3 Ways for Channel Reps to Deliver Value to Customers

Understanding the Needs of the Customer is Crucial to Channel Success

The demand for unified communications and collaboration solutions is higher than ever, and it continues to grow. Businesses and organizations continue to look for more ways to increase and improve the responsiveness and the productivity of their employees. The Unified Communications (UC) market is filled with a variety of resources and tools that will meet all of your business's collaboration and communication needs.

UC solutions are created to help your business or organization successfully optimize its overall productivity so your internal communications can be simplified. With so many unified communications solutions and products available, many people are taking their time instead of diving right into a solution. Many business owners are making sure they choose UC products and solutions that will fit perfectly into their business strategy. 

To make their way through all the noise, channel partners need to make sure they recommend technology and other solutions that will solve the client's greatest challenge. The right channel partner will be able to do so much more than identifying the business and organizational challenges that clients may face. The right channel sales partner will also be able to stay on top of the different UC trends that continue to evolve. Channel partners should be able to educate clients on which solutions and products have actually resulted in success for others.

However, before anyone makes changes to their unified communications sales strategy, channel partners should not forget to evaluate the resell-able solutions and products - they should be able to locate in holes or gaps in their product collection. If a client makes the decision to transition their operations from on-premise to the cloud, what will happen if the channel partner is only reselling on-prem solutions? That channel partner will miss out on a big sale because they don't offer a cloud-based solutions. 

When channel partners have the perfect mix of UC solutions, the partners will place themselves in a better position to become one of the experts who will always be called on when there is a need. The channel partner will be able to provide the best solution that will meet all of the client's challenges and maintain their place as one of the best reps in the communications marketplace. How can UC channel reps improve their capabilities and make improvements to the relationships they have with clients?

Here are some of the things that channel partners can do to increase their chances of success:

• Make sure everyone on the sales team feels empowered by ensuring they are properly trained and are equipped with the right content to communicate with their customers and clients

• Have a clear understanding of the strategies and goals of the business or organization. There will not be a one-size-fits-all solution so it is important that the client has the solution that is appropriate for their strategy. 

• Make sure the client is ready for the recommended UC solution. If the business or organization does not have a solid IT infrastructure, the UC solutions that may not be compatible. 

Channel reps should always be willing and ready to think of new ways to improve their relationships with their clients. Channel reps should continue to ask themselves how they can help the client improve their overall business operations. While bringing in a high revenue is certainly a priority, reps should focus on other things aside from selling as many solutions and products as possible. When channel reps step out of the sales shoes and into the advisory shoes, their sales strategies can be improved greatly.