Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Resellers looking to add hosted voice to their portfolio often feel that hosted voice propositions are all the same. Is this the case?

Inclusive Features

Each supplier packages their offering differently. Some have stripped out basic features to offer an attractive headline price.  When you start to add key features back in, you may see a very different price per seat. Others have bundled in all the common features and have competitive add-ons to customise offerings. In either case it is important to know what your customers expect as standard and what options they are willing to pay for. 

Free Calls

Which suppliers include free calls to UK landlines and mobiles? Is this something your potential customers will require? Is there a licence-only price without calls? Are you able to pool allowances across customer sites and what happens when an individual user or customer exceeds the Fair Use Policy?

Call Director

What happens if your customers lose internet connectivity or power? Can customers dial out from their mobiles? This is a useful benefit for customers concerned about reliability. Some suppliers offer an ‘Anywhere’ feature so you are never without a phone system.

If you sell mobile SIM cards to SMEs, you may have customers calling in, wanting to activate, cease, bar or swap SIM cards. You have sent an email to the appropriate supplier and have repeatedly checked for a response. You have then called to chase your email and are having target response rates explained to you. In the meanwhile, you are being chased by your customer, who is questioning their importance to you as a customer.

If you had a management portal, you could make changes during the phone call. With real-time APIs, the actions could complete whilst you are still on the phone. Better still you can grant the customer access to be able to manage this themselves.

Mobile Manager is an online management portal for ordering and managing estates of mobile data SIMs. The portal communicates with Vodafone and O2 networks, enabling partners to create customers, manage activations and instantly control SIM swaps, bars, ceases, tariff changes and bolt-ons.

 1. Catch people doing things right 

Constructive criticism is a myth and an oxymoron. Nobody likes to be criticised and for self-preservation many will erect their esteem barrier as soon as they see it coming. Try this experiment for a week and see what happens. You are only allowed to catch people doing positive things, you must be precise and you cannot use the terms ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It doesn’t even have to be exceptional. For example, you walk past someone talking on the phone and when they have finished you make a point of taking them aside. You say something like “If I was the customer on the other end of that phone I would feel welcome, and comfortable that you have the skill and ability to resolve my issue”. Explain exactly why and leave it at that. Don’t finish with clichés like “keep it up” or “well done” and definitely don’t try and balance the feedback by commenting on a weakness (“yes…but”).

2. Focus on strengths 

If you spend all your time trying to improve your weakness then all you are likely to end up with is strong weaknesses. You are the boss and you decide what you are going to do. If you find spreadsheets tedious and time consuming then stop building your own business plans, forecasts and ROI models. There are potential employees coming out of university now that can use spreadsheets ten times quicker than you and at a fraction of your cost. Spend your time on activities for which you have a passion and that only you can do. Instil this in your managers and staff. If someone has a weakness that is core to their job then ‘zoom-out’ and find a way to focus them on their strengths. I once had a salesperson who knew the products backwards, he was smart and asked great questions. Customers loved him and he worked really hard. However, he had a real problem with rejection and when he failed to get an order or was knocked-back by a prospect he was miserable. Being in sales he was miserable a lot. I persuaded him to apply for a product managers job. He was reluctant because the salary was less than his OTE as a salesperson but he accepted the fact that he was unhappy and ended up taking the job. He now runs his own business. Obviously if you have a salesperson that has a problem with rejection and they also are lazy and disorganised, you don’t move them into product management just because they understand the products.

Consumerisation is affecting Terms and Conditions and unscrupulous business suppliers are taking advantage.

According to the government-backed Money Advice Centre, 84% of consumers do not read Terms and Conditions online, before they sign contracts. With some Terms and Conditions exceeding 30,000 words (the length of a novel) this is not surprising and Ombudsmen are starting to side with consumers when disputes arise.

However, there is little sympathy for company directors when they take their consumer behaviour into work. As a fiduciary officer of your company, a leader and captain of industry you have a legal and moral obligation to read contracts before you sign them. If you don’t have time then have somebody else read them. Small companies cannot afford to ask a solicitor to read every contract but most of the contractual traps used these days are obvious and a magnifying glass, not a corporate lawyer, is all that is needed.

If it relates to a technical subject, like telecommunications, ask your IT company to read it for you. If they know they are going to have to support whatever it is you’re buying they probably won’t mind and they are likely to be aware of the common traps.

Most frustrating is the company that starts a tender process, thinking they are out of contract with their current supplier, when they are not. If they have fallen-out with the supplier they may not even ask them to bid and they don’t find out until the end of the process. If they do ask them to bid the incumbent will hope they can win the deal and sign them up to another onerous contract without ever having to reveal the original terms.

Jola recently worked on a bid with a partner that lasted around 12 weeks. It involved meetings, demonstrations, proposals and references. We won the deal against three other suppliers, including the incumbent. When the customer gave the incumbent supplier the bad news they pointed out that breaking the contract would cost £40,000. The customer had to reluctantly re-sign with their existing supplier but before they did we were given the original contract to see if there was a loophole. The customer had signed to have their call charges fixed for seven years, in a market where the cost of telephone calls drops every few months.

Air2Air wanted to make helipads part of the helicopter. They developed a solar-powered lighting system controlled by an application, which allowed the pilot to turn the lights on before take-off. The helipad can be built on concrete or grass and is designed to control debris from hitting the helicopter.

They needed a way for the application to communicate with the helipad in situations where hard-wiring the system to the internet is impractical. Air2Air choose JolaMobile data SIMs as they exactly met the requirements, were cost effective and easy to manage. Through Mobile Manager they were able to pause, swap and upgrade SIMs remotely whereas other alternatives required physical intervention.

Jola are productising simple IoT solutions using JolaMobile SIMs. We developed Mobile Manager for partners and their end users to be able to set up alerts and add bolt-ons as required. We also have fixed IP SIMs in the pipeline on Vodafone and O2 networks.

Jola recently took part in a live, streamed hosted telephony debate with two other suppliers.

The debate raised some interesting points.

Connectivity

Companies of all sizes are moving to hosted solutions, as they are more cost-effective. Concerns about reliability of internet connections has largely gone away, due to the availability of fast, reliable circuits such as FTTC and EFM.

If the government gets behind it, 5G could quickly start to take over from direct internet connections like ADSL2+, fibre broadband and Ethernet. 4G is already being used in areas of poor connectivity and there are portals available to monitor usage and reduce bill shock. 5G is a way off, but does present an opportunity for the channel and a threat to fixed-line carriers.

Choosing suppliers

There was some debate around how many current hosted voice suppliers there are in the market, however the point was made that there is a huge choice of suppliers and solutions to choose from. When you compare solutions, there are big differences, even between vendors using the same underlying technology e.g. Broadsoft. Resellers require different levels of support and companies that can infill requirements on demand, such as white label billing, support, installations and portals have an advantage.

Planning

Arguably the most important stage. Consider your objectives. Why are you exhibiting? What do you hope to achieve? How much do you have to spend? What is your expected return on investment? How does this break down into leads, conversions and predicted future revenues?

Take the time to read the exhibitors manual to understand what you can and can’t do, what’s included in your package and the early bird deadlines. It’s a good idea to start planning early.

Plan your stand for maximum impact. Are your competitors exhibiting? Have you considered your USPs and how you may compare? What do you want to promote? How are you planning to catch the attention of visitors? The answers to these questions will help you shape your key messaging.

Brand your stand to stand out for all the right reasons. Plan meeting areas and think about how visitor data will be collected. Are you bringing your own equipment or do you need to hire any? Do you have any storage on the stand and is it lockable?

Once you have designed your stand and ordered equipment and materials, book hotels.

Office UC is an application which allows you to make voice and video calls over the JolaPhone network via a softphone which is available to download on a PC, phone or tablet.  It comes as standard as part of Jola Premium Broadsoft hosted telephony bundles.

What is UC Team?

UC Team is an option which also includes conference calls and the ability to share your desktop for collaborative working.

How do I make and receive calls?

Calls are made and received via the application, as if you were sat at your desk using your handset. You have the option to call from the app, call from your IP phone or video call. You can easily access your voicemail from the dial pad too. You can mute callers and adjust the volume of the call, transfer calls, put callers on hold and show or hide video.

How do I manage calls?

Answer or decline calls by clicking the green or red buttons. If contacts are already in the directory you can see who is calling before you answer without having to recognise the number. Call waiting allows you to put one call on hold and answer another call. Calls can be transferred blind or attended if you need to brief a colleague before transferring a call. Call Move can be used where users have Shared Call Appearance or Call Director where active calls on a desk phone can be transferred seamlessly to a smartphone via the Call Pull button.

1 – What marketing support is available?

Our marketing support is tailored to meet the specific needs of each partner. Some partners are happy to download content from the portal for their website, flyers, adverts, e-casts and newsletters. Other partners ask for help tailoring the content to meet the needs of their audience. Partners with specific objectives request more detailed advice. With these partners, we arrange conference calls to understand business objectives and discuss marketing plans.  We follow up with ideas and work with partners to generate and close first opportunities.

2 – Can you provide feedback on materials in production?

Yes, the Jola marketing department will review materials and send feedback to help customise content as required. We approve the use of all Jola branding and are happy to provide advice on partner branded materials, such as proposals and campaigns.

As the deadline for GDPR approaches, what do we need to know and what action should we be taking?

What is GDPR?

General Data Protection Regulations that come into force in the UK on 25^th May 2018. Currently, the UK relies on the Data Protection Act 1998, but this will be superseded by the new legislation. It introduces tougher fines for non-compliance and breaches and gives people more say over what companies can do with their data.

Who does GDPR apply to?

‘Controllers’ and ‘processors’. The controller says how and why personal data is processed and the processor acts on the controller’s behalf. Essentially any UK business that controls or processes personal data. Controllers must ensure personal data is processed lawfully, transparently and for a specific purpose. Once that purpose is fulfilled and the data is no longer required, it should be deleted.

How do I get consent under the GDPR?

Consent must be an active, affirmative action by the data subject, rather than the passive acceptance under some current models that allow for pre-ticked boxes or opt-outs.

Controllers must keep a record of how and when an individual gave consent and that individual may withdraw their consent whenever they want. If your current model for obtaining consent doesn't meet these new rules, you will have to bring it up to scratch or stop collecting data under that model when the GDPR applies in 2018.