Increase VoIP Sales Through Standardized Services

Unless a VAR has a strong nationwide presence, it has to rely on the help of vendors, VADs (value-added distributors), and other partners (e.g. software developers, Internet service providers) to roll out IT solutions. This is especially true in VoIP, which entails working with broadband connectivity providers, telephone systems vendors/VADs, and networking appliances vendors/VADs. Systems integrators like Sunturn, Inc. know how important partners are to their success. Since its inception in 2000, this 30-employee company has relied heavily on partners to fulfill implementations outside the areas of its Littleton, CO headquarters and Salt Lake City and Phoenix facilities. Having partners that lack the same IT knowledge and professional service acumen as your internal staff can be costly to your reputation and bottom line. And, that’s why in 2005 Sunturn made the difficult decision to add more engineers and salespeople to its staff so it could regain control of VoIP implementations.

 
Protect Your VoIP Implementation Reputation

Mike McIver, one of Sunturn’s cofounders and the VP of sales and partner alliances, still cringes when he recalls some of the events leading up to Sunturn’s decision to rein in its implementation partnerships and bring more of its VoIP implementation services in-house. One scenario was a large call center installation involving the latest Avaya IP Office contact center equipment. “The technician our partner sent to do the install had never been trained on the new equipment,” says McIver. “When he saw the new phone equipment, the first words out of his mouth were, ‘I ain’t never seen nothing like that before.’” To keep the customer from backing out of the deal, McIver and one of his top engineers had to fly to the customer’s facility, apologize for the partner’s ineptness, and handle the implementation themselves. Rob Nixon, who is also one of Sunturn’s cofounders and the VP of operations, recalls other, less humorous situations when a vendor partner or other third party service provider was unable to get a new IP phone system to work properly even after spending two straight days setting it up and configuring it at the customer’s facility. “While attempting to configure the VoIP application [e.g. unified communication, presence management], the technician screwed up the whole system and was unable to fix it,” says Nixon. “We flew our technician on-site, and he was able to solve the problem within four hours — after spending most of his time trying to figure out and undo the other technician’s errors.”

By the end of its fourth year in business, Sunturn’s cofounders (which, besides McIver and Nixon, include Brian Bacigalupo, the company’s president) knew they had to take control of their outsourced implementation services. The result of their collaboration was the Sunturn Solution Delivery (SSD) organization, an implementation team that includes engineers certified in various Avaya VoIP phone systems as well as Extreme Networks’ switches and Nortel Networks’ data networking appliances.

Step 1: Build A VoIP Staging Facility

Sunturn knew it wouldn’t be able to completely migrate all of its implementations in-house, but it could reduce the setup time needed on-site. To achieve this, the integrator created a staging facility at its Littleton facility and had its VoIP VADs ship customer orders directly to Sunturn’s warehouse rather than to end users.

Once a shipment is received, a Sunturn engineer removes all of the components from the boxes (e.g. IP PBXs [private branch exchanges], phones, switches, gateways), connects the equipment, plugs it in, turns it on, and performs all of the necessary configurations per the customer’s requirements. For instance, an engineer may load presence management software on the IP PBX, and he may input the customer’s phone extensions into the phone system and install security software. “During the staging process, we catch a lot of problems such as defective equipment, corrupt software, and incorrect license numbers,” says McIver.

After all of the software is loaded, configured, and tested, a Sunturn engineer repackages the solution, palletizes it, and ships it to the customer. “Our goal is to reduce the implementation process at the end user’s facility to racking, stacking, and turning on the power,” says McIver. “We’ve already seen a huge reduction in implementation problems. Out-of-box failures have virtually disappeared, and 85% of our initial implementation problems were eliminated.”

Step 2: Document Your New VoIP Implementation Procedures

One of the biggest challenges to Sunturn’s decision to standardize its VoIP implementation process was bringing more engineers on board. Specifically, Sunturn sees its staging facility as providing more than just inspection and quality control functions. It also expects its engineers to be able to effectively communicate with salespeople, technicians, and customers. “Most of our new hires have come on board via our personal networks and word of mouth,” says Nixon. “The first thing we do before bringing on a new hire is validate the candidate’s technical skills as well as their attitude and ability to take ownership of a situation. If a person meets these initial requirements, we put them into a group interview session with our engineers and allow them to cross-examine the new candidate.”

Sunturn realized that to successfully change its implementation processes salespeople, CSRs (customer service representatives), and implementation partners needed to be aware of the new procedures. The first thing the integrator did was create procedures for receiving hardware and software into its warehouse and steps that had to be followed to set up the hardware and software. Next, it came up with procedures describing how engineers would communicate to Sunturn salespeople, customers, and outsourced technicians responsible for setting up the solution at the end user’s site.

During the documentation process, the integrator realized it needed to establish written policies and procedures for its outsourced implementation partners as well. Sunturn created a document that contained a noncompete agreement as well as specific procedures on what technicians were supposed to do prior to performing the implementation. For example, one of the problems Sunturn experienced in the past was that outsourced technicians wouldn’t call them if there was a problem, but instead would call the vendor, VAD, or the technicians’ own companies, leaving Sunturn out of the loop. Sunturn now requires technicians to call one of Sunturn’s SSD engineers prior to beginning the install. Sunturn also learned from experience the value of having technicians perform site surveys prior to installations to check for any anomalies. “On one occasion a technician discovered the customer had a Fibre Channel connection in the data center, even though the customer told us it was using a standard Ethernet connection,” says McIver. “By catching this up front, we included the proper layer-two gear with our shipment, which prevented any install delays.”

 
Step 3: Qualify Your Outsourced Service Partners

Sunturn still works with implementation partners, but in addition to requiring partners to agree to follow its implementation guidelines and procedures, the integrator has significantly reduced the number of partners it works with from several dozen to six. The weaning process was accomplished largely with the help of Sunturn’s SSD engineers, who would interview various partner candidates and rank their IT knowledge and customer service attitude and reputation (verified through reference checks) before giving the thumbs up or down to Sunturn’s cofounders. After determining its six implementation partners, Sunturn selected key engineers and technicians within the partner companies to work with so it could get to know them by name and develop a stronger rapport. “We paid to have these key technicians trained at our Littleton, CO facility,” says McIver. “They got to meet our salespeople and engineers in person, see our staging facility, and receive training on how the staging process works.”

Sunturn even assigns its key partners Sunturn uniforms so that when these partners are at one of Sunturn’s customers, they will fully represent the integrator. “We’re up front with our customers about using outsourced service partners,” says McIver. “But, we also assure them that when they see a Sunturn uniform, they can be assured they’re working with a technician who has been personally interviewed, references have been checked, and he’s been trained by our company.”

Within six months of starting the SSD organization, Sunturn has seen significant improvements in the way implementations are handled. Equally encouraging is the increase in the number of daily sales calls/visits to new prospects. “By having to put out fewer fires resulting from problematic implementations, our salespeople can focus on going after new business,” says McIver. The combination of making more sales calls, the reduction of implementation expenses, and handling more of the implementation process internally all contribute to Sunturn’s expected 25% sales revenue increase this year.