It’s 2016 and let’s face it phone systems have been around for a really long time! It’s amazing when we talk to IT & MSPs out there
who are looking for an answer to Unified Communications for their clients with a requirements list that would make you think we are still in 1992. Yes, almost every phone system out there can do Auto Attendant, Voicemail, BLF Keys, Transfer/Hold/Conference, On Hold Music (oops except for more recent offerings who call themselves a Cloud PBX but can’t do this at all …*k*p for *usine** for example).
These features are more or less what you could find from a key system you installed pre-2000 and the world has since evolved. Sure your customers now want Chat, Presence, Fax, Recording, Advanced Queuing, Wallboards, Reports, and so on. All features that have been delivered for some time now.
What next? Integration between the phone system and your customers Line of Business application, CRM, and ERP is becoming a hot button item. Think about the ability for you to automatically track phone calls, create notes, enter time entries, create leads, create, tickets, amend a current record in the system without even having to blink. This is just the beginning.
Driving automation through integration makes you that much stickier with your client and also brings you into a much different conversation other than the phone number to dial when there is a printer issue or when a blue screen of death occurs. When you start showing a value proposition to your customer where a business conversation can happen then the story changes in such a way that you are being looked at as a business advisor not just the IT people.
That conversation could be around driving more sales by being able to speed up the interaction between the sales team and their customers and prospects. It could also be around management being able to better track performance of their teams in order to more easily determine changes that could be made to be more efficient. It could also be around making sure documentation is created in order to cut down on liability that would otherwise be present without a clear tracking and notation trail.
The point here is that you need to understand that while having an answer for Voice, Phone Systems, and Unified Communications is a must for your IT or MSP business is a MUST you also really need to dig deeper to see if there is a value you can provide to your customer that goes beyond the commodity that has been around for decades. Don’t just stop at the “I can offer you the minimum or just a little bit better than what you have” story push forward and deliver the next level and you will not just generate more revenue you should be able to establish a deeper connection with your customer as well.
Here at BVoIP we offer numerous integrations that may be worth checking out.Visit our integrations page to click for a demo below.
