Telarus Helps Partners Wade Through The Crowded UCaaS Market With Hosted VoIP Quoting Tool

Master agent Telarus unveiled an update to its GeoQuote pricing tool designed to help its partners navigate the sea of Unified Communications-as-a-Service providers and service options for their business customers during the 2016 Telarus Partner Summit on Wednesday in Deer Valley, Utah.

The market is crowded with UCaaS offerings from the large incumbent IT vendors, as well as a slew of smaller, pure-play UCaaS providers. Narrowing down the choices for business customers looking to implement UCaaS can be daunting for many channel partners, and that's where the latest hosted Voice over IP quoting functionality comes in, said Patrick Oborn, co-founder of Sandy, Utah-based Telarus and the creator of the GeoQuote tool.

"Truth be told, agents, VARs and MSPs really don't know how to recommend one [UCaaS] provider over another," Oborn told CRN. "This tool will take the guessing out of the system and match up providers according to the end-user's individual needs."

[Related: As Net Neutrality Wins in Court, Partners Applaud Open Internet Efforts]

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

Mike Sickle, president of Salt Lake City-based Dynamic Network Advisors, a telecom solution provider and Telarus partner, agreed, saying that the real-time hosted voice update to the GeoQuote tool can help partners not only narrow down UCaaS provider options, but also prompt partners to ask customers the right questions.

"The GeoQuote Hosted PBX tool is extremely helpful for agents who are constantly bombarded by dozens of hosted PBX companies, which, quite frankly, are hard to tell apart," Sickle said. "Using the tool, I know exactly the questions I should be asking my customers because the interface forces the issue."

The GeoQuote tool has served up more than 5 million real-time broadband and PRI quotes to partners since its inception in 2003, but couldn't quote UCaaS until now, according to Telarus.

The latest hosted VoIP quoting capability will let partners browse through a database of a dozen UCaaS providers that partner with Telarus. The tool will recommend a provider or solution based on more than 10 customer criteria, such as deal size, hardware requirements and customer relationship management integration requirements.

The GeoQuote tool can quickly whittle down the field of providers after partners input the customer's criteria, and even give partners insight into the potential commission that the deal would yield, Sickle said.

"From there, I can use the filtering options to further hone in on the best fit, for the best price," he said. "I also like the column that shows me the commission I’ll earn from each plan, allowing me to balance my needs versus the customer’s needs.’

UCaaS providers currently included in the GeoQuote pricing tool are ShoreTel, RingCentral, Vonage, Broadview Networks, Jive, Momentum, Comm-Core, IPitimi, Megapath, Vocal IP, YipTel and West UC, with more to come, Telarus said.

Partners can also narrow UCaaS options according to price tag only, Telarus' Oborn said.

"[The tool] will deliver price in the case where the customer just needs a working VoIP phone and wants the cheapest [option], which we still see a lot," he added.

The hosted VoIP GeoQuote functionality is now available to all Telarus partners for free through the master agent's partner portal.