7 Reasons Cbeyond’s Channel Program is a Cut Above the Rest

By: Richard “Zippy” Grigonis

Cbeyond (News - Alert) (www.cbeyond.net) made its name as a >managed services provider of voice and broadband Internet services designed exclusively to serve the needs of small businesses. But few people realize much of its success results from an unparalleled channel partner program.

Cbeyond’s Chief Marketing Officer, Brooks Robinson, says, “We have a robust Channel Partner (News - Alert) Program at Cbeyond. There are seven reasons why we feel our Channel Partner Program is a cut above the rest.”

Simplicity of the Service Bundle

“Cbeyond is a managed IP-based services provider that provides small business customers with a very unique and innovative service called BeyondVoice®, which is a bundle of local, longdistance, broadband Internet and mobile services,” says Robinson. “We keep the package very simple, thus enabling the channel partner to easily communicate and sell the package’s value and the services we offer to their customers.”

Focus on Innovation

“Since our inception in 1999, we’ve focused on innovation,” says Robinson. “We were the first to offer Voice-over-IP over a private managed network to the small business market, which ensures business-grade voice quality. We were an early provider of Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service to the small business market, which marked the first time some of our VARs were able to offer mobile voice and data to their customers. We were among the first to drive significant numbers of productivity-enhancing applications to the small business market, today offering more than 30 applications that can be integrated into our service bundle.” Such applications include fax-to-email, Hosted Microsoft (News - Alert) Exchange and integrated voicemail.

The SIPconnect Standard

“One of the founding tenets of Cbeyond is that we listen to our customers and our partners,” explains Robinson. “A great example of that from the partner side occurred in 2004, when we listened to our partners as they described the real upside they saw in the new IP PBXs coming to market. Rather than competing against our channel partners, we decided to enlist the help of other industry-leaders to co-develop a service that really enabled them — the SIPconnect specification.”

Cbeyond, Cisco (News - Alert) and others formed a working group, which authored an overall specification for Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) trunking. This open-standards based approach has accelerated the rate of which innovation has occurred leveraging the SIPconnect standard. Customers can now interconnect leading IP PBXs and Cbeyond’s BeyondVoice service via a SIP trunking services standard.

“BeyondVoice with SIPconnect, connects our managed VoIP network to these new IP PBXs, simplifying the installation and adding more features to the phone system,” says Robinson. “It helps the channel partner with their core service offerings, which for many of them is the phone system and data equipment that gets installed on the customer premise. This was all made possible because of our very close relationships with our channel partners. Customers benefit from better voice quality, advanced calling features such as Direct Inward Dial, and lower up front installation costs.”

Established Partnerships

“We also focus on partnerships, which enables us to bring some very large brand names to the channel partner community, such as Microsoft, Cisco, and BlackBerry (News - Alert),” says Robinson “The partnerships that Cbeyond has forged enable our channel partners to extend their product and service portfolios and bring these market-leading brands to their own customers.”

Generous Compensation Plans

Robinson continues: “As for what’s in it for the channel partner — you can first look to the compensation and economics of Cbeyond’s managed service combined with a next-generation IP PBX (News - Alert). Channel partners are compensated for selling and installing phone systems, but, additionally, by connecting those phone systems to the Cbeyond managed service, they receive a residual every month, for the lifetime of the customer. This significantly increases the value of the customer sale to the channel partner and in many instances can double the revenue they would typically make in hardware sales. Since Cbeyond also enjoys very high customer retention, the residual payments to our partners really begin to add up over time.”

Local Channel Manager Support and Training

“Additionally, we provide local channel manager support, which is an investment typically not made by other service providers in the SMB space,” says Robinson. “In each of our local markets we have channel managers dedicated to helping our channel partners demonstrate the value of Cbeyond and mine their customer base. Our channel managers are very active in the community and serve as a great support infrastructure for the channel partner.”

“We also provide a lot of great training for our channel partners,” says Robinson. “The local Cbeyond channel managers work one-on-one with the channel partners and we hold quarterly ‘lunch-and-learns’ focusing on sales techniques and new application features and monthly technical sessions. Additionally, we hold monthly SIPconnect training courses in each market, which are Innovation Forums that allow channel partners to examine the industry’s latest innovations, such as new technologies from IP PBX vendors.”

Extensive Marketing Support

“We offer extensive channel marketing support,” says Robinson. “In addition to our channel marketing team dedicated to creating innovative programs specifically for Cbeyond partners, we’ve invested heavily in a new online portal called Cbeyond PartnerAccess (www.cbeyondpartners.net). This site allows channel partners to download and customize collateral, find service information, register for the latest training classes and manage their customer account information. Our channel partners are able to go into Cbeyond PartnerAccess and view their individual compensation reports associated with their customer accounts. It’s gratifying to give them access to all of the information by simply clicking on a portal button.”

“We are very channel-friendly,” says Robinson. “The channel partner community is a great opportunity to grow both the Cbeyond business as well as the channel partner business through a combined offer of Cbeyond’s managed services, plus customer premise equipment that the channel partner sells, installs and manages.”

“Now, wrap all of this around the fact that we’re focused solely on the small business market, one of the fastest-growing segments of the communications industry, and we drive bundled packages and innovation, developing great new applications designed specifically for small business,” Robinson concludes. “The bottom line, we can be a great partner to any VARs interested in growing their revenues.” Cbeyond has proven that an extraordinary channel partner program is good for everybody — customers, partners and Cbeyond itself. It’s an enviable model that the channel partner community is sure to embrace. IT

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