With the unified communication as a service (UCaaS) market expected to grow to $28.69 billion by 2021, consultants, value-added resellers (VARs), master agencies, and managed service providers (MSPs) will need to stock the right unified communications and collaborations (UCC) products to meet the needs of their evolving customers. Selecting the right UCC provider is crucial to successfully capture a piece of the UCaaS pie.
Identifying which UCC provider fits best starts with understanding how they align with the partner’s business goals. Before committing to just any provider, partners should ask themselves questions like:
- Does the UCC provider carry the products and services my client base needs?
- How will a provider support my marketing efforts?
- Is there a dedicated service and sales team to help my internal sales team?
- Are there processes in place to ensure my customers have a great experience?
- What target markets has the UCC provider previously serviced?
Organizations should select UCC providers based on their internal sales capabilities and proven customer success, evaluating data like past financial results and client testimonials. For referral partners specifically, a provider who delivers poor customer service can negatively impact the referring partner’s brand reputation. In a referral relationship, companies introduce clients to a UCC provider who ultimately closes the deal. But if a UCC provide doesn’t deliver on its promise or provides a poor customer experience, the referring partner may take the brunt of the blame, ultimately decreasing the client’s trust and encouraging them to shop elsewhere.
The ideal UCC provider will not only deliver an optimal experience for the end-customer but also for the channel partners themselves, helping to meet business goals by supplying the appropriate tools and services to do so.
Despite the fact that most channel partners today see UCC as an added revenue opportunity for their business, most are not UCC experts. Therefore its equally important that providers have extensive UCC expertise and proven selling capabilities that can support their partners appropriately. Organizations might want to steer clear of providers that lack a sales team dedicated to supporting their channel partners, expecting referral partners to have a heavy hand in seeing transactions through to the end.
In such a crowded UCC market, IT channel partners need to be strategic when determining which provider to work with. Each UCC provider hosts its own unique suite of tools but not every one carries the solutions a channel partner needs to satisfy its customers. And the wrong UCC provider can significantly hurt a channel partner’s reputation with its customers, leading to financial losses, not gains. As a channel partner, it’s important to understand how a provider will deliver your customers an optimal end-user experience and consider how such a partnership is mutually beneficial for everyone involved. With the appropriate partnership engagement, organizations can continue to grow their UCC product line and keep clients happy with the solutions they want on demand.
TetraVX is a UCC provider that offers flexible and profitable partner agreements to support reseller, wholesale, and white label business models. With the ability to sell any of our three industry-leading UCaaS solutions under one agreement, our partners can better address the needs of their new and existing customer base and propose the solution that best fits their business. With over 18 years in the UCC industry, TetraVX provides customers and partners alike a better buying and selling experience.