The demand for unified communications (UC) has never been higher. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the SMB UC market was projected to grow from a $3.6 billion industry to $4.6 billion annually, with a compounded growth rate of 29% year over year (up from an 11% annual growth rate estimated just before the pandemic). This was based on the savings and ease of deployment that UC offers.
What makes this technology so attractive? For the uninitiated, UC provides a direct and desired benefit to employees; it enables them to work remotely while remaining seamlessly connected to the office. It offers this flexibility and mobility through web portals and mobile apps that allow employees to work anytime, anywhere.
For employers, the benefits are just as substantial and not just limited to the large savings on their monthly direct communication bills. UC delivers more than just cheap, reliable phone services that can be accessed by remote work-from-home staff. It also adds tools the business needs to monitor, collaborate and succeed.
Today’s unique circumstances have made it so easy, yet at the same time quite difficult, to sell UC. How do you stand out from the crowd when everyone from the incumbent local phone company to the cable TV provider is offering phone service? Is UC a way that your office equipment dealership can generate an alternate and meaningful recurring revenue stream and net new sales? The answer is yes. But you will want to make sure that your go-to-market strategy carefully addresses the challenges ahead.
Support Is Key
Make sure that anyone you partner with can offer support before, during and after each sale.
While many providers will include training and certification during the initial onboarding, they may not have the infrastructure to provide much more than additional training once you begin selling. Ideally, your partner should commit to ongoing training and consistent communication, while even stepping in to fill voids in your sales and customer support areas.
RingByName has identified this support as key to the success of anyone looking to offer UC—so much so that it provides not only the initial training, but the ability to demo, design a solution and even generate quotes. Just as important is the ability to support the client once they’ve contracted service and to operate as an extension of the dealer’s support infrastructure.
Identify and Leverage Customers’ Needs
The most successful dealers perform a needs analysis for existing customers to determine what shortfalls exist in their current system and how they can improve customer experience. Are your customers interested in enabling a solution that’s remote-work friendly? Draw attention to how UC enables seamless collaboration anytime, anywhere in the world. Features such as video conferencing, desktop collaboration and call forwarding take full advantage of cloud technology to streamline real-time communication.
If your customers are transitioning from an older phone system to the cloud, offer to observe their pain points and overall business process. Find out where their business is now and where they want it to go. Recommend solutions that will fill the voids and improve their business processes, and whenever possible verify a solution with a sales engineer.
Offer a Free Demo
There’s a huge difference between understanding how something works and seeing how great it is. When selling UC, demos are your best friend. An online demo that begins as a video and desktop share using the solution you’re offering can facilitate discussion with the customer. As they offer information about their current system and needs, customize your presentation to highlight a solution that works for them or a feature they never knew they wanted, such as SMS texting. Our experience is that 80% of clients that receive a live demo end up converting to a sale. Let your customers actually see the solutions to their pain points.
Don’t Focus on the Price Tag
While most customers will see a reduction in their monthly phone bill, that isn’t always the case—especially for on-site PBX systems with many extensions connected to just a few outside lines. Focus on selling the value of a UC solution rather than the price. Make sure your customers understand the quality of the solution, the features, the added benefits and how it will make them more efficient. Highlight the return on investment.
Assure the Customer Everything Will Be OK
A 2019 study by the Osterman Research Group found that 48% of companies don’t understand the benefits of switching to UC and are intimidated by the idea of changing providers. Switching from their current provider to a cloud-based telephony and UC solution should have zero down time. Installing a solution at your client site should be as easy as plugging in new preconfigured phones, forwarding phone numbers to the new system and walking away after a few test calls. The days of waiting for phone numbers to “cut-over” and scrambling around to plug in new phones are a thing of the past.
Don’t Define the Business Size
UC solutions such as RingByName can scale for clients of any size, from the smallest one-man shop to contact centers with thousands of employees. The feature set and capabilities within the UC solution should be vast enough to provide value for all these businesses. In essence, this means you can show your smaller customers that they will have the same capabilities and tools as large enterprises.
Communicate Your New Offering
The benefits of UC are only desirable if your customers know about them. Start educating your customers about UC’s value as you check in with them, whether it be through YouTube vlogs embedded in emails, webinars in conjunction with the UC Provider or inserts in your invoices.
RingByName has designed a program that offers dealers access to a rich menu of UC services as well as legacy-compatible technologies for customers not yet ready to migrate to the cloud completely.
Whether it’s simple dial tone telephony, stand-alone faxing or a more comprehensive solution, we can help business equipment dealers add another card to their deck and stand out in what is becoming a more crowded space.
Having a good technology offering certainly is table stakes, but the most successful players focus on the buying triggers—convenience and ease of use bolstered by solid support for both themselves and their customers. Choosing the right provider to partner with goes a long way.
