UCaaS Vendors: Partnering with the Best Provider for Reseller Success
As business decision-makers recognize the value of investing in cloud-hosted communication solutions, market experts are predicting that up to 75% of US companies will be subscribing to unified communication as a service (UCaaS) platforms by 2030. In response to the persistent demand, wireless internet service providers (WISPs), information technology (IT) consultants, and other managed service providers are partnering with UCaaS vendors to diversify their revenue streams.
For nearly any telecom-adjacent company with an established customer base, reselling UCaaS makes perfect sense. Instead of entering arrangements that provide access to a limited number of services, they’re choosing business agreements that ensure continued growth as their clients’ communication needs evolve.
But not all reseller arrangements are as lucrative as you might expect. Once you know how the best UCaaS providers ensure the success of their reseller partners, you may consider leveraging UCaaS to expand your own business portfolio.
What is UCaaS?
Definition and Explanation
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a cloud-based solution that integrates multiple communication channels, including voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools, into a single platform. This approach provides businesses with a scalable and cost-effective way to manage communication costs while improving productivity and collaboration. UCaaS minimizes the need for expensive on-premises hardware and various software applications by delivering communication solutions through a cloud service provider. This unified communications model ensures that all communication tools are accessible from any internet-capable device, streamlining business operations and enhancing overall efficiency.
Why Companies Need More Than Traditional Voice Calls
Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever, making relying solely on traditional voice calls no longer sufficient. Companies are increasingly recognizing the need for comprehensive communication solutions that go beyond simple voice interactions. This shift is driven by the rise of remote and hybrid workforces, which has fundamentally changed how businesses operate and communicate.
According to recent statistics, 71% of companies have adopted remote or hybrid work models, necessitating the use of advanced communication tools to keep teams connected and productive. With employees working from various locations, businesses require unified communications platforms that integrate voice, video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaboration tools to ensure seamless interaction and collaboration.
Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) solutions provide the flexibility and scalability needed to support these diverse work arrangements. By integrating features such as video meetings, team chat, and file sharing, UCaaS platforms enable businesses to maintain efficient communication and collaboration, regardless of where their employees are located.
The demand for scalable communication solutions is further highlighted by the need for features like advanced call routing, call recording, and mobile apps, which allow employees to access communication tools from any device. This ensures that team members can stay connected and collaborate effectively, whether they’re in the office, working from home, or on the go.
As businesses continue to embrace remote and hybrid work environments, the importance of adopting comprehensive UCaaS solutions becomes increasingly evident. By moving beyond traditional voice calls, companies can enhance productivity, improve collaboration, and maintain a competitive edge in today’s dynamic market.
Benefits of UCaaS for Businesses
Migrating to UCaaS phone systems offers a comprehensive solution that extends beyond traditional voice calls. UCaaS integrates voice, video, collaboration, and messaging tools into a unified platform, which can significantly reduce costs, improve efficiency, and foster seamless collaboration.
The benefits of UCaaS include:
Improved Productivity: UCaaS enables employees to work from anywhere, on any device, and access all communication tools in one place, ensuring they remain productive regardless of their location.
Enhanced Collaboration: UCaaS provides real-time communication and collaboration tools, such as video conferencing and instant messaging, to facilitate teamwork and decision-making.
Cost Savings: UCaaS eliminates the need for expensive on-premises hardware and reduces maintenance and implementation costs, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses.
Scalability and Flexibility: UCaaS allows businesses to easily scale up or down to meet changing communication needs, ensuring they can adapt to growth or market fluctuations without significant investment.
Organizations That Benefit Most from UCaaS
UCaaS solutions are particularly advantageous for organizations with a distributed workforce or multiple locations. Companies that have embraced remote or hybrid work models find UCaaS indispensable due to its ability to integrate video conferencing, instant messaging, and collaboration tools into a unified platform. This integration ensures seamless communication and collaboration, no matter where employees are located.
Industries like technology, consulting, and customer service, which often have teams spread across various regions, benefit significantly from the flexibility and scalability that UCaaS offers. With features like advanced call routing, call recording, and mobile apps, these organizations can maintain efficient communication and enhance productivity without the need for extensive on-premises infrastructure.
Additionally, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can greatly benefit from UCaaS by accessing enterprise-level communication tools without the hefty costs associated with traditional systems. UCaaS provides SMEs with a cost-effective solution that includes unlimited international calling, virtual receptionists, and team messaging, allowing them to compete with larger corporations. The scalability of UCaaS ensures that these businesses can easily adjust their communication solutions as they grow, without incurring significant expenses. By adopting UCaaS, SMEs can improve service quality, streamline operations, and enhance customer support, ultimately leading to better business outcomes.
Key Features of UCaaS, including Video Conferencing and Instant Messaging
UCaaS providers offer a range of features designed to enhance business communication and collaboration. Key features include:
Video Conferencing: Allows for face-to-face communication and collaboration with remote teams and clients, making it easier to conduct meetings and presentations.
Instant Messaging: Enables real-time communication and collaboration through text-based messaging, allowing for quick and efficient information exchange.
Unified Communications: Integrates voice, video, and messaging tools into a single platform, providing a seamless communication experience.
Advanced Call Routing: Allows businesses to route calls to specific teams or individuals based on caller ID, time of day, or other criteria, ensuring calls are handled efficiently.
Call Recording: Enables businesses to record and store calls for training, quality control, or compliance purposes, providing valuable insights and documentation.
Customer Support: Provides businesses with 24/7 support and resources to ensure seamless communication and collaboration, helping to resolve issues quickly and maintain high service levels.
How Resellers Benefit from Partnerships with UCaaS Vendors
Building a secure, compliant, and comprehensive UCaaS platform is no simple task. It takes time, money, and a considerable amount of technical expertise. Most business owners interested in expanding their portfolios with UCaaS are fully aware of the challenges involved in designing, developing, and maintaining cloud-hosted services. Instead of building a platform from the ground up, they’re partnering with UCaaS vendors in mutually beneficial arrangements. These partnerships often include features like unlimited international calling, which supports businesses with global operations by allowing them to connect with clients and teams across numerous countries without incurring additional costs.
Related: Guide for UCaaS Resellers: How to Grow Your IT Reselling Business in 2023
UCaaS resellers leverage their brand reputation, customer base, marketing expertise, and customer service skills to attract and retain subscribers. Their partners work behind the scenes, managing, monitoring, and maintaining the infrastructure. When doing your research, be aware of the different types of reseller arrangements. Some resellers work as “agents” on behalf of their platform providers, while others enter co-branded business agreements.
Although most resellers entering these types of partnerships are paid a commission for every lead or new subscriber, they’re often bound to a limited number of service bundles. Their marketing materials make it clear to subscribers that they’re investing in services maintained by one company and sold through another.
Reselling a white-label platform is the preferred option for resellers looking to build their business and brand reputation on UCaaS.
How Reselling White-Label UCaaS Benefits Your Brand & Your Clients
White-label products and services are developed by one company and then made available to others to brand and resell for a profit. UCaaS gives resellers a complete range of customizable solutions to accommodate the communication and collaboration needs of businesses of nearly any size and across multiple industries.
With the right UCaaS vendor partnership, your clients get the ideal combination of reliable, cost-effective services that make the most sense for their business. Desktop and mobile apps play a crucial role in providing comprehensive communication solutions, allowing seamless integration of features such as VoIP calling, SMS, video meetings, and team chat across devices. Meanwhile, you receive training to launch your branded platform, support to provide exemplary customer service, and an impressive list of in-demand features. Consider how you can become your client’s one-stop shop for enterprise voice, video collaboration, business SMS, call center services, and more.
Factors to Consider Before Partnering with a UCaaS Vendor
As a UCaaS reseller, you’re providing a cost-effective alternative to legacy phone service. That includes cloud-hosted telecom solutions with unparalleled call quality and a full complement of features designed to boost efficiency and maximize productivity.
Since UCaaS requires no physical infrastructure, even small business owners without the means to purchase, install, and maintain a business phone system can take full advantage of everything UCaaS has to offer from their PCs, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Mobile apps further enhance business communication services by enabling users to access functionalities like VoIP calling and call forwarding from any location, facilitating seamless collaboration and connectivity.
With UCaaS, all incoming and outgoing calls are converted to digital packets and transmitted over the Internet. With so many companies offering platforms ripe for rebranding, don’t get locked into a sketchy agreement that could tarnish your business reputation, undermine your long-term goals, or jeopardize your future earning potential. Before agreeing to the terms of any arrangement, take a few minutes to consider how the vendors competing for your attention compare in the following areas.
Start-Up Costs & Earning Potential
Most white-label UCaaS platforms have a startup cost, but you’ll find those can vary dramatically across providers. Some UCaaS platform vendors charge hefty fees to offset the cost of consultations, onboarding, and reseller training. Others charge less but offer little to no onboarding help or training, let alone ongoing support or marketing materials. They also are known to pay relatively small commissions.
Either way, it could take years to break even, and the time commitment to get your new service offering off the ground can drain resources. Before committing to a reseller agreement, it’s important to understand exactly how the terms and conditions could impact your earning potential and how long it could take to see a favorable return on your investment.
Be sure to talk with others in the reseller program to learn how things are going. Ask them what the onboarding and training were like, what kinds of support their provider offers, how responsive their provider is when they need technical or operational help, how much recurring revenue they’ve added since becoming a reseller, and how much time they spend managing the process.
The best UCaaS vendors keep their start-up fees minimal and leave the finer points of product pricing to their reseller partners, a crucial detail that directly impacts your bottom line. They also allow you to directly own the customer relationship, giving you control over how and what you sell. Additionally, having a mobile app that facilitates communication and enhances user experience can be instrumental for businesses with mobile teams and customer support operations.
Reseller Training & Ongoing Support
UCaaS isn’t something that can be learned in hours, days, or even weeks. Leveraging top-tier business communication and collaboration technology isn’t enough to ensure profitability if your reseller partner fails to provide the resources to manage your business or support your customers.
The best UCaaS platform vendors have a comprehensive onboarding process. They provide one-on-one platform training and plenty of hands-on activities. Look for companies with a dedicated staff on standby to provide guidance, support, and additional coaching as needed.
For instance, SkySwitch offers a top-rated onboarding program that gives resellers everything they need to launch their UCaaS reseller business successfully.
Network Reliability, System Security & Call Recording
UCaaS resellers and their clients need assurance that they’ll have reliable service on a secure system. While comparing white-label UCaaS vendors, you’ll find they offer various levels of protection achieved in different ways. Data encryption is a standard feature.
The best UCaaS vendors leverage advanced automated systems designed to help detect and deter unauthorized access and fraudulent activity. Other security and reliability aspects to look for include:
Disaster recovery capabilities
A continuous uptime of at least 99%
Industry-specific security compliance, including HIPPA and PCI (payment card industry) DSS (data security standard)
With the right partner, connection failures are detected within milliseconds, and calls are immediately redirected through a georedundant network to ensure uninterrupted service.
Application Integration & Video Conferencing
Your clients likely have customer relations management (CRM) tools integrated into their business processes. They may also have collaboration services they’d like to continue using, such as Microsoft Teams. Some decision-makers may be reluctant to switch to UCaaS if they’re forced to abandon familiar software. Highlighting the importance of video meeting capabilities within collaboration tools can facilitate seamless and efficient communication for remote teams.
Related: How the Right UCaaS Phone System Provider Can Impact Your Clients
As you’re comparing vendors, look for white-label platform providers offering a range of native integrations as well as an open application programming interface (API) that allows for seamless third-party integration and application customization. The ability to integrate (and customize) third-party software into a subscriber’s interface can be a game-changer for your business reputation. Additionally, consider solutions like Zoom Phone, which integrates seamlessly with video conferencing, SMS, and team collaboration tools, enhancing scalability and user-friendliness.
Reseller & Subscriber Flexibility with Unlimited International Calling
As a UCaaS reseller, your clients are sure to appreciate the cost-effective nature of your cloud-hosted services. One of the most compelling features of UCaaS is its flexibility. Partnering with a UCaaS vendor that requires you to charge set prices for a limited number of services can make it difficult, if not impossible, to keep your business relevant in a competitive market.
Resellers and their subscribers desire the ability to scale their solutions as needed. In a true UCaaS reseller partnership, you’ll retain a reasonable amount of control over the business end of your arrangement, including the prices charged to your clients and the list of services you offer.
Some UCaaS vendors impose restrictions on their resellers, compelling them to sell only prepackaged services at predetermined prices. This approach limits the reseller’s ability to customize offerings to suit their client’s unique needs and can stifle innovation and flexibility. Additionally, these arrangements often position resellers more as agents rather than independent entities. As agents, resellers may lack the opportunity to brand the solutions as their own, which can impact their market presence and brand recognition. This restrictive model contrasts with more flexible white-label solutions, where resellers have the autonomy to tailor services, set pricing, and cultivate their brand identity, ultimately leading to greater business growth and client satisfaction.
SkySwitch: Leading UCaaS Provider for Resellers
SkySwitch is a top-tier UCaaS provider renowned for its robust white-label platform tailored specifically for resellers. With a focus on delivering scalable communication solutions, SkySwitch empowers resellers to offer a comprehensive suite of services that cater to diverse business needs. Key features of SkySwitch’s UCaaS offering include:
Unified Communications Platform: Integrates voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools into one seamless platform, enhancing productivity and connectivity.
Advanced Features: Offers features such as call routing, call recording, and a virtual receptionist to ensure efficient communication management.
Video Conferencing and Collaboration Tools: Facilitates video meetings and team collaboration with advanced tools designed for remote or hybrid teams.
Desktop and Mobile Apps: Provides apps that ensure communication tools are accessible on-the-go, supporting business operations across various devices.
Unlimited International Calling: Supports businesses with global operations by offering unlimited international calling, eliminating concerns about additional charges.
SkySwitch stands out with its commitment to providing exceptional customer support and training through SkySwitch University. Resellers benefit from a comprehensive onboarding process, ensuring they are equipped to deliver high-quality UCaaS solutions to their clients. By partnering with SkySwitch, resellers can confidently expand their business offerings and enhance their brand reputation in the competitive UCaaS market.
Partner with the Best Vendor for UCaaS Reseller Success
UCaaS consolidates cloud-hosted voice service, remote file sharing, video collaboration, application integration, business SMS,and more into a single user-friendly interface your clients can access from nearly any internet-capable device. To simplify matters, most subscribers can continue using their legacy phone systems.
When you partner with the right white-label UCaaS vendor, you’ll have everything you need to brand and resell a fully managed service as your own, including access to an impressive online marketplace with the equipment you need to support your customers and expand your business. Ready to get started with SkySwitch? Our SkySwitch University and onboarding specialists give you everything you need to brand and deploy our white-label platform in as little as 30 days. Contact us today to see how it works.