It comes as no surprise that the communications market is booming. Unified Communications platforms improve productivity, save time, and ultimately improve the day-to-day lives of users. Yet an Osterman Research study found that 48% of businesses do not understand how UC will benefit their business.
UCaaS is a great opportunity for service providers to add ‘one more card to the deck’. Bundling additional services into an existing offering increases value, reach, reputability and more. But if prospective customers are too scared to buy into UCaaS, the sales are not going to happen.
Another study finds that “39% of businesses are intimidated by the migration process.”
Innovators that face these challenges head will become successful. The following tips discuss how to overcome the lack of knowledge and understanding in the UCaaS industry.
Education
If you want to sell UCaaS, you have to teach your customers about Unified Communications without over-explaining or over-complicating it. Break down the solutions and, above all, paint a picture of how it will help their business. Walk through real-life examples with questions like:
- Have you ever been on the phone with a colleague and needed input from someone else?
- How did you handle it?
- Did you have to hang up call number one to make call number two?
- Did you send them an email and patiently wait for the response?
- What if it was as easy as grabbing that person with your mouse and dragging them into the existing call?
Eliminate uncertainties and fears by helping potential customers understand what your solution can do for their business.
Learn the Pain Points
In every industry, there are products and services designed to offer solutions to the problems that customers have. But too often vendors forget to spend time on the first step of learning the pain points of their target audience. Step one is to find out what struggles and challenges your customers may be facing. It is important to avoid assuming that every customer is the same. Listen to their issues and ask specific, open-ended questions.
Show the Benefits
Understanding your audience’s frustrations and pain points, as previously identified, will help you decide which benefits to display. When selling the value of a UCaaS solution, be careful not to confuse benefits with features. UC features like presence, click-to-call, and instant messaging are important, but they are not benefits. Help potential customers realise the true value of the service with benefits like time savings, increased collaboration, and increased productivity. These are what sell the solution.
Show the Features
After showcasing what UC is and how it will benefit your potential customer, you need to show them how they will get it. Demonstrate how features like screen-share and drag-and-drop conferencing increase collaboration. Display how click-to-call works and how much time it saves. After understanding your customers’ problems, you can show them the features that will solve them. The more you know about your customer, the more you will know which benefits and features to showcase to them.
Offer a Free Demo
There is a huge difference between hearing about how great something is and seeing how great it actually is. In selling UCaaS, demos will be your best friend. Once a customer gets their hands on a free demo and sees for themselves how wonderful the solution is, they will not want to stop! Let your customers see for themselves the solutions to their pain points.
Don’t Focus on the Price Tag
Everyone wants a ‘good-deal’; that is no question. This is why it is extremely important to focus on selling the value of a UC solution rather than the price itself. Make sure your customers understand the quality of the solution, the features, the added benefits, and how it will leverage their business. Illustrate the return on investment. Remind the company they will only have to pay for the services they need, resulting in easier flexibility, scalability, and a reduction in expenses.
Don’t Define the Business Size
Unified Communications is so scalable that it allows even the smallest businesses to act like enterprises. This is a hugeselling point for resellers. Not only can you reach customers of any market size, but you can show your smaller customers that they will have the same capabilities and tools as large enterprises.
The many benefits of “as a Service” technologies are lucrative and desirable if only they are made known. Start educating your market niche on the value of UCaaS and the customers will be lining up outside your door.
Guest Blog by Patrice Bramat, Business Success Manager at Bicom Systems
Patrice has over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, and management. Upon recently joining the Bicom Systems team, he came from large corporations like Akzo Nobel, Rexel, and Xerox. As Bicom Systems Business Success Manager, Patrice is tasked with providing partners with resources in sales and marketing to further their business needs.
Bicom Systems is the only unified communications provider with all of the pieces to start and grow a telephony company. They offer seven highly-featured products integrated seamlessly to boost sales, growth, and profit.
