How many telecom providers does your business work with?
Building relationships and partnerships across the telecoms market can be beneficial. An expanded product portfolio and greater credibility can follow such a move, but managing multiple solutions can make things costly and complex. Inefficiencies can set in, and suddenly that seemingly strong market position begins to evaporate.
Look, we’re sorry to be dramatic, but that’s just the way it is.
This doesn’t mean all is lost. Businesses can start that journey to vendor consolidation by working with a provider that can provide that complete portfolio. Consolidating with Gamma can help businesses better manage their vendor relationships and create a stronger contact centre that delivers superior customer experience (CX).
Multiple vendors, multiple problems
Every vendor is unique. OK, they somewhat need to be to avoid copyright infringement and not step on anyone else’s toes, but their uniqueness runs deep. Whether it’s the products they sell or the sectors they operate in, each telecoms vendor has their own way of doing things.
Having a multi-vendor system can provide different perspectives and points of expertise, but relying on different vendors for each service can cause issues. This kind of system can lead to:
- Billing complexity, as each vendor sends over their own invoice for each service, causing administrative burdens
- Lower agent morale, as 40% of contact centre leaders agree that newer agents in an average sized contact centre struggle to familiarise themselves with new systems
- Inconsistent support due to varying service levels and response times, which can make troubleshooting business-critical issues more inefficient
- Higher costs by having to manage separate billing systems and multiple contracts, with each vendor having their own way to negotiate
- Limited control and visibility over the entire portfolio, which can lead to data gaps that makes long-term analysis difficult
- Scalability issues, since some vendors may not be able to meet technological demands and slowly become liabilities
The hidden costs of such a system are enough for any business to start thinking of ways to gain back some control. 15-20% of telecom services are underutilised or generally inactive, but that lack of visibility makes it hard to identify which ones are.
Vendor consolidation doesn’t have to be long, complicated process. The benefits of bringing those services together, however, are there for the taking.
Streamlined billing
Vendors don’t collaborate on when they issue their invoices. That would make everything far simpler, but each vendor operates on their own payment schedule. Managing a multi-vendor relationship means billing and managing expenses can become quite a challenge.
A more streamlined vendor approach can reduce that administrative overhead, as invoices come from fewer sources and are more standardised. Payments can be easily reconciled, as pricing is kept at a consistent rate and there aren’t any worries about overbilling.
With greater oversight on billing, businesses can start to cut down on any unnecessary expenditures.
Cost savings
For 54% of contact centre leaders, their main priority is finding a way to cut costs. Managing multiple vendors only adds increased administrative overhead, while also potentially leading to further compatibility and integration issues down the line. Overlapping features and services can also make vendors redundant, not to mention the potential loss of discounts during contract negotiations as each supplier operates their own pricing model.
When services are consolidated into a single vendor, the potential for volume discounts increases to secure long-term loyalty. Pricing models are suddenly much more favourable, and the costs associated with managing multiple accounts and contracts can also be greatly reduced.
Combining contact centre features through a contact centre as a service (CCaaS) solution is certainly a wise choice in terms of better managing contact centre capabilities!
Simplified vendor management
Allow us to indulge ourselves for a second – say you’re trying to spin multiple plates. Each one is rotating at a different speed, with some looking stable and others on the precipice of toppling over. You’re running back and forth to keep each plate in motion, but the realisation sets in that one or more of these plates are going to fall.
That’s what it’s like managing a multi-vendor system.
By having fewer vendors to manage, businesses can find that there’s less complexity in maintaining relationships. Their efforts can be better spent strengthening the community they have and finding it easier to negotiate contract terms.
Having that single point of contact also makes it easier to monitor overall performance and work on how to better optimise their processes and procedures. There’s clear accountability over service quality and there aren’t any delays or confusion when trying to communicate.
No more smashing plates, either.
System integration
In the average contact centre, 35% of leaders would strongly disagree that their applications were fully optimised and integrated. Considering a critical goal of a contact centre is to provide better CX, it seems counter-productive to manage an infrastructure that curtails that.
Through a single vendor, businesses can benefit from integrated solutions that provides better compatibility between different software. Not only does this cut down on any integration issues, but system performance can be greatly improved. When data and communications can flow more easily across platform, contact centre agents are far more efficient.
Agents don’t want to be jumping from application to application all day. Considering employees can waste 32 days a year toggling between different apps, that streamlined, consolidated approach is key when trying to maintain efficiency.
Meeting strategic goals
For business leaders, an omnichannel approach to contact centres is a top priority. However, these same leaders struggle to overcome technological and financial barriers when trying to implement such an approach. Lacking that clear visibility over the customer journey deprives businesses of key real-time insights that can improve overall customer experience.
It’s the same on the agent side as well. That’s why businesses are looking at adopting unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions to improve how agents handle customer interactions. Unifying voice, chat and other channels into a single platform allows collaboration to thrive and reduce operational costs around managing multiple solutions from different vendors.
UCaaS, especially when managed by a single vendor, is a scalable solution that can adapt seamlessly to changing business needs and priorities. Rising customer demands and expectations can be matched, while businesses reduce the effort needed to manage multiple vendor relationships. Being able to focus on wider strategic goals can only lead to further long-term productivity and efficiency.
Let’s start consolidating
Working and collaborating with multiple vendors is a great way to start building a more comprehensive portfolio, but we’ve already seen how complicated it can get. But when a business only needs to deal with a single telecom vendor, suddenly all those challenges start to disappear. Funny that…
By only having to rely on a single vendor, businesses can soon start to enjoy:
- Streamlined support from a single point of contact, making service management and troubleshooting issues simpler
- Greater cost-efficiency by cutting down the number of contracts signed and any unnecessary overhead expenses
- Reduced complexity when having to procure new services, making business operations far more efficient
- Seamless integration due to consistent technology standards across multiple locations, improving both reliability and performance
Working with a single vendor is the smart thing to do, but then it comes down to which vendor is the best choice.
Working with a provider like Gamma
If your business is getting stressed out over working with multiple vendors, then the answer’s simple. Gamma has the capabilities to streamline vendor relationships through a market-spanning portfolio designed to make communications more effective. Whether it’s inbound calling or CCaaS, Gamma can deliver the services to improve overall customer experience.
Gamma already has over 20 years’ experience making telecommunications easier. If you’re looking to consolidate vendors and services, then you know who to turn to.