Broadsoft Connections kicked off with the usual festivities yesterday including a pool party and a summer fashion show. This morning it was all business as the attendees were treated to presentations (including one by ANPI's David Byrd pictured), which produced some interesting data.
Only 3 percent of business lines are Hosted PBX. <-- That means two things: lots of potential and the sales teams suck at selling HPBX. Period. It also means that projections will be made yet again about growth. Where else can you go from 3%???
Unified services are in demand.
Two pieces of advice: Communicate value (sales 101) and Streamline sales delivery (which is really hard for a true Hosted PBX experience for the customer). Post sales engagement is an important part of delivering a good customer experience. (Companies need to be thinking about Outcomes and UX way more than technology and units.)
WebRTC is here with a wizard and server and gateway.
The new slogan - Simply innovate accelerate - Broadsoft labs is introduced for tools and wizards for building services and widgets.
BSFT is chasing verticals with UC-One Hospitality app and UC-One Gov! Some day soon a UC-One designed for small businesses. There will be an SDK for UC-One and a Tablet Client. Is voice coming to Kindles and iPads?
Big worry: What version will you need to be running for any of this stuff to work???? And where do you find an API programmer to work with BSFT's Open API?
On Callaboration, MyRoom was launched because "Work gets done in teams." It is an online meeting room for up to 30 users with video features, since over 50% of communications is non-verbal.
Although BSFT is adding more apps, they did state, "We have been complex product sales for years. We need to be simple outcome sales now. Don't focus on products and services. We focus on outcomes." (Well, they agree with me there!)
The big moment in sales is not ink on the contract, but full adoption by the client that changes how they do business.
Customer success teams to work on current customers adoption of features. <-- Ongoing training coupled with making certain that the goals that the client set for buying HPBX get realized.
ANPI has a tough road to climb. It's customer/owner base is rural, moand pop telcos who HAVE to transition or die. ANPI has to teach them how to sell to the business owner. (Mr. Byrd, should give me a call.)
More to come.
