Pain Points and
Integrating Solutions
End user demands uctuate;
What kind of integrations are available in the market now? We are seeing so many third-party applications
being used in the workplace is it possible to manage these and bring them under one roof? Do we need to;
what are end users actually asking for when it comes to the technology?
economic factors generally
aect pricing whilst the
current Coronavirus
pandemic would appear to
be having a greater impact on
functionality as businesses
scramble to implement home
working strategies for their
employees.
Dave Reynolds, Managing
Director for Xelion, says that the
conversations they are having
with users has totally changed
over the last four weeks.
“Today, the one stop shop
principle has disappeared as
people are using whatever is most
convenient for them, for example,
text and Whatsapp.
Going forward I believe that
solutions will be dierent as users
seek out applications that can
plug in to dierent platforms.
Businesses are already using
Whatsapp extensively in textbased
user groups and it’s likely
this service will extend to video
calling.
is will adversely aect
minutes resellers as Whatsapp
has selected six service providers
across the world to provide the
video services. ere is little scope
for resellers to monetise, only
facilitate.
Resellers have adapted well
Customer pain points can often be solved by third party product integrations
and quickly to home working
- prior to the Coronavirus
epidemic just a handful of reseller
sta would have been working
from home and of late a lot of our
time has been spent helping and
supporting users and resellers get
up and running.
What are we selling? It
would be fair to say that headset
sales have gone through the
roof as have web cams and a
huge number of softphones.
Surprisingly we are also selling a
large number of DECT handsets.
As I said earlier, people are
now using any devices that are
convenient.”
Myles Leach, Managing
Director at NFON UK, says
that end users never talk about
industry buzzwords like digital
transformation; they are just
interested in addressing pain
point’s and measuring positive
outputs.
“ey need to have their needs
met, so feature priorities will
dier depending on the client.
e key is making sure you have
vendors with a broad product
set, all of which deliver a quality
experience.”
Peter Oosthuizen, London
Partner Sales Manager for
Spitre, believes there are two
key points to establish when
discussing customer PBX feature
requirements with channel
partners.
“Firstly, what features does/
will the customer need and what
are ‘nice to haves’, and secondly,
what is the TCO (total cost of
ownership), not just the headline
gure for extension rental?
Feature sets vary, each system
will either have a feature set
aimed at a specic market/price
point or have a basic variant with
bolt-ons. You also need to look at
the varying feature requirements
within the same business. ere
is not a one size ts all solution so
it is key that the channel works
with providers that can cater for
the diering needs. Our solution
has been designed as a low-cost
product with all the standard
features you would expect from a
cloud PBX.”
According to Simon
Horton – VP Sales, Europe at
Sangoma, users are generally
not particularly interested in
what’s under the hood; they want
solutions that are easy to install
and just work.
“What they are interested
in is supplier support and
responsiveness. Today VoIP is
pretty much commoditised so
the customer experience is the
dierentiator.
We have a reseller only
channel with two distributors,
Provu and Nuvola, and both are
technically led to enhance the
trusted partner proposition for
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