Tag Archives: unified communications as a service

Benefits of Selling SaaS

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selling-saas

According to Forbes, the Cloud Computing Market is expected to reach $411B by 2020 and the Software as a Service (SaaS) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 16%, growing from $58.6B in 2017 to $99.7B by 2020 (source).

Service Providers abound in today’s marketplace, however it is yet to be seen how many will successfully capture this opportunity and expand their existing offerings to meet the demand for Cloud and SaaS Add-Ons.

SaaS – Software as a Service – is just a fancy name for all of those cloud and software-based add-ons that increase the value of your existing solutions. For example, Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) or Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS).

Have your customers and prospects started requesting these new services yet? Have you had to turn down any feature requests? Turn away any prospects looking for a one-stop-shop?

As evidenced by the financial data, contemporary technologies like UCaaS and CCaaS are quickly becoming expectations rather than extras. If you do not yet provide them, you are missing opportunities to grow your business and secure your future.

Adding these new technologies to your existing offering will enable you to:

1. Reach more customers

SaaS add-ons are in high demand. Offering those services allows you to say “yes” to whatever your next prospect may request. The more services you offer, the more customers you will reach.

Not only will you win more customers in your existing niche, these additional solutions will allow you to enter new markets. For example, the Contact Center as a Service sphere is growing rapidly and offers a whole new group of prospective customers.

2. Generate more profit

Any kind of addition to your existing product line opens up the opportunity for more return on each sale. You are making your products more valuable. Best of all, customers are willing to pay for it. These softwares are powerful tools that will improve business and are worth the price.

Expanding your product line is an important step to building your brand. As your customer base grows, your brand will grow too.

3. Future-proof your business

Adopting SaaS will prepare your business for the future in a few ways. First of all, the monthly subscription models fosters a long-term commitment that reduces customer churn. Becoming a one-stop-shop discourages customers from leaving for greener pastures.

Second, in our innovation-obsessed industry, it is important to keep pace with the technological trends and evolve to meet demand very quickly. Adopting the cloud and SaaS is a step in the right direction. Partnering with a vendor of contemporary technologies ensures that you have someone in your camp looking out for the next trends.

This all sounds great, so… Where to start?

We would love to chat with you about your business and how to seize this opportunity. Meet Bicom Systems this fall at WISPAPALOOZA or AstriCon to learn all about the latest technologies and how to add them to your business offering.

WISPAPALOOZA
October 8-12
Las Vegas, NV
Booth #117
Learn more

ASTRICON
October 9-11
Orlando, FL
Learn more

Our first Bicom Systems User Group Meeting will be on Monday October 8th at WISPAPALOOZA in Las Vegas. It is a free event and open to ALL WISPS (you do not have to be or become a customer to attend). Join us from 9:00 to 4:00 for a behind-the-scenes look at VoIP, UCaaS, and CCaaS with networking and presentations from:

– VoIP Marketing Guru Suzanne Urash of CR8 Group who will share her secrets to getting your phones ringing off the hook

– ThinQ, the best kept secret in the carrier space, who will explain how their toolset has greatly increased their partners’ Quality of Service for customers

– Kris Twomey, from the Law Office of Krisopher Twomey and Carol Lisowski, who will speak on telecom compliance and the most recent regulatory issues.

Lunch will be served at noon. Space will fill up quickly, register now at bicomsystems.eventbrite.com.

See you this fall!

How to Sell… UCaaS

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ucaasIn our previous blog series on 3 Steps to Telecom Success, we discussed a number of things that you can do to realize sustainable growth, increase your profit, and increase customer loyalty. One of the overriding themes was adding more cards to your deck – bundling more services into your existing offering.

Perhaps you have made the decision to add Unified Communications, mobility, or something else to your solution, but what’s next? How do we sell this new service?

Our next series is on “How to Sell…” We will cover UCaaS, Mobility, and Integration to start. If you want to learn about how to sell other services, please give us your suggestions in the comments below.

In the meantime, we’ll start with how to sell Unified Communications as a Service.

What is the main reason your customers do not purchase UCaaS? According to the research, it’s probably a lack of information about how UC will benefit their company and how to make the transition.

An Osterman Research study found that 48% of businesses do not understand how UC will benefit their business. They may understand and even want Unified Communications, but are unable to make the leap to the direct benefit to their business. Research also shows that “39% of businesses are intimidated by the migration process.” They may need a little hand-holding to get started. (Source: www.eweek.com).

In the face of these facts, your best tool will be education. If you want to sell UCaaS, you have to teach your customers about UC, thus assuaging their uncertainties and fears.

Benefits

Start by showing what UCaaS can do for your customer – what value will it bring to their business. Be careful not to confuse benefits with features. Features like presence and click-to-call and instant messaging are important and you will want to show those too, but not quite yet. Benefits are big picture values like:

  • Saves time so you can focus on selling
  • Eases stress in the office
  • Supports productivity in workers
  • Enables you to provide better customer service

These are all about how UC will improve the day-to-day lives of your customers. Put yourself in their shoes and consider what issues they face, where are they wasting time everyday, what frustrations do they express. They will identify with these benefits and instantly want to know how to attain them.

Features

Which brings us to features. You have explained what they will get from Unified Communications, now show them how they will get it. Go back through your list of benefits and add at least one feature that supports each. Those are the features that you will show your customers. Some examples are:

  • Click-to-call
  • Drag-and-drop conferences
  • Presence
  • Call transfers
  • Screen-share
  • Voicemail to email
  • Fax to email
  • Multichannel communication
  • Video calling

The list goes on and on. You will know best what types of benefits and features your customers would value.

Transition

Finally, show a clear transition roadmap to your customers from the very start. You now know that they may have fears when it comes to migrating, so bolster their confidence right from the beginning. Take care of as much of the transition from your end as you can so that they have less to worry about. If you are confident, they will become confident as well.

With all three of these areas, demos will be your best friend. Rather than trying to explain the benefits and describe the features over the phone, get them on a free demo and illustrate it. Once they get started, they won’t want to stop.

As you go through the demo, use clear, specific examples to make your points – things that they will immediately identify with and latch on to. For example, you could say “Have you ever been on the phone with a colleague and needed the quick input of someone else? How did you handle it? Did you have to hang up and then come back to the call later? Shoot an email and wait for the response? What if it was as easy as grabbing that third person with your mouse and dragging them in to the call?” as you are doing just that in a demo. If they have ever faced that problem, they will be sold.

One more selling technique to consider: UC makes it so even the smallest businesses can act like enterprises. This is a huge selling point if they fully grasp it. Show your smaller customers that they will have the same capabilities and tools as large enterprises, leveling the playing field for the first time.

If you are interested in learning more about UC and/or selling, we have a few more blog posts that may be of interest to you.

As always, feel free to reach out to us if you want to chat with an experienced account manager.

Stay tuned for next week: How to Sell… Mobility

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What Do We Mean by UCaaS?

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ucaasIt is easy to pick up buzzwords and start throwing them around without fully understanding the implications. Words like Integration, The Cloud, and Collaboration appear in marketing materials for most telecoms today, but often without full understanding or definitions.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is another one. So what exactly do we mean by UCaaS?

I think CommsTrader defines it best:

“UCaaS, or Unified Communications as a Service is a solution in which all of the collaboration and communication tools that an employee must use can be accessed through a third-party, provided by an integrated cloud platform.”

UCaaS is, at its heart, a singular platform that simplifies and enhances communication through a plethora of tools. It’s almost an oxymoron: nearly innumerable features and capabilities in one single product.

So what are some of those features? Basically anything that makes communicating easier and better. To name a few:

  • Voice
  • Instant messaging
  • Presence
  • Conferencing
  • Video calling
  • Collaboration
  • File sharing
  • Desktop sharing
  • Integration
  • Mobility

It is easy to see how these tools would bolster efficiency and productivity in the workplace. UCaaS will go over well with the accounting department as well since it gives you so much bang for your back. Perhaps best of all, Unified Communications as a Service is flexible and scalable, easily molded to fit the existing business structure.

Interested in learning more? Contact us today or watch for yourself all that gloCOM, our UC app, can do:

Learn more about gloCOM here.
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