“Splicecom partners have benefited from our single solution approach to voice for many years now. Cloud, on premise or a blend of the two; whatever the requirement might be, it’s all based on the same underlying system,” says Stuart Bell, Splicecom’s Head of Sales for the UK and Ireland. “But in certain situations, it just isn’t the right time for selling a new voice system.” Bell explains, “Often the customer has a need, but budgets just aren’t there, or it might be that budgets are frozen. In days gone by it would then be a case of contacting the prospect on a regular basis to ensure that, when funds became available, you could start the sales process in earnest – and hopefully ahead of the competition. But with our low-cost ISDN to SIP converter there’s no need to wait. You can sign the customer up for all the benefits and cost-savings associated with SIP today and as the incumbent, transition them to cloud or on premise voice when the time is right.
No product training is required to sell ISIP converters as configuration is handled through a simple cloud provisioning tool. Testing has been completed against all the PBXs partners regularly come across in the UK, including those from Mitel, Nortel, Avaya, Siemens, Alcatel and Shoretel and SIP trunk services from channel favourites like Gamma, TalkTalk Business and Voiceflex. Bell adds “All the testing was carried-out well in advance of the launch. This was done in conjunction with our accredited partners, who between them, maintain and have access to just about every PBX that’s ever been shipped in the UK. In reality, because ISDN has been established for so long, there was very little variance between the interfaces supplied by different manufacturers. Toshiba springs to mind, because of the number of DDI digits they present, so we had add a setting to overcome that particular limitation, but that’s about it.”
Bell continues “The countdown to the big ISDN switch-off in 2025 is underway and all forms of IT – and therefore the channel selling it - continue to converge. As such, incumbent supplier status takes on critical importance for reseller survival and growth, by putting them at the front of the queue for new and add-on business.”
In addition to the general 'land grab’ of customers, Bell has another interesting channel insight that’s come to light since Splicecom started shipping ISIP. “Those resellers that have maintenance contracts for the PBX, but who haven’t supplied the ISDN are using ISIP to provision SIP trunks AND connectivity. They effectively bypass the ISDN provider to ‘own’ the customer and put themselves in an even stronger position when it’s time to renew the PBX as there are no other suppliers involved. Ultimately, ISIP is a very simple, low-cost device that underpins our ‘never walk away from a deal again’ strategy for resellers."