hosted ip vs ip pbx
TRANSCRIPT
ACQUIRING VOIP KNOWLEDGE
TRAINING NEEDS, AND HOW TO MEET THEM
A WHITE PAPER PRESENTED BY
Table of Contents
Introduction ______________________________________________________________ 2 Acquiring VoIP Knowledge ________________________________________________ 2
1. SERVICE PROVIDER KNOWLEDGE AREAS _____________________________________________ 2 2. INTRODUCTION TO VOIP _________________________________________________________ 3 3. SALES TRAINING ________________________________________________________________ 4 4. PROVISIONING _________________________________________________________________ 4 5. CUSTOMER SERVICE _____________________________________________________________ 5 6. END-USER NETWORK DESIGN______________________________________________________ 6 7. IP FUNDAMENTALS ______________________________________________________________ 6 8. END-USER TRAINING_____________________________________________________________ 7
Summary _________________________________________________________________ 9 New Global Telecom’s Solution ___________________________________________10
ABOUT NGT ____________________________________________________________________ 10 CONTACT NGT _________________________________________________________________ 11
INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT … … is provided in summary form. For additional information on this subject, please contact New Global Telecom at (303) 239-1025 or [email protected]. To learn more about New Global Telecom’s managed wholesale VoIP product suite – called 6DegreesIP – please visit www.ngt.com. This document reflects New Global Telecom’s views, based on extensive practical experience delivering outsourced telecom services in both the TDM and VoIP markets. If you have comments, please write to us at [email protected].
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ACQUIRING VOIP KNOWLEDGE TRAINING NEEDS, AND HOW TO MEET THEM
INTRODUCTION
A Hosted VoIP solution can be effectively delivered by Service Providers to the commercial / Enterprise marketplace. Among the advantages of an outsourced Hosted IP solution is the ability to rely on your wholesale partner for delivery of critical service elements and associated support. At the same time, however, Service Providers need to be fully aware of the level of knowledge and expertise necessary within their wholesale provider’s organization – and within their own Company – in order to efficiently provide and support a turnkey Enterprise service. This document provides a perspective on requisite VoIP expertise within a Service Provider organization. In addition, Service Providers selling a Hosted IP solution into the Enterprise market will need to ensure a sufficient level of technical understanding within their customers’ organizations. This document also provides insight into this level of knowledge – as well as the issues Enterprises will face in acquiring this knowledge should they be considering an onsite IP PBX solution.
ACQUIRING VOIP KNOWLEDGE
1. SERVICE PROVIDER KNOWLEDGE AREAS
As a VoIP Service Provider, your Company will need to acquire sufficient knowledge to manage sales & marketing efforts, technical deployment and operational support (including providing Tier 1 support to customers), along with general business functions (such as billing). Within your organization, the following functional groups will require a defined level of knowledge – or will require access to expertise from within your vendor organizations:
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• Sales • Marketing • Customer Support (NOC, Helpline, Provisioning) • Network Administration (Network Technicians, Network Design, Sales
Engineering) • General Staff & Management (Billing, Accounting, Business
Operations) The areas of knowledge identified in the chart below should be addressed very early in the VoIP product development & roll-out process. You should undertake an assessment of knowledge areas to be addressed with your staff in conjunction with your vendor(s), since they may be able to offer you much – if not all – of the relevant content.
Section of this White Paper
Knowledge Areas of Importance
Service Provider Staff
- Hosted Solution 1 -
Customer / End-User Training Needs
2 Introduction to VoIP Required 1 3 Sales Training Required 1 4 Basic Provisioning Required Optional
(Training delivered by
Service Provider) 4 Advanced Provisioning Required 5 Customer Service Required 1 6 End-User Network Design Required 1 7 IP Fundamentals Required 1 8 End-User Training Required 1 Required
(Training delivered by
Service Provider)
1 New Global Telecom’s hosted solution – called 6DegreesIP – provides detailed, instructor-lead training in these knowledge areas. Most of these courses are not offered with many competitive hosted solutions, so you would need to source this support elsewhere. For further information, visit www.ngt.com or contact us at (303) 239-1025 or [email protected]. In sections (2) through (8) below, each of these knowledge areas is discussed in further detail.
2. INTRODUCTION TO VOIP
WHO – All staff at your Company should have at least a basic understanding of the VoIP world as well as your specific product / service offering. Even better, implement your offering internally – nothing generates confidence better than explaining to sales prospects that you use your own service (and nothing raises eyebrows faster than telling sales prospects you don’t use your own service).
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WHAT – Specific areas we recommend that you communicate and explain to your staff include: • PSTN structure • Analog to digital conversion • Packet switching vs. circuit switching • Carrier core networks • Codecs • Terminology
3. SALES TRAINING
WHO – Your sales and sales support (e.g. Account Management) teams will need specific training around your product offering, including how best to create an effective sales proposition, along with anticipated objections & counter-points. WHAT – Unless your sales team has experience selling VoIP services, they will benefit from an experienced trainer, with plenty of sales materials and tools on hand, to help them understand buying triggers. This should include spending time in mock selling situations and using presentation material to help team members understand the issues they will need to deal with. And, with a Hosted IP solution, training and selling situations can involve use of a demo phone for a powerful “try before you buy” pitch. 2 Specific areas for sales training include: • Target markets • Value proposition • Product definition, pricing and processes • SMB (Small- and Mid-size Business) sales presentation • Sales support tools and collateral • Role-playing scenarios 2 The “try before you buy” option is often not available with an IP PBX system, without a forklift installation.
4. PROVISIONING WHO – Customer Support, Network Administration, Sales Engineering and Account Management staff in your Company should have a good grasp of basic provisioning practices. Selected members of these teams, who will be responsible for implementing your new customers and dealing directly with customer issues, should also have more advanced provisioning knowledge. (Refer to Section 8 for discussion of provisioning training for customer end-users.)
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WHAT – Your staff teams will need to understand your product offerings and management of service implementation, moves, adds, and changes along with best practices, either at a basic level (involving perhaps a few hours of training) or at an advanced level (involving up to several days’ training). 3
Specific areas for provisioning training include: Basic Provisioning • Introduction to the platform • Web portal and Web Call Manager • Roles & responsibilities • Setting up groups and managing groups • Adding and managing users • Personal services • Temporary and permanent service term Advanced Provisioning • Soft Phones • Time schedule • Holiday schedule • Departments • Music On Hold • Recording personal greetings / announcements • Calling Plan • Authorization / account codes • Auto Attendant • Hunt Groups • Call Center • Shared Call Appearance • Emergency zones 3 Typically, in-depth provisioning training on a Hosted IP solution requires much less time than on an IP PBX solution, the latter sometimes involving multiple weeks in the classroom.
5. CUSTOMER SERVICE
WHO – Customer Support and Account Management staff will need a level of knowledge sufficient to deal confidently with customer issues. Ideally, this Tier 1 support team should be capable of handling 90%+ of inbound queries & troubles. WHAT – Customer Support team members should be focused on providing excellent customer service – to be effective quickly, this implies that they have a clear expectation of the most frequent end-user issues along with knowledge of trouble shooting tips. Of course, if your Customer Support team does not have considerable background in telephony service or
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direct end-user support, this heightens the importance of acquiring knowledge through training. Speedy problem resolution – in other words, “recovery” – can be a key to winning customer confidence and loyalty. And, your Customer Support team members should be using the services you sell, day in and day out. Specific areas for customer service training include: • Support responsibilities • Vendor(s) support team • Trouble support and procedures • Trouble shooting Frequently Asked Questions from Service Providers • Trouble shooting Frequently Asked Questions from end-users
6. END-USER NETWORK DESIGN
WHO – Your Network Technicians, Network Design and Sales Engineering staff should have an understanding of key network design elements – including knowledge regarding Network Readiness Assessments for your Enterprise customers. WHAT – Since you will be installing VoIP service in customers’ LAN environments, the impact of VoIP applications on other services and functions is critical to understand. And, your team will need to have a good grasp of ways in which packet loss, latency and jitter can impact voice quality for your customers. Proper mechanisms for measurement and management of voice QoS should be in-place. Specific areas for network design training include: • Challenges in delivering voice over IP networks • Network Readiness Assessments • Firewall considerations • NAT Traversal considerations • Vendors’ network design
7. IP FUNDAMENTALS
WHO – Network and technical staff members must have a good understanding of topics such as IP addressing, TCP/IP and network fundamentals. WHAT – This training should fill in knowledge gaps that your staff may have in terms of IP fundamentals. We suggest that instructor-lead training be used to deliver IP addressing and subnetting material – these are areas
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that many I.T. professionals struggle with until they have had practical experience. Other topics, such as TCP/IP and network fundamentals are readily available in books or through online training sources. Specific areas for this training include: • Binary math • Defining an IP address • IP addressing rules • Classfull IP addressing • Default subnet masks • Custom subnet masks
8. END-USER TRAINING HOSTED IP SERVICE – When providing a Hosted IP solution to Enterprise customers, you will need to provide training materials as well as hands-on assistance. The precise content you will need to cover depends on how your service is defined. For instance, if your organization is going to take care of provisioning, moves, adds and changes, then the transfer of related information to your customers is optional. But, if your customers are expected to manage any of these activities, they will need the necessary training. End-users in your customers’ environment will obviously need to understand the operation of new features and telephone sets (and/or soft phones). Your management of this training activity is critical – nothing causes a new customer relationship to go sour faster than a “cut & run” installation effort. And, be sure you allocate enough time and resource to this activity – after all, some of the functionality you are delivering (such as the GUI interface, remote office feature, and so on) will appear daunting to many end-users at first. IP PBX SERVICE – When your Company’s sales team encounters Enterprise prospects that are considering an IP PBX solution, there are a number of points in the area of ‘knowledge acquisition’ that are worth understanding and pointing out to these prospects. Neither Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s) nor the Value Added Resellers (VAR’s) who sell their equipment are, in general, prepared to provide customers with training or information in such areas as an overview of VoIP, end-user network design or IP fundamentals (and, if they do, there will be a price associated with this). So, the customer must seek information in these areas from other sources. And, while the OEM or VAR will train customer’s staff on the equipment – for purposes of administration – they will often expect students to have prerequisite knowledge before attending a training program.
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The following table provides a summary of typical training needs – and availability of training assistance – in an IP PBX service environment.
Knowledge Areas of Importance
PBX VAR Staff - Onsite PBX Solution -
Customer / End-User Training Needs
Introduction to VoIP Required (Training not offered by OEM)
Sales Training Required (Training not offered by OEM)
Basic Provisioning Required (Training can be purchased
from OEM)
Required (Training delivered by PBX
VAR or OEM) Advanced Provisioning Required
(Training can be purchased from OEM)
Optional (Training delivered by PBX
VAR or OEM) Customer Service Required
(Training not offered by OEM)
End-User Network Design Required (Training not offered by OEM)
Optional (End-users must source this
training / information) IP Fundamentals Required
(Training not offered by OEM) Optional
(End-users must source this training / information)
End-User Training Required (Training can be purchased
from OEM)
Required (Training delivered by PBX
VAR or OEM)
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SUMMARY
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NEW GLOBAL TELECOM’S SOLUTION
ABOUT NGT
New Global Telecom provides telephony solutions to service providers worldwide through its New Global Telecom and General Telecom brands. New Global Telecom developed its managed wholesale VoIP product suite – 6DegreesIP – as an effective turnkey platform to support the profitable provision of VoIP services to business and residential customers. Our product suite includes Hosted IP PBX and Class 5 features, end-customer support, network and facilities management (including NOC) and back office functionality. New Global Telecom's customers include ISPs, CLECs and other service providers seeking to expand revenue via a low-risk, low-cost, managed wholesale solution.
Whether you are seeking to add new customers, generate incremental revenue streams from existing customers or improve customer retention, 6DegreesIP can help you profitably achieve your goals.
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Specific benefits of NGT's 6DegreesIP product suite for Service Providers are:
• Incremental Revenue Generation Service Providers can exploit new market opportunities, increase ARPU (average revenue per user) and improve retention with attractive margins on products that fit your market need
• Accelerated New Product Time-to-Market 6DegreesIP enables fast time-to-market, with low risk using reliable technology
• Management of Business Capital and Expense Our managed wholesale solution allows you to avoid capital outlays and reduce operating expense, while implementing a scalable service solution
• Access to Experience New Global Telecom provides first-rate customer support, and you gain access to our depth of experience in the voice telecom and VoIP serving environments
New Global Telecom’s 6DegreesIP product suite continues to evolve with a clear and strategic purpose – to deliver market-leading functionality in each product area depicted in this graphic. Our strategy has developed in direct response to the needs of NGT’s diverse customer base as well as the demands of the marketplace.
CONTACT NGT For more information about New Global Telecom and outsourced telephony services – including our 6DegreesIP product suite – please contact: New Global Telecom [email protected] www.ngt.com
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