There are many options on the market for enterprise communications. It’s easy to get distracted by nice-to-have features and easier still to get bogged down in competitive pricing. The problem for VoIP resellers is that they need to be confident in their service offering right from the first pitch. To determine if your offering is a modern and capable voice system that’s reliable and flexible enough to last, you should check the following criteria before making a recommendation to your customers.

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Below, you’ll find a quiz about your voice system. Each question is in simple “yes or no” format, and each question is weighted at either one or two points. The two point questions are absolutely critical to business voice and impact system reliability or other key business functions, while the one-pointers ask about bonus features that improve overall usage of the system, i.e. selling points. Answer the following questions:

1. Are account settings easy for system administrators to adjust in a visual GUI? (1 pt)
2. Do you have an infrastructure featuring cluster redundancy for uptime stability and failover safety? (2 pts)
3. Are you able to build out and offer custom apps to customers? (1 pt)
4. Do you have the option to white label your VoIP platform? (2 pts)
5. Can customers opt to easily scale their account up to 10,000 numbers per sub account? (1 pt)
6. Do system administrators have control over carrier assignments, so they can optimize for cost and call reliability? (1 pt)
7. Can customers set up their own call flow structure with minimal intervention from trained IT? (1 pt)
8. Does the system rely on the power of the cloud (e.g. AWS) for additional voicemail and call record storage? (1 pt)
9. Do system administrators have complete control over user accounts’ feature access and billing structure? (1 pt)
10. Can users access an online PBX control panel and set up switching options between devices, like softphones and mobile phones? (2 pts)
11. Are details like agent call times, statuses, queue station, etc. all readily available to account managers in real-time? (2 pts)
12. If necessary, can the IT team review the live status of devices to gauge system health and perform debugging actions? (2 pts)
13. Can you easily provision the phones and manage them remotely? (1 pt)

So What’s My Grade?

F, 0-5 points: It looks like you’re probably on an older system and don’t have much to work with in terms of virtualization. If that’s true, it’s also probably safe to assume that you’re working in a fairly analog environment and have to make hands-on changes to coding and network hardware. You’re operating with high costs, a temperamental system, and not much in the way of customer satisfaction. Competition is going to be really tough unless you make a change to your offering.

D, 6-11 points: You’ve got some tricks up your sleeve and a few features to offer, but your reliability may leave some customers wanting. You’re most likely able to win over customers on price in most cases, because the other platforms out there can offer more features to the end user. With price, however, you can only get so low… and the entire industry is locked in a “race to zero.” When you lose your one big competitive advantage, it’s going to be difficult to keep customers attracted.

C, 12-13 points: You’re doing well enough. The platform is pretty stable, your long-time customers are content, but you can’t seem to edge into any bigger markets. SMBs are your safe targets. Those customers aren’t interested in anything fancy. They just want their calls to connect. You’ve nailed down selling your value in terms of reliability and customer service, but you’re losing a lot of opportunities to more feature-rich systems.

B, 14-16 points: You’re operating on a pretty solid system. You have some additional features to offer and your account management is relatively easy to handle. The drawback is that IT is required for simple changes, and complex changes are impossible. Every so often you’ll get support calls and have to say, “we can’t do that.” Your most satisfied customers are the ones that don’t know or don’t bother to look for other solutions, and that’s just fine by you.

A, 17-18 points: Congratulations, you’ve got a great voice offering in your hands! With a nice balance between scalability and flexibility, you know that when your customers sign on, they’re not going anywhere for a while. Anything they need assistance with is easy to troubleshoot because of your real-time insights into system health, and you can even respond to custom requests for additional features with relative ease. The platform is reflective of your value as a reseller, and you can confidently go toe-to-toe with the biggest players in a competitive scenario.

Want to Improve Your Score?

Clearly, customer demands for a flexible and reliable business voice solution have gotten more complex over time. As the bar for business technology just keeps getting higher, it’s important to take action and stay ahead of the curve to ensure your customers’ success. Searching for the right platform to offer your customers can be easier if you can identify the modern standards for cloud-based VoIP. Learn about where telecom started out and what users and administrators expect of their platforms today in the free eBook, Speaking Clearly: How Cloud is Changing Business Communications. Click here to get your resource now.