ChannelVision Magazine

TeleSpeak, seeing the increasing need for productivity-

enhancing fresh approaches to customer service, sees a

big opportunity in 2016 for channel partners: WebRTC-

based virtual office and contact center offerings.

The company, a developer and provider of hosted

contact-center software solutions and virtual presence,

as well as U.S.-based contact-center support services,

is about 90 percent channel-based. According to CEO

Chance Myers, the growth of the TeleSpeak channel has

dovetailed with a decision to evolve its flagship technology.

“When we started five years ago, we focused on

developing hosted PBX on an Asterix platform. It was the

status quo then,” he explained. “As we started to grow, we

started to learn that Asterix couldn’t scale the way that we

wanted it to. So we started looking for other platforms to

build a next-gen PBX on.”

But it was soon apparent that TeleSpeak was not the

only company with that idea. In order to differentiate

itself from the glut of hosted PBX offerings coming to

market, it decided to re-focus on the virtual office and

virtual school opportunity (with an integrated hosted

PBX module), with an emphasis on a contact-center-

anywhere flagship product.

“We’ve redeveloped that on the Google WebRTC

kernel,” said Myers. “It’s robust and easy to scale and

deploy – and there’s so much you can do with all of the

communications elements, because support for chat,

e-mail and so on is built into the Chrome browser. No

add-on products are needed, and we can set up a site

by tomorrow.”

WebRTC, which stands for Web Real Time

Communication, supports audio and video capabilities

natively via compatible browsers. As such, WebRTC

can be used via the Web without plug-ins, like Flash,

or third-party applications, like Skype—and as such, it

boosts interoperability across devices and platforms. For

businesses, embracing WebRTC has a number of benefits,

not the least of which is better customer care.

Implementing care options like “click to call” or “click to

chat” from a customer service portal is one aspect of how

this can play out; and to boot, companies can provide an

omnichannel customer engagement experience without

requiring those customers to download anything, have any

specialized software installed or otherwise go out of their

way to interact with a business.

“You don’t have to have multiple tabs and multiple

screens up, so you gain a whole-customer view

with CRM data, customer records, call recording –

everything is on one screen,” he added. “And when

managing queues and campaigns, users can re-program

call routing and move customer service reps from one

queue to another with a drag-and-drop visual interface,

to load manage or change call handing times. Agents’

screens just refresh automatically.”

Myers says that this gives the channel a unique

product to sell into their bases moving forward into 2016.

“WebRTC is a real differentiator for us, and sets us

apart,” he said. “Office anywhere and the contact-center

platform is a great product and a great door opener.

Nobody else has this, so if you’re a partner trying to

re-engage a client or get in the door with your existing

portfolio, this is a way to do that. It allows them to get a

client excited and set themselves apart.”

TeleSpeak’s channel program, which is populated

by telecom interconnects, software VARs, agents,

independent contractors and others, offers evergreen

residual commissions. It has two levels—resale and

wholesale. Those companies that are more active in the

sale and support aspects of the customer account receive

preferred pricing, and there’s a white-label program.

Channel partners can bring their own access to the

sale, bundling in connectivity with the virtual office and

contact center applications, for a high-value solution sale.

The company also owns a chain of call centers called

TeleSpeak support services, to help customers and

agents when there’s an issue with the platform. Care is

available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and

English, and all of the company’s reps are located inside

the United States. Partners in the white-label program

can extend this to the tech support side – so that reps

answer calls under their company names.

“We go to the level of being involved in the actual

sales process with our channel partners, and we’re

there to support it too,” explained Myers. “This is not

just a high-margin product; it also includes round-the-

clock tech support.”

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TeleSpeak Turns to WebRTC

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