VARs skills, characteristics and expertise required to get customers to buy UC solutions
VARs skills, characteristics and expertise required to get customers to buy UC solutions by Roberta J. Fox
I am really excited to write about this topic! In fact, this is probably one of the most important ones I have been asked to comment on since joining the UC Strategies experts’ team in mid 2013!!!
If we can’t find and work with VARs that have the right level of experience, skills, processes and tools to provide the solutions our clients demand… then failure is inevitable.
What is more important to us at FOX GROUP is that when the client decides to invest in next generation UC solutions, and the project are not successful, it can have major and sometimes catastrophic impacts on our client’s business, including their staff and even their customers.
The impact is much broader than a phone system cutover, or an email cutover, or a single desktop application cutover, due to the fact that UC solutions exchange information across numerous devices and applications….therefore broadening the effect and impact when it doesn’t work!
So back to the original point….current and future VAR characteristics.
I will provide information by answering the three questions that Blair Pleasant forwarded to us.
Question 1 - How can/should VARs/resellers differentiate themselves in order to succeed in a current and future UC world?
VARs need to have the ability to work with clients to help them gather and define their own unique future IT, telecom, voice and collaboration technical requirements from the company’s future business and customer service strategy.
This even applies if the clients are using consultants like my team. We expect the vendors to validate the requirements they have been given to ensure appropriate quantities of licenses, servers, etc.
They also need to have business oriented, technology savvy sales professionals who have the ability to provide accurate pricing and solutions with supporting details for all CAPex and OPex costs. The clients also expect the VARs to be able to identify what client IT/support skills are required, and even what the end user skills and knowledge are required to use what they are selling… believe it or not!!!
VARs need to either develop or significantly upgrade the skills for their project managers to enable them to lead integrated technology client teams as well as their own internal resources. From our early adopter UC implementation projects, these projects are very similar to large ERP types of solutions from SAP, PeopleSoft, etc.
Question 2 - What type of ecosystem do resellers need to build, and what expertise do they need to have on board?
In addition to what is stated above, VARs need to have much broader areas of IT, telecom or network technology knowledge than in the past, i.e. IT systems/apps, telecom systems/apps, data network systems/apps, across multiple types of devices.
They also need to have professionals that understand how to develop and deliver training to not only install and support these solutions, but also how to have the various types of staff use these many different applications, whether a knowledge worker, an executive a mobile professional or a mobile factory worker.
Speaking of support, VARS are expected to not just know how to support the telephony applications, they are now also expected to know about email, sms, desktop video, cloud apps that are communications enabled and across different customer devices and networks.
This obviously makes it much more difficult to isolate and troubleshoot problems…..all without doing finger pointing with the client and other suppliers!!!
Question Three - Where areas should VARs invest their money in?
The first and most important area, (from our early adopter UC client implementation projects), are the tools and process to be able to offer pre-tested labs for client environments in order for them to design and manage pilot UC programs.
Now, (more than any time in my thirty+ year history of designing, installing and support next generation communications technologies), it is absolutely critical to do pre-production pilots of the proposed UC solution in order to ensure success.
The second area would be to develop internal and external FAQs of common questions/answers, tips, tricks, how-tos’ in order for customers to do their own initial troubleshooting. This would also reduce the VAR’s time and effort, (read Costs), in reducing repetitive support questions.
The third area would be to invest in multi-media capable infrastructure for the support side of the business. Customers do not want to call in a problem. They aren’t at their desks, they don’t have the time, and it just doesn’t work that way anymore. They want, and demand, choices of how they expect to be served; particularly by their technology vendors.
Gosh…walk the talk and use the technologies you propose they buy for heavens sake!
Lastly, we would recommend that VARs develop on-line tracking and monitoring of tickets and all associated activities. We have seen some fine examples of automated trouble detection, ticket generation, customer notification, automated resolution detection, ticket closing and final customer notification. This process ends up costing less, and let’s the customer know the VAR is paying attention, which inevitably helps with customer retention.
Here is a closing thought. Why not leverage best practices from outside of the UCC industry… say courier companies?
If the courier/shipping business has been able to successfully automate a $20 shipping transaction, why can’t UCC vendors do it for sales, service and support for their client business. Especially since the UCC revenue for enterprise customers per client is much greater than the courier business.
We hope, on behalf of our clients, that some or even the majority of VARs will adopt these practices. If they don’t, we are doubtful they will be successful in the UCC future, which will also make it much more difficult for our customers to be successful.
Helping our customers be more successful is our business, so VARs that show us they can deliver on the UC promise… will always be welcomed to the table.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback on this topic, and go not hesitate to contact me! Roberta.Fox@FOXGROUP.ca, Toll Free: 1.866.FOX.GROUP (369.4768) or DID - 289.648.1981.