We think hosted IP telephony (IPT) for small businesses, if developed well, should be easy to use and simple to install. A good IPT solution can provide a company that does not traditionally deal with telcos with an easy entry into the market; broadening its product and service offering and creating an additional opportunity to tie customers into its business.

Small firms will always be focused on cost containment. But with hosted telephony it is possible to capture interest by pushing its efficiency and productivity as well as benefits to image and customer responsiveness.

We ensure resellers have access to comprehensive training on the product capabilities and limits. And it is equally important to help channel partners market this new service.

We map out how a hosted solution can provide benefits in the mentioned areas. This might include using call groups or explaining that the forwarding options can increase staff availability and improve response times to customer queries.

Bigger benefits
Simple options such as having music or an audio track for customers to listen to if they do get placed on hold helps to give an impression that calls are being handled more professionally.

The second step is to help channel partners identify the right customers for their new product. We will help them create a target profile, taking into consideration the ideal size customer, what the existing telephone system would look like and what their key drivers might be ­ such as productivity and business management.

We will then describe what we see as the mindset that would make a customer appropriate to target with a hosted IPT service. For example, they might be technology focused and keen on flexible working, or perhaps they want to appear larger than they are.

Once channel partners have an interested customer, it is essential that they thoroughly qualify leads and understand what features are a must-have for each individual company, because what they are can vary enormously.

One customer might feel that call transfers and call forwarding are vital to their business, while another might only care about voicemail.

How these elements are built into the service is up to each reseller. Partners might opt to charge for voicemail services, but offer call forwarding as part of the package, or they might offer all the add-ons as part of a premium-priced service.

The reseller will also need to work out its pricing plans for different types of businesses and ensure they know how to sell additional elements that come with IPT.
Probably the biggest benefit that is used to sell hosted IPT, is the flexibility surrounding numbering and we encourage partners to feature this benefit heavily in their sales efforts.

Until they speak to an IPT reseller, most SMEs will not realise it is possible to have different dialling codes for a single office regardless of where it is based. It is also worth remembering that many small businesses will at some point relocate to accommodate growth.

Provided the carrier is experienced in number porting, neither the customer nor the channel partner need ever get involved
in the porting.

This is worth checking though, because if the carrier used does not have the know-how, what should be a simple transition can become a nightmare and create some unhappy customers.

A growing market
We have seen an increase in channel partners selling hosted solutions as part of a disaster recovery sell. Disaster recovery is not something a small business would expect to hear about ordinarily when buying a phone service. However, business continuity is.

As the UK’s weather becomes more unpredictable, services that might enable businesses in flood-risk areas to maintain their customer services, even if the worst happens and their premises are put out of action, can prove attractive.

The telecommunications market has changed dramatically in the last few years. It is now overlapping with the world of IT and with the right solutions, hosted IPT can be a way for businesses to differentiate services.

Solution providers can look to take advantage of this cross-over, whether they are traditional voice resellers, data resellers or IT consultancies or from any solutions background.