Jabra wages war on Plantronics with new rebate scheme

Headset vendor aims to grab half of the headset renewals market over the coming two years

Headset vendor Jabra has launched an "aggressive" assault on rival Plantronics by tempting its resellers with rebates of up to six per cent on competitive deals.

At the moment, Jabra claims to have about 11 per cent share of the contact-centre market, with Plantronics taking most of the remainder. It said although it is seeing good growth in the unified communications space, it hopes to up its game in call centres.

Over the next two years, Jabra will offer its army of resellers three per cent rebates on any Plantronics-competitive opportunities they register, and a further three per cent on top if they close the deal within six months.

The rebates will be accompanied by a new Assured Services Programme, which Jabra claims will ensure its partners are equipped with everything they need to help customers move over to its kit.

Jabra's managing director Nigel Dunn (pictured) told CRN that he is hoping Jabra will win big in the contact-centre space.

"The campaign will run for two years, and the reason for that is that some people will have bought new products recently from our competitor and they typically have a one or two-year shelf life before they get destroyed," he said.

"Over that two years, a number of companies will be making [upgrade] decisions. Our aim is to get 50 per cent of the renewables of those products."

He added that he hopes Jabra can cash in on a market opportunity of between £22m and £25m over the coming two years.

"If Plantronics has 80 per cent of the market, about 50 per cent of that is actually a product that is quite old," he said. "We're looking to directly attack that old product and there will be a fairly aggressive marking approach for it."

Plantronics was unavailable to comment.