TalkSwitch Seeks To Penetrate Larger Firms With New Program

The TalkSwitch and You program comes as the vendor is trying to build out and reward partner expertise as it strives to drive its SOHO/small business-focused IP-PBX line into larger customers, said Tim Welch, vice president of sales at the Ottawa, Ontario-based company.

The strategy behind the new program is to attract systems integrator partners with the skills and resources to service enterprise accounts, Welch said.

The TalkSwitch line traditionally has fit stand-alone offices with fewer than 32 extensions. Now the company is targeting remote locations such as retail stores, real-estate offices and law firms that are smaller offices of larger enterprises, he said.

For the first time, TalkSwitch is rolling out its own certification program and segmenting its base of 1,000 North American channel partners into three tiers: Authorized, Gold and Platinum.

Solution providers that reach the top two tiers will receive increased margins, access to Web-based technical training. They also will have access to a variety of incentive programs, such as Zero to Fifty, which provides extra discounts to partners that reach $50,000 per month in sales for the first time, and Vertical Reality, a program that provides extra marketing support to VARs that specialize in particular vertical markets.

“Most significant is the heightened support they&re going to be providing to VARs,” said James Pelletier, president of Vancouver Communications Services, a Port Coquitlam, British Columbia-based TalkSwitch partner. “They&ve always been great with technical support, but now they&re really [focusing] on the marketing side,” he said.

Gold partners will need to meet annual volume requirements of $250,000, while Platinum partners will have to hit $500,000 in annual TalkSwitch sales. Welch estimates that about 200 partners will initially fall into the top two tiers of the program.