Do you want fries with that? It’s a cross sell that we’re all familiar with. You placed your order and now you’re being asked if you want a side of something else. There is a reason that major corporations use this popular tactic – it works. You’re already a customer, they have you there, and when ask if you want something else, you realize that you just might.
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5G and IoT will change our world! That’s what we’ve been promised. For years, we have been hearing how 5G will have us working at lightning speed and how IoT will have objects and devices around us operating autonomously. As we enter the 5G and IoT world, let’s explore what this means for mobility and what is on the horizon for businesses.
Cloud Communications Architect and Tech Guru, John Romeo, shares how outbound dialing can really benefit your customers’ businesses, especially at a time when many organizations are looking to improve efficiency and better manage headcount.
Outbound dialing is more than just the stigma of a robo-call anymore - it can be as adaptive and advance as any inbound IVR treatment but in reverse. The advantage to calling your customer vs. waiting for them to call you is the ability to control the volume and staff appropriately, instead of attempting to guess your busy hour and falling short, creating a poor customer experience. Plus, having multi-skilled agents handling both inbound calls and participating in an outbound campaign maximizes your workforce efficiency.
Cloud Infrastructure Architect and TBI Tech Guru, Jim Demetrius, shares his insight on how to make this year better than the last – and how to avoid some of the same mistake if possible. Apply this insight to your own business and share with your customers.
The last thing any of us want to do is to replay 2020 with all the year’s ups, downs and uncertainties. This past year has been crazy to say the least, for all of us personally and professionally. We had to learn to work from home and manage our time appropriately and interact with our peers on new and different platforms. We all managed to figure out the Zoom calls and conference calls – and putting a sticky note over the camera of our laptops so no one could see us!
Today, your customers operate their IT infrastructure and run applications across many cloud environments. They continue to invest in cloud for easy deployment, flexibility, cost management and performance. Nearly all organizations have embraced a multi-cloud strategy – 93% according to Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud Report. The pandemic sped up transformation initiatives, and technology partners should capitalize on migrations and improving experience. If you have not downloaded it yet, be sure to get The Cloud Journey Guide for insights on how to maximize demand.
Colocation continues to be a dependable, solid solution to have in your portfolio. Need for these services are growing with the acceleration of digital transformation and with more and more businesses turning to hybrid IT and cloud-based services. Remote-work models are here to stay, and colocation allows IT staff to perform data center duties offsite. Additionally, businesses might turn to colocation to help with security both physical and for remote employees filtered traffic to a centralized, secure location with managed firewalls and proper access controls in place. Get TBI’s sell sheet on colocation to learn more benefits to your customers.
If there was ever a year that tested our strength as humans, it was 2020. The personal and professional struggles were indeed very real as our new normal was anything but. Our lives were uprooted, people dealing with immense hardships and mental stress. I found myself working more and having even less of a work life balance, not like I had much before. The lines of being a mom, boss, teammate, friend, coworker have all been blurred and I now have much greater appreciation for others trying to find balance in a world that seems uncertain and scary.
AI in the collaborative space is not a new concept but its role and demand in the midst of a global pandemic have never been more relevant than today. However, having AI and having a strategy for how to use it and drive value, internally and externally, are two separate things. The term “garbage in garbage out” has never become more of an apt phrase than in relation to what data is driving this automated intelligence. Companies must adapt quickly to change, more so today than ever. Rigorously creating an answer and response database from scratch, or using a knowledge base that is not properly vetted, are what most companies are forced to choose from. The key is to understand that going from little or no automation to a full automation agent-less customer experience overnight is not the answer. Below are examples of core concepts for a successful AI journey.
Cloud Infrastructure Architect and TBI Tech Guru, Jim Demetrius, shares his insight on how to successfully move customers to the cloud – the conversations that need to be had and considerations that need to be made.
5 Days, 5 Takeaways – Recap of TBI’s BIG Event 2020
TBI hosted our fifth annual BIG Event on August 17th through 21st. Not only was this year bigger than ever – 5 days, 30+ sessions, 40+ providers – it was completely virtual! Taking place for a couple hours each day throughout the week, we addressed some of the biggest IT topics concerning businesses right now. Each day focused on a different subject – Emerging Tech & Mobility, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Cloud Communications and Collaboration, and Next Gen Networking. Partners were able to maximize their time by attending the sessions of their choice and booking 1on1 meetings directly with providers. In case you were not able to attend or missed a session, we’ve made replays available here. If you want the opportunity to connect with a specific provider, reach out to your Channel Manager to facilitate a meeting.
Reflecting on this year’s BIG Event, we put together five key takeaways, one for each day of the event.
Business continuity strategy means having a resilient, redundant remote working environment accessible in the cloud that encompasses all necessary business systems. This would include communications like voice and contact center, CRMs, data center infrastructure, backup strategy and disaster recovery.
The days of the salesperson being a trite, overused stereotype are over. Successful sales people today can message technologies and pivot based on end-user needs. To most of you out there, this is not a new revelation; customers often feel as if they know the product based on their own research. You cannot discount a customer’s opinion, they’re the one buying after all. But what if their conception of the product or service is downright incorrect? How do we correct the customer without bruising their ego while still ensuring the next colleague that touches this account is aware of said interaction? Without a contiguous record of interaction, this sales cycle will be prolonged if the customer ever decides to buy your product at all.
We are in a new and different world. It happened overnight, and no one could have predicted it.
Just several weeks ago, we had a choice. If we needed essentials, we could immediately walk into a brick and mortar store to get what we wanted, or we could go online to make the same purchase. Today, we suddenly find ourselves in a world that quickly evolved from traditional brick and mortar stores to essentially one of virtual reality. With both major retail chains and local businesses shutting down overnight, we have been forced into a world of uncertainty and have become even more reliant on online retailers to get us the goods and services we need
In these uncertain times, there is a lot of turmoil about how and where business will be transacted. In the channel, the telecommunications and infrastructure that run it all are being affected in a number of ways. There are challenges for businesses, whether an infrastructure is hosted on-premise or in the cloud.
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Disaster Recovery as a Service, or DRaaS as it is more commonly known, is an essential part of a well thought out business continuity (BC) plan. Business continuity plans refer to the systems of prevention and recovery that are put in place to deal with potential threats. I typically ask my customers if they have a disaster recovery plan in place to safeguard their key IT systems that run their business applications. There are two types of customers, the ones who understand the importance of DRaaS and business continuity and have plans in place and those that don’t understand the full scope of DRaaS and business continuity and therefore do not have plans in place to safeguard themselves against potential threats.
In the past week, we have seen an incredible change in how the country is reacting to the pandemic. Just last week many organizations were attempting to create or solidify contingency plans “if” the need to transition to a remote workforce arose - this week, that became a reality for a large majority of organizations across the globe. From finance and marketing to technology and education, working from home has suddenly become the “new normal” for the foreseeable future, and securing your remote workforce has become a top concern.
All companies, including those not yet directly impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, have a limited amount of time to make sure that they are prepared if/when the virus hits their area, maybe even directly in their organization. Right now, companies are advised to do a function-by-function audit as well as a holistic overview to identify areas needing immediate attention— addressing network security gaps, revisiting work from home policies, or tackling potential operational shortfalls, such as lack of cloud communication tools.
Today, channel partners are dealing with more complex environments than ever before. While this pace of change has led to unprecedented growth in our industry, the onslaught of information on the latest technology from vendors and distributors can be overwhelming at best. On bad days, we can shut down, stay in our lane and focus on what we’re comfortable with – network, managed and cloud services.
By now, you’ve no doubt read a dozen or more “predictions” pieces and have heard all the buzzwords from the industry about 5G, AI, edge compute, and more, but so what? As a business owner, new tech and buzzwords do little to help your bottom line. Understanding how these things are directly impacting your customers so you can continue to meet their needs while also growing your business is the type of information you’re probably after.
