Customer Service And Call Accounting
Call Accounting can be a very profitable product for a reseller either as the main
thrust of his business or as an add-on product to PBX sales and service. But why is it, the majority of Value Added Resellers find it impossible to benefit from this major opportunity?
Resellers are not at fault, but the fact is, the average customer cannot rely on their call accounting package because of inherent service issues. The inherent maintainability of a stand alone package limits the resellers ability to perform.
Here we discuss the problems and a strategy to vitalize the industry.
Issues
There are two main problems, reliability and access to information. In a recent survey of call accounting resellers we asked the questions .
What is the total number of packages you have installed over the last 3 years?
Can you say with any certainty how many are actually collecting data today, if so how many?
Of the working packages how many correctly cost telephone calls with todays rates?
You may be surprised by the results. Of resellers who install stand alone software packages, none could tell us with any confidence how many were operational, but as a generally thumb suck estimated 70% (I think, erring on the optimistic side), and of these, only half had upgraded to the latest tariff tables. Conclusion, only 35% of all standalone call accounting software packages installed where properly working.
Then we asked:
When a customer reports a fault, what is the average response time?
Generally the answer is,"'we don't view call accounting as mission critical, when we have a technician in the area with time on his hands we attend to it."
Solution
A reseller serious about making a profit from call accounting needs to do better than this.
The architecture of a stand alone solution is the limiting factor, a stand alone software package with no way for the reseller to remotely communicate with it is just not going to play a part in the future of call accounting.
With a stand alone system, the reseller waits for the customer to report a problem, the customer only knows something is wrong when a report doesn't work. It could have been faulty for a week or longer. Add to this the "non critical" nature of the fault and potentially we have a two week response time. Not good.
Summary
The very architecture of how a reseller delivers this service must change, fortunately there is an answer, it is in Software as a Service. Call accounting delivered as a web based application, with automatic monitoring 24/7 and providing a truly managed service with up-times of 99.9%, enabling next day response to faults, and customer queries answered by a single telephone call or email.
Stand alone software is dead, a new opportunity arises to re-vitalize the business and offer resellers the chance to make a healthy profit. The future of call accounting lies in Web based services.
by: Mike Guile
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