Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

by Gary Audin

Contact center success is part technology and part managing your non-technology resources such as agents and work flow. You can deliver a better contact center for you customers and agents that will improve revenue, profit, and customer loyalty by following the recommendations in this EDUcast.

Mok Bouaazzi, Executive Director at BBX Technologies www.bbxtech.com and Gary Audin recorded this EDUcast that provides a number of different recommendations for contact center managers and their staff. Mok starts with explaining the goals and challenges of contact center management. He continues with advice about measuring contact center success.  The EDUcast also covers:

Omnichannel

Customer and agent feedback

Work force management

Tips for success

Visit BBX Technologies at the International Avaya User Group conference, exhibit booth # 535 in Austin, TX. January 20 to 23, 2019.

What you will learn in this EDUcast:

Business Goals

Challenges

Measuring Success

Best Practices

Feedback

Agents (Attrition, Training)

Success Tips

BBX Technologies www.bbxtech.com creates Vuesion technology that helps take customer service to another level. BBX delivers blended multichannel contact center software, technology add-ons, Workforce Management, outbound call center technology, and the Vuesion Call Recorder. Their programs run on easy-to-use interfaces, and provide intuitive, detailed reporting built on a multi-node scalable platform for on premise or hosted deployments.

Resources:

“Components of a Successful Contact Center”

http://www.bbxtech.com/components-of-a-successful-contact-center/

“Get the Most out of WFO/M”

http://www.bbxtech.com/get-the-most-out-of-wfom/

“EDUcast: Best Practices for CX”

http://www.bbxtech.com/educast-best-practices-for-cx/

“Omnichannel; Customer, Agent, Organization Benefits”

http://www.bbxtech.com/omnichannel-customer-agent-organization-benefits/

A unique call recording and compliance service is hitting the market specifically aimed to meet the needs of the healthcare and finance sectors, a result of the pairing of technologies between CallCabinet and Nexogy.

In this podcast Ron Romanchik, CRO of Call Cabinet Corporation and Carlos Lahrssen, CEO of Nexogy, walk us through a possibly disruptive way to bring the distributed and mobile workforce of today into regulatory compliance. We learn about how the two companies have worked together to offer a unique approach, focusing on an affordable and scalable way for companies to achieve regulatory compliance.  Romanchik noted on the scalability of the service and a price controlling pay for use model. Lahrssen outlines channel opportunities in a market many channel partners have yet to really tap.

CallCabinet is a cloud based-call recording and solutions company, while Nexogy is a service provider; thus, creating a possibly disruptive business model for bringing the distributed and mobile workforce into regulatory compliance. The solution will be featured at ITEXPO conference in Fort Lauderdale at the end of January.

Visit www.callcabinet.com and www.nexogy.com for more exciting announcements and news on this topic and more.

Marilyn Shuck on today’s IAUG

In the run up to Avaya ENGAGE in Austin, later this month, Marilyn Shuck, President of the International Avaya User’s Group (IAUG), sits down with Doug Green of Telecom Reseller to discuss the way the IAUG is working to prepare their membership for the coming decade of change that is facing technology managers and directors. “Its important for us to keep evolving and keeping current with what’s Avaya doing… and by offering (the members) the tools they need in their daily jobs,” says Shuck.

In this podcast we learn how Avaya ENGAGE and IAUG now offer training and learning not only on managing migration and Avaya’s latest innovations, but offerings include professional development as well. Shuck recounts her personal evolution from new member to president of the association, driven by her understanding the value of the organization to technologists like her. Shuck currently serves as UC Engineer for the University of Washington. Shuck notes that the event will feature over 150 sessions, certification sessions, an expo floor featuring Avaya’s partners, and many opportunities to meet and network with peers. “You might not be using AI today, but you can go to a session and learn about it, so that a week from now when your boss is talking about it, you’ve had a heads-up about it,” noting how the IAUG is preparing the membership for change.

Visit www.iaug.org

Mergers and acquisitions are tough.  I have been through a number of M&As myself and know what it takes to make them successful. Mitel first acquired Shortel back in July of 2017 and then Mitel itself was acquired by an investment group led by Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P. in April of 2018.

Mike Conlon, VP of global channels at Mitel, reviews some of the strategy that went into both acquisitions with Don Witt of The Channel Daily News. With the Acquisition of Shortel, Mitel leaped into the cloud providing a complete product line for premise, hybrid, or cloud solutions.  Any sales person could now walk into any company and provide the solution they were looking for in their company.

With the complete product line in place, Mitel made a shift in the sales strategy which has quickly turned out to be very successful. By committing to a distribution channel model, Mitel has refocused their sales force to support the channel sales teams. This ultimately reduces costs and leverages the local channel sales in every country around the world. If you want to accelerate sales – commit to a channel strategy and then make both the sales channel experience and the customer experience positive and productive. Looks like Mitel should have a very successful 2019. Way to go!

With 45 years of industry leadership, they help businesses connect, collaborate and provide better experiences for their customers. Mitel is trusted by 70 million business users in more than 100 countries.

Throughout their long history of industry experience, innovation has been core to Mitel’s DNA – allowing them to become experts in evolving to meet their customer’s needs and help you do the same for your customers. It’s why they’re the only company that wakes up every day exclusively focused on helping you take your communications from where they are today to where you – and your customers – need and expect them to be.

For more information, go to: https://www.mitel.com/ or https://www.mitel.com/about/why-mitel

This month, Teleopti announced that Support Services Group has successfully deployed the company's cloud-based Workforce Management (WFM) technology to schedule over 300 agents across five locations and four time zones in the USA and the Dominican Republic.  Since implementing the new Teleopti WFM Cloud solution, Support Services Group has tangibly increased productivity by 5%. The organization has also managed to minimize the number of hours required to support different customer programs and meet client service levels while reducing agent idle time and over staffing. In this podcast Dave Hoekstra, Teleopti Evangelist, outlines the announcement and how WFM has impacted productivity and more. Hoekstra outlines the advantages of cloud-based approach

Read the announcement here

Listen to the podcast below

Visiting the EfficientIP DNS Threat Report

“Almost 30% of telcos had sensitive customer information stolen and roughly 43% of telcos were suffering from those DNS based malware attacks within the last year,” says Lauren McAluney, Global Marketing Operations Manager at EfficientIP. In this podcast McAluney is joined by Chris Pyne,

Vice President, North America Sales & Operations at EfficientIP as we learn about EfficientIP and take a year-end look at the EfficientIP DNS Threat Report. This podcast explores why telcos have struggled with this problem and how the situation is literally getting worse in real-time. Telco networks are massive, with data useage being much larger than other networks. A security patch can take days to apply. The attacks are costly, getting costlier and are ever more threatening to the telco as a thriving organization and business.  After learning about the scope of the problem, we learn about solutions and EfficientIP’s approach.

Visit http://www.efficientip.com/resources/dns-security-survey-2018/

It is in the presence of nature that we as humans are at our optimal level of sense of well-being and sense of calm,” says Robert Manassero, Global Product Marketing Manager regarding Plantronics and the biophilic science approach to a better office. In this podcast we learn how Plantronics is working to transform the office using a biophilic science approach, that works to transform the very artificial environment of many office spaces. We learn about soudscaping and heatmapping.  “What we are doing is taking that biophilic science and biophilic acoustics and using that to manage distracting conversations in the open office to allow people to concentrate more, but then to use the positive impacts of biophilic design to increase the sense of well-being.”   Manassero says that means more productive and more motivated employees.

We learn from Manassero that Plantronics is leveraging its own experiences. Having migrated to an open office, the company learned that open offices can be noisy. That set Plantronics on a path to develop products and ideas, not only to mitigate noise but to truly change the office environment.

Visit https://habitat.plantronics.com/

Company Offers Data Management Institute

Jon Toigo is a thought leader, consultant and trainer in the IT market. In this podcast we learn about Toigo Partners and his related companies such as the Data Management Institute. Toigo outlines how his company advises and guides clients through today’s storage issues, which includes buying the right products and services for the need at hand. “I’m all about the end user,” says Toigo, relating his own experiences as an IT manager for eighteen data centers, and later working as a systems architect for a major systems integrator. Today Toigo helps end users find customized solutions and helps dealers to understand opportunities such as adding value through software defined offering on legacy equipment. Toigo discusses his support of the ASCDI and specifically how he appreciates the organization’s role in providing an ethics process and ethics standards that creates more confidence in transactions. We learn about his company’s creative training options, including many free programs. “You have to understand all of the data you have amassed,” says Toigo. We hear about Tiogo’s blog, “Drunken Data” where people can learn how to get their arms around their data and create for themselves a path forward.

Visit http://www.toigopartners.com/

Law Firm Specializes in Serving Cloud Communications Community

Mirroring the UCaaS and CPaaS world that he serves, Jonathan Marashlian says compliance can be more than a legal cost and challenge, but an opportunity, something he calls, Compliance as an Opportunity, or possibly CaaO. In this podcast we learn about Marashlian & Donahue, PLLC, a DC based law firm that specializes in cloud communications law and that brands itself The CommLaw Group. The firm offers a DC law firm’s understanding of legal and tax issues but positions itself more like a Silicon Valley technology company in working to bring a new approach to corporate law.  “We see compliance as an opportunity to competitively position your business to be superior to your competitors,” says Marashlian noting on how the firm’s services can help a firm leverage its compliance needs into an advantage.

Marashlian outlines strategies that can enable a company to structure its services so that the final cost to the end user, with taxes, is very competitive.  Getting taxes in line is notable when most consumers understand that quoted rates end up being much less than what will be billed when taxes are added.

“Our firm, our professionals, our experts on the legal side as well as the consulting side, really can bring a lot of knowledge and capabilities on the compliance, on the regulatory, on the legal (issues) and doing it all for a fee structure that is much more palatable that companies might be expected to spend with a “DC lawyer”,” says Marashlian. The podcast covers some of the firm’s unique offerings such as a Risk Management Services that evaluates company data on a quarterly basis to better understand compliance costs and risks. We also learn how the firm works to customize their services to the scale of the actual challenges at hand, thereby avoiding over engineering a legal task.

Marashlian notes that The CommLaw Group is a member of the CCA, a group he says has provided thought leadership to the industry.

https://commlawgroup.com/

“A tariff is basically a tax” …  “There’s are three lists of products that have been covered under tariffs, and a fourth list is threatened, that basically cover all of the additional goods that come out of China,” says Arthur Freierman, an attorney who serves as outside counsel to the AscdiNatd. Freierman has assisted the AscdiNatd with the organization’s ethics process, which seeks to maintain best practices for members and for the industry as a whole. Now, with tariffs as a new political and economic issue, Freierman has been offering advice to the organization and the organization’s members as they navigate through an unprecedented, in modern times, era of tariffs and potential “trade wars” with nations such as China. China is a major manufacture for much of the gear AscdiNatd members sell, buy and service. “The total of the first three lists is about $250 billion of product annually that would be subject to tariffs, bug the fourth list as an additional $267 billion, so it adds up?!”

In this podcast Freierman lays out what dealers and other channel partner companies need to know and understand about tariffs and the process that add or remove tariffs. He discusses what buyers and sellers should understand if they are trading across a border where tariffs have been imposed. A major takeaway is that tariffs view the products place of manufacture, and not where its being shipped from, as to what tariffs might be levied. A company importing used equipment originally made in China is likely going to face tariffs as if the gear was being imported from China, even if the used equipment is being sold and shipped from a country other than China. Freierman outlines resources available and ways for members to stay up to date on tariff status. Since many AscdiNatd members operate on buy and sell price differentials, tariffs can change the price or desirability of certain transactions. Freierman also points out that attempts to avoid tariffs by improperly processing declarations and other documents ca lead to still penalties and fines.  Keeping current and best practices are a sound way to proceed.

Freierman notes that the AscdiNatd has been working on public policy while keeping members up to date on the tariff situation unfolds.