Finding voice and data suppliers with the right products and services at the right price, who you can trust to deliver and support services, is the dream. On paper multiple suppliers seem to be offering similar products at comparable pricing, so how do you effectively select the right supplier for your business?
Research
It helps to be clear on what you are looking for. Is this a one-off relationship to help a valued client? Are you planning to increase ARPU by introducing a new revenue stream? Are you actively targeting a new market?
Your objectives will help to define how much time and money you are prepared to invest, your required buy prices and how much margin you need to make it work. You may well have also decided whether you will be billing and supporting services yourselves or looking for a supplier to take on these functions.
Armed with this information you are able to start your research and draw up a short list of companies to talk to.
Useful questions to ask prospective suppliers
- How many partners do you currently support?
- What are your best-selling products?
- Which is your highest revenue stream?
- How long have you been providing channel services?
- What billing models are available?
- What automated systems are available for partners?
- Is training available?
- What are your target installation times?
- What is the average response time to a partner request?
- What is your staff turnover?
- What is your churn rate?
- How much does it cost to sign up as a partner?
- What is your partner on-boarding process?
- Do you assist with end user contracts and marketing collateral?
- Do you have a published price list and do you offer volume discounts?
- Are there any volume targets?
- Is your support 24/7?
On-boarding
When signing up with a new supplier, the on-boarding process should ensure each member of your team has the information they need to quote, sell, deliver, support and bill new services.
It should detail what marketing support is available to help you update your web sites and sales collateral and show you where to look-up key information to help your sales team answer product queries.
Training should give your sales team the kit and knowledge they need to effectively demonstrate the new products. They should know who to contact if they need pre-sales support on and off-site and how to quote and order.
Your provisioning team should have access to order updates and a contact sheet so they know who to call in and out of hours. They will no doubt be provided with a portal to reference key guides which may be in formats they can brand and use as their own.
The Jola team have been supporting IT and Telecommunications channel partners for almost twenty years. We provide internet connectivity, hosted telephony and mobile solutions. To pose some of these questions to us…
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