In the July 17, 2009 edition of the Telecom Dispatch, I had the pleasure of reporting on a small business focus group session thatFox Group and other industry technology journalists were invited to, acting as observers.
The initial report on this event was from the perspective of how small business utilizes technology to help them survive the changing economic times. As I continued to give this some thought, I had to remind myself that sustained business success is not only about cost cutting; it is about increasing top line revenues in order to succeed for the long run.
In the past, it has been about cost reduction
Over the past one hundred years telecommunications has gone from a regulated utility, to a competitive commodity, and now to an integrated information communications technology (ICT) platform.
These transitions have been driven primarily from a cost reduction model. Clearly, competitive services reduced the cost of the services, and thereby improving the corporate bottom line.
Over the past few years, VoIP deployments have become mainstream and office hotelling – teleworker environments have reduced the costs of office infrastructure. In these cases, telecom and IT spending helped reduce corporate overhead through efficiency gains and reductions in corporate direct overhead.
Using Telecom and IT to drive top line revenues
As the world recession eases, it is the ideal time to develop solutions that leverage technology to drive business transformation. One of the small businesses interviewed at the conference discussed how a major and much larger competitor had moved their sales office and warehouse out of Canada and consolidated both functions into their New Jersey location.
The net result was possible slower response time to meet the needs of their Canadian clientele. The firm being interviewed was able to take advantage of this miss-step by leveraging their superior capability to fulfill the clients’ needs more quickly into a successful sales proposition.
What has this got to do with technology?
It is no secret that clients have high expectations for customer service response times. Organizations that are able to successfully “close the deal” on the initial client contact by directing the initial contact to the right person the first time will have a higher revenue per call ratio than those organizations working through multiple callbacks.
In a Unified Communications environment (UC), features such as presence, collaboration tools, voice mail to email and single number reach will increase the probability that the correct resource is contacted regardless of their location or the medium.
As consultants, we regularly interview clients on a variety of customer service issues associated with their various telecom, network and contact centre vendors. A recurring theme is their frustration levels trying to resolve problems and issues.
This is not a new phenomenon, but appropriate UC solutions can often be leveraged to protect “at risk” revenue when a client needs to resolve a problem, as well as help secure new revenue cost effectively from the initial contact.
It is the clear recognition that Telecom and IT solutions are and should be strategic assets that are not only part of the sales proposition, but can help drive new revenues.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback on this article. Feel free to contact us at Editor@foxgroup.ca