Phone.com publishes informative article explaining that giving small businesses tools to engage customers, convert prospects faster and collaborate with team members from their smartphones (or other endpoints) by voice, video or text, solutions providers live up to their name as problem solvers, positioning themselves as indispensable partners in a volatile climate—a textbook win-win that encourages renewals and sustains profit margins.
Phone.com (www.phone.com) has released a compelling article "How Channel Partners and MSPs Avoid Diminishing Returns While Renewing Contracts."
The 1,621-word article examines the high points and low points of these bleak times for small businesses (SMBs). According to research from the National Federation of Independent Business, about 23 percent of SMBs will go out of business if current economic conditions continue for more than six months. If you’re among the many channel partners, agents, and managed service providers (MSPs) for which small businesses are bread-and-butter customers, this means that if they close shop, so do you. This article provides insights on how channel partners and managed service providers can help small businesses survive during a recession without taking it on the proverbial chin.
As COVID-19 has more people working from home, cloud-based unified communications and collaboration services (UCaaS) are understandably coveted. However, despite the pandemic-driven demand, the underlying need for UCaaS is nothing new; a 2019 Salesforce study revealed that 86 percent of employees and executives surveyed blame lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures. for Small businesses. In very untypical manner though, a certain element of the article is set to spark discontent amongst Solutions Providers.
Below is a portion of the piece, which neatly exemplifies the compelling nature of this content:
Customers won’t renew if they feel like they aren’t using a tool to its full potential, so keep this in mind. As a solutions provider, every time you sign a new client, you must truly understand their everyday pain points to present a viable answer to their problems - which is literally what solutions are supposed to do - solve problems.
A spokesperson for Phone.com noted that, "The aim of this article is first and foremost to educate channel partners and managed IT services providers that simply providing an XaaS product will not deliver long-term sustainable profitability with your small business customers. Especially nowadays, every company is scrutinizing expenses. If your offering isn’t aligned with their needs — or if you can’t provide the tools, training, and guidance to make it aligned with their needs — then they will politely decline.. It is critical, however, that we stay dedicated to our true voice.
We believe it's more important to that you can’t just sell a product that will let employees work from home. You need to understand your customer and if they’re adopting a hybrid workplace model. If you can assure them that their solution won’t need extensive reconfiguration when switching from home to office and back, so much the better."
Phone.com provides business phone systems and cloud-based unified communications services to small businesses.
Phone.com's complete article can be found at https://www.phone.com/how-channel-partners-and-msps-avoid-diminishing-returns-while-renewing-contracts/
