ChannelVision Magazine July-August 2016

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The role of the master agent,
like the role of any channel partner,
has been changing significantly
as the forces of cloud communica-
tions, mobility and an exploding
level of technology innovation have
presented new challenges and op-
portunities. At the same time, the
TDM-to-IP migration and the advent
of bigger bandwidth is shaping
agent opportunities in big ways. We
sat down with Telegration president
Denis Raue to find out more about
what the master agency has been
up to, and the role technology and
these industry shifts have been
playing in its channel approach.
ChannelVision:
What’s been new for
Telegration
in the past year?
Denis Raue: We’ve had quite
a few major initiatives the past
year. First, we launched TelePortal
last year and continue to make up-
grades. Our agents never have to
waste time searching multiple vendor
sites or get frustrated with outdated
provider information. That’s because
it has all the up-to-date information
on providers, promotions, spiffs,
training and events in one revolution-
ary site. Our agents can use Tele-
Portal to get our providers’ most cur-
rent information on industry trends
and new provider services to make
the best decision for their clients. We
recently added commission state-
ment history and a document saving
depository for their most important
files from our site. Our agents also
have full access via TelePortal for
quoting and service requests and
channel contacts – it can be difficult
for even the most organized agents
to stay current on the ever-changing
personnel at providers. We are quite
proud of our TelePortal site.
CV: You also launched
something called
“TeleApp”?
DR: Yes – TeleApp is available
to download on both the Apple App
Store and Google Play. Our app
has complete Telegration channel
support contact info, as well current
provider contact info. Our agents
can do quote requests and place
service request from their Telegra-
tion app anytime, from anywhere
they have Internet access. We also
added a cable locater to the app
to allow our agents to check real-
time cable or Internet availability
simply by entering an address from
their mobile device. In addition, our
agents can call or email Telegration
support team members right from
the app, or call customer service
direct from the app to open service
cases. Finally, our agents can ac-
cess commission reports from the
app, as well as our master agency
calendar and marketing materials.
CV: Tell me about your
initiative.
DR: We spent the past year
investing hundreds of thousands of
dollars implementing
to improve our business. We
service over 17,000 locations, and
have incorporated it into every facet
in our business – from creating
SLAs for quote turnaround and fun-
nel reports for our agents to doing
campaign notices on provider pro-
motions and spiff announcements.
Our website forms dump directly
into Salesforce, so that agents im-
mediately get sales
opportunities and
service cases as-
signed to them.
This allows them
to meet the “better
here” SLAs that
they need to be
more efficient in the
“get ‘er done now”
world we live in.
We are now
finishing the order
fulfillment process in the system
and dashboard reports to better
manage thousands of orders in
the provisioning pipeline more ef-
ficiently for our agents. The invest-
ment has been worth the year for
our executive team and internal
Salesforce team members, and we
are positioned for API access with
providers. We’re also adding much
more robust support apps, such as
MapAnywhere, and developing a
lead program for our agents with
Dunns information and provider pre-
qualification data. We look forward
in 2017 to rolling out Salesforce for
our top agents too.
V: Have you made any
important channel-related
personnel moves?
DR: I would say the most impor-
tant channel move we made was the
construction we did in Q1 to expand
our order fulfillment and project man-
ager teams, and expand our help
desk team and corporate account
managers team to assist our agents
to help them renew their accounts
and get quotes for new service in Q2.
We also are planning to add re-
gional channel managers in 2017 to
continue our growth in the channel.
Master Plan
By Tara Seals
A channel chat with Telegration’s Denis Raue
Telegration president
Denis Raue
PROFILE
74 CHANNELVISION | July - August 2016