This special episode of Talking VoIP with Datagate featured two partners, Lightwire Business and AdvantageIVR.
Offering voice services is clearly a great revenue stream for MSPs, it also makes a lot of sense for the end-customers.
With more and more MSPs entering the voice space, and telcos now pitching themselves as MSP alternatives, competition is becoming fierce.
You need to find ways to differentiate your services to stand out in this commoditized market. With the right partners, processes and systems, it’s easier than you think.
For this installment of Talking VoIP – episode 6 in the series, Mark Loveys was joined by Lightwire CRO, Brendan Ritchie, Lightwire Head of Business, Nick Phillips and AdvantageIVR CEO, Donna Renee.
In the webinar, find out how to choose the right platforms, partners, feature set and services that will make your offering stand out right from the first impression.
Highlights
Lightwire Business
The most compelling reason to sell voice is to reduce churn.
With more and more telcos venturing into the MSP space, it’s important to ring-fence customers. When MSPs own the voice environment completely, it drastically reduces churn.
Take the mystery out of the pre-sale process to differentiate your voice offering.
- Launch right into the discovery of what customers’ need, showcase proven customer success stories, and supplement everything with documentation, free trials, fast and accurate responses, and offer a supremely customer-focused experience.
- Offering no-obligation free trials minimizes speculation about user experience.
Advice to MSPs crafting their voice offering.
- Be flexible. Don’t limit product offerings based on assumptions. Instead, target the needs and requirements for a voice product that align with customers’ businesses. Consider if your customer has reporting requirements, integrations with particular applications, need mobility, particular cooling plans, etc.
- Prioritise agile delivery. Aim to provide a solution that meets customers’ needs immediately, but also allow you to transition them (over time) to a more unified communications solution. This allows MSPs to grow with their customers while keeping them within the MSP ecosystem. It also keeps customers sticky and deters them from shopping around to meet a niche need.
You’re not selling voice services, you’re selling an outcome.
- The objective is to use technology to drive productivity for customers.
- As the modern workplace shifts towards unified communications platforms like Microsoft Teams, partnering with telcos that will support you rather than compete with you will undoubtedly result in better relationships, stickier customers, and overall, more success stories to draw from and grow your business.
Differentiate your MSP by leveraging data driven insights.
- Partner with telcos or providers that enable you to go back to your customers with data driven insights that drive production, productivity, efficiency, and ensure that the intended outcomes have been met.
- Keep in mind that these insights are only as good as the flexibility offered by your partner. They should be easy to understand, proactively reported, and backed by a flexible and agile service that makes the most out of those insights.
MSPs can differentiate their voice offerings with billing solutions.
- The greatest reason MSPs tend to avoid offering voice is the variable billing component.
- Telecom billing solutions like Datagate are key to offering voice successfully because they minimize the barrier to entry by reducing admin hours and rekeying errors.
AdvantageIVR
MSPs often forget that the phone is a valid customer contact point.
It’s important to carry your branding through from start to finish – don’t underestimate the auto attendant greeting.
Adding professional voiceover requires minimal effort with the potential for huge outcome.
- Auto attendant greetings can open the door to conversations about offering voice.
- Offering auto attendant greetings can provide recurring revenue for MSPs.
When it comes to locating voice talent, go with a niche-specific company.
- Best practice for MSPs looking to add auto attendant greetings to their voice offering: choose a professional company that works specifically with telcos, who understand MSPs, and has tried and tested script templates.
Interested to find out more? Watch the webinar recording below.
Recording date: June 24, 2021
Host: Mark Loveys,
CEO, Datagate Innovation
Guest: Donna Renee,
CEO, AdvantageIVR
Guest: Nick Phillips,
Head of Business, Lightwire Business
Guest: Brendan Ritchie,
CRO, Lightwire Business
