at all. Why would they? UC is a term the industry can't define, so what would a small business owner know about it? The SB Owner is looking to cut costs, but even at 15% savings, is he going to move to a hosted PBX platform? Probably not because of the big changes that come with that migration. What changes? Blinking light syndrome for one. That being the changes the workers will deal with daily from the previous set-up. The blinking light is call park, which most PBX systems do not include. So immediately the workers have to make a big change in how they handle calls.
There is a capital expenditure (CAPEX) to move to VoIP in the LAN. Cabling, POE switches, battery back-ups, IP Phones, and a QOS Router. And now there is a very different looking phone on the employee's desk, so we have training and re-training.
To move a small business over to UC, there has to be a sound business reason, which can only be uncovered if you spend the time to understand the prospect's business. (This is why working in a niche is most profitable). You have to understand the call process at work in the business environment. That may have to start with "I'll-save-you-10%" but then needs to quickly move to a discussion about the business, its workforce, and its relationship to the phone system.
Overall, people do search for "unified messaging" and "unified communications" but I'm not clear on what the universal meaning of those terms are. We have a show (IT EXPO WEST 2009 in Sept.), but I think that the definition of the acronymn varies. Maybe we can discuss that in Sept.
In my experience, this isn't an IT project, this is a COO or CEO project. I would also venture to guess that most back-end systems cannot be hooked together to provide the necessary data for Unified Desktop. Another guess would be that this type of venture would likely fall under the 70% of failed IT projects. Why? Unless the CIO is financially compensated for a project of this magnitude to be delivered, it will lose priority and die. A project this massive (actually any BPM project) requires inter-departmental cooperation, many meetings, a lot of man-hours, a strong project manager, the backing of the C-suite, and a 2-year timeline, where it stays in the spotlight. UC becomes UD."Routine customer-service interactions may require agents to interact with five, 10 or even 15 or more systems. Much of the time, these systems are ignorant of one another, requiring agents to log on each time they access a new system.... Unifying the agent experience into a single, consistent desktop takes the complexities out of the training process and job performance...... Management is also more clearly able to see the impact of call resolution because call closure procedures are uniform, no matter what back-end functionality comes into play during the course of the call..... The universal desktop view also makes it considerably easier for constituencies such as sales, marketing, and finance to understand the customer-service business processes at play and tailor their own activities accordingly." [from a Cincom guest column]
At medium sized businesses, UC can be defined as VoIP plus email plus collaboration and conferencing. For Cisco, this is the sweet spot: Call Manager with Webex. Unfortunately, Cisco doesn't have that email piece. That email piece is missing from most PBX and VoIP providers. For Microsoft, this is exactly what they hope UC comes to stand for because that is what OCS is designed for. The downside to MS OCS is reliability, TCO, and E-911.
At the small business, I don't think they know what UC is at all. Why would they? UC is a term the industry can't define, so what would a small business owner know about it? The SB Owner is looking to cut costs, but even at 15% savings, is he going to move to a hosted PBX platform? Probably not because of the big changes that come with that migration. What changes? Blinking light syndrome for one. That being the changes the workers will deal with daily from the previous set-up. The blinking light is call park, which most PBX systems do not include. So immediately the workers have to make a big change in how they handle calls.
There is a capital expenditure (CAPEX) to move to VoIP in the LAN. Cabling, POE switches, battery back-ups, IP Phones, and a QOS Router. And now there is a very different looking phone on the employee's desk, so we have training and re-training.
To move a small business over to UC, there has to be a sound business reason, which can only be uncovered if you spend the time to understand the prospect's business. (This is why working in a niche is most profitable). You have to understand the call process at work in the business environment. That may have to start with "I'll-save-you-10%" but then needs to quickly move to a discussion about the business, its workforce, and its relationship to the phone system.
Overall, people do search for "unified messaging" and "unified communications" but I'm not clear on what the universal meaning of those terms are. We have a show (IT EXPO WEST 2009 in Sept.), but I think that the definition of the acronymn varies. Maybe we can discuss that in Sept.
Robert Half interviewed 1400 CIO's for a research study (press release here), It's not a surprising list: Security, VOIP, Virtualization, SAAS, and data center efficiency. Considering power costs much more than space, getting energy and hardware efficient means cost savings. Oh, wait, that's virtualization too. And Software as a service and VOIP.
In summary, the top tech investments of CIO of companies with 100 or more employees is IT Security and cost cutting initiatives.
In summary, the top tech investments of CIO of companies with 100 or more employees is IT Security and cost cutting initiatives.
Do you know what twitter is? It's the text messaging to the masses application platform. Officially, I think it is described as a micro-blogging social networking platform, but huh? The idea with twitter is to update a group of folks about what is of interest to you.
I'm on twitter and so are many TMC folks, like Rich, Tom, and sales guy extraordinaire Anthony; so is the TMC news service.
There are some telcos on twitter like Embarq, CenturyTel, and Windstream. The two companies merging do nothing with there account; it's a place holder. Windstream however just started up and they are doing a good job of it as far as I can tell. It's about interaction and they are being interactive with their customers, which is the example set by companies like JetBlue and Zappos.
The cable company with a bad service reputation took to twitter months ago and has been winning back it scustomers One at a time. That's right, Comcast is doing it the old fashion way, reaching out to help customers one at a time.
TWCable has an account with protected updates. Bright House Networks has one employee who is just underway.
In the VoIP world, there are plenty of folks on twitter, including Dan York from Voxeo, Garrett Smith of VoIP Supply and FreedomVoice. Actually there are too many to mention in VoIP.
Is your company interacting with its clients and target marketplace? Take twitter out for a test drive -- or watch what other folks are doing and copy it.
I'm on twitter and so are many TMC folks, like Rich, Tom, and sales guy extraordinaire Anthony; so is the TMC news service.
There are some telcos on twitter like Embarq, CenturyTel, and Windstream. The two companies merging do nothing with there account; it's a place holder. Windstream however just started up and they are doing a good job of it as far as I can tell. It's about interaction and they are being interactive with their customers, which is the example set by companies like JetBlue and Zappos.
The cable company with a bad service reputation took to twitter months ago and has been winning back it scustomers One at a time. That's right, Comcast is doing it the old fashion way, reaching out to help customers one at a time.
TWCable has an account with protected updates. Bright House Networks has one employee who is just underway.
In the VoIP world, there are plenty of folks on twitter, including Dan York from Voxeo, Garrett Smith of VoIP Supply and FreedomVoice. Actually there are too many to mention in VoIP.
Is your company interacting with its clients and target marketplace? Take twitter out for a test drive -- or watch what other folks are doing and copy it.
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