Supplying voice services

The first step is to partner with a network carrier and here there are two options. The first is to establish a direct relationship with network carriers such as Openreach (part of BT), BT Wholesale, Talk Talk, Gamma and so on. Such direct relationships have advantages, but it can mean maintaining several accounts with network carriers so that you can offer a full range of services at competitive rates. The wholesale price you are able to negotiate can often be dependent on the volume and commitment you are willing to make. Network carriers will also require a strong financial track record and may set minimum billing levels with upfront payments. This can be challenging for a new entrant into the voice market.

 

The alternative is to partner with one of the many network wholesale providers. In addition to lines these companies usually offer a raft of network services, which can include hosted telephony services, 08 numbers, voice to text messaging and so on. Using a network wholesaler also means there is usually one contact for all services.

 

Services from network wholesalers are normally provided in one of two ways, depending on the payment model. The network wholesaler can have a direct financial relationship with the customer and pay you, the dealer partner, a commission on sales. In this case the services are usually branded in the wholesalers name and they are running the financial risk with the customer base.

 

Alternatively, the dealer partner buys the wholesaler’s services and bills the customer direct with an added margin. In this scenario services can be supplied ‘white labelled’ so that you, the dealer partner, can brand them as your own. Obviously there is a higher financial risk with this approach if the ultimate customer defaults on payment.

 

The approach you take will really depend on how much of a potential market you see coming from your customer base for voice network services and how risk averse your company is. If you see a lot of rapid growth and are keen to exploit it, a direct relationship with network carriers is probably a better option.

 

If you just want to dip your toe, with the minimum of resources, then using a network wholesaler can be better. Some will pretty much do all the work for you, such as line provisioning, fault administration and so on, leaving you to collect a tidy commission each month. However, many network wholesalers also supply end-user accounts direct, so there is always a possibility that customers may seek to eliminate you as the middleman.

 

Once in bed with a network wholesaler it can also be difficult to break away as they will be very reluctant to pass on a lucrative account to a network carrier and the network carriers may be reluctant to take you on if it means upsetting a highly valued network wholesaler!

 

Billing

Once you have chosen your preferred method of sourcing voice services for your customers, you have to establish a billing platform to invoice those services. If you have partnered with a network wholesaler and they are billing the customer direct, then this function is covered. Even if you are invoicing the customer and taking white-labelled services from the network wholesaler, they may still provide the billing under your brand.

 

There are however, substantial advantages to having your own billing platform. Most obviously it puts you in control and you have the reassurance that all the services you are providing to customers are being billed accurately, rather than taking this on trust. Voice billing charges can rise rapidly to over £100,000 a month so accuracy is critical.

 

Having your own billing platform also allows you to provide consolidated single-source billing for all types of comms services including data and mobiles as well as fixed line voice telephony from multiple carriers. Coherent, consolidated billing is a major selling point for customers and can be as important to them as cost savings. In addition the billing platform can be used for other types of contractual arrangements such as software licenses that you are providing.

 

Many data VARs that move into the voice telephony reseller market assume that the process of billing is complex and time consuming. With the latest billing platforms such as Union Street’s aBILLity platform this is certainly not the case. The product takes all the pain out of CDR (charging data record) processing and setting up and managing customers. It is very intuitive and easy to use

 

There is also flexibility in how the billing platform can be provided. Starting off you may prefer to use a bureau service with the billing platform managed for you for a commission of 2.5 percent of the monthly billing value. Alternatively a licence for the billing platform to run on your own hardware starts from under £300 a month.

 

Greater sophistication can be achieved with online, real-time reporting via the web. This will allow your customers to access telecoms billing information from a secure web portal in real-time, which is a terrific selling point for larger customers, especially those operating contact centre operations.

 

Conclusion

If you’re not offering voice and data services to your customers, then someone else will.