It all starts with a discussion with your customers about their needs, according to Iain Sinnott, Sales and Marketing Director, VanillaIP. The other half is education. With all the uncertainty in today’s business landscape, what is evident is that there has been an incredible amount of changes to the way we work. The environment we work in is likely forever affected by Coronavirus, especially as millions of people are now working from home.
Some work from the beach while others work in shared workspaces with friends, but the office as we once knew it is likely no more. “The fact of the matter is that location is no longer imperative when it comes to working – it is about output.” And many employers have learned that this is the case. To ensure output and continuity, employees must have the proper communications tools to enable the kind of flow consumers and employees demand from communications and collaboration technology developers.
“What is in store for the future of the office?” To Sinnott, the traditional communing of work and the role of the cloud comms reseller, have forever shifted. He told me when COVID-19 first rose, suppliers were keen to react, offering up their various home-working tools.
“Where users work from is irrelevant, which is why we represent the best way forward”
Sinnott looks at Coronavirus as an opportunity for resellers to create more stable relationships with customers and to become partners with them. “Invite customers to discuss how they want to work,” he added. One of the things the cloud industry needs to communicate is that everyone does not need to work from home, he told me. Continuing that train of thought, he added, customers need to feel comfortable in telling us how they want to work. In turn, resellers can help customers choose the tools that will make them as productive as possible.
“We want to consult customers on every aspect of business comms, and we should sit in and listen to how businesses want to reduce overhead by using or not using offices.” According to Sinnott, developers of said technologies must understand their customers’ goals so they can adequately advise them on how to best leverage collaboration and workplace communications technology.
This is something Sinnott told me providers rarely had the chance to do in a pre-pandemic world, adding this was not the case back in March when the objective was to supply customers with what they needed to stay afloat. The rest was subject to clarification later. “We had to throw in all the accessories we could, but now that things are a bit more stable, we should consider company structures before we identify which technologies they need.”
One-size-fits-all solutions have never been the way of the future, and they sure will not suffice during a pandemic. This, he maintains, is why education remains a key part of the process of keeping customers connected. Education can come in the form of webinars, forums, FAQs, and other high-level discussions. Sinnott said achieving seamless communications with customers will take a lot of co-operation between several industries to pull off, but it is conceivable and worthwhile for everyone.
