Understanding the Small Medium Business
Source: smithonvoip.com
Small Medium Businesses Are Confused By The Variety of VoIP Solutions
VoIP marketers, like so many other technology marketers, are failing to properly educate consumers through their marketing and advertising activities. According to a recent report by AMI-Partners, that Marshall Lager brings to light in his recent DestinationCRM article, the SMB is dazed and confused by the amount of choice in solutions presented to them when considering the switch to a VoIP solution.
Have We Forgot About Delivering What a Customer Needs?
One of the primary reasons I see for all of the confusion is that instead of delivering solutions that the small medium business needs, we are trying to deliver what we think the customer wants. We have, as an industry, focused on delivering next-generation features, bleeding edge applications, and other “advanced” technologies to a marketplace that really only wants one thing: something that works.
Keeping it Simple
There is no such thing as the “average” small medium business. They are all unique. But there is a simple, basic set of functional elements they need to phone system to peform. After this set, it is really a coin-flip as to whether or not the the “extra” features will help or hinder the productivity of the business. It does not matter if it is a $250K Cisco solution, or a $10K Asterisk based solution, there simply are only so many things a small medium business needs a phone system for.
Even me, an “advanced” user, only uses his phone for two things - to answer a call and to make a call. What makes anyone think that someone outside of our industry would want to do more? Our phone system, it does a few basic things; it directs customers to the proper person or call group, allows us to monitor calls for quantity assurance, and produces a set of call reports for the monitoring of staff. A phone is a phone is a phone. A phone system, is a phone system, is a phone system.
What the SMB Needs is a Simple Solution
That’s it. You do not need complex features and functionality to sell a VoIP solution to a small medium business no matter what price you are looking for them to pay for it. People pay for things that work. People pay for things that they are comfortable with. Make a VoIP system that works, that a customer feels comfortable using, and you will find a customer that will buy, no matter the cost.
