Company Overview
From the time DTC (Digital Telecommunications Corporation) was established in 1982, their commitment to providing solutions that help optimize business practices, drive workforce engagement, and create competitive advantages for customers has positioned DTC as market leader in the communications space.
Since 1987, Digital Telecommunications (DTC) has been an NEC distributor. DTC has remained a loyal NEC exclusive Associate for two important reasons: NEC’s cutting-edge technology for small and large businesses, and NEC’s support of DTC's main objective to always exceed client’s expectations. DTC’s Triple Diamond status distinguishes DTC as providing exemplary product knowledge, designing, and deploying the best network solutions available to each client.
Mike Maccani, General Manager of Digital Telecommunications recently sat down with us to explain his partnership with NEC and experience selling UNIVERGE BLUE CLOUD SERVICES.
The Challenge
As cloud and hosted solutions grew in popularity, DTC found it challenging to respond to customer’s needs with only an on-premises solution offering. DTC began exploring the market and after researching many options, they knew they needed a service provider who would let them own the customer relationship.
DTC tried other cloud providers, such as 8x8 and RingCentral, but these providers fell short when it came down to allowing DTC to maintain their own customer relationships and service their customers. Mike explains, “Right now, the [RingCentral and 8X8] type of companies are trying to gain as much cloud market share as possible, with aggressive sales teams and very competitive partner SPIFFs, they locked us in then wound up taking our customers who we worked really hard to build relationships with over the years.”
Mike Continues, “The attractive SPIFFS that other cloud providers are offering, are absolutely not worth losing our customers over. With UNIVERGE BLUE, we are still given attractive incentives but are able to maintain our customer relationships and provide high quality service experiences.”
The Solution
The UNIVERGE BLUE partnership was a great fit for DTC because it allowed them to provide the great service levels that customers had come to associate DTC with, and a robust cloud-communications solution that customers loved. Mike shares, “Our customers trust us and the relationship we have built with them over the years. UNIVERGE BLUE is excellent because it’s reliable and dependable solutions meet our customers’ needs, and the partner program allows us to maintain our customer relationships, reinforcing DTC’s reputation of providing exceptional customer support.”
- Cost-Effective and Simple Unified Communications (UCaaS)
“We recommend UNIVERGE BLUE’s Cloud PBX [CONNECT] to all our customers. The whole experience of working with NEC is just easy. From the simplicity of quoting and ordering to deployment and system management through the administrative portal – everything is streamlined and simple. Plus, UNIVERGE BLUE has all the features our customers want at a very affordable price billed as an operational expense (OPEX). They love the voicemail, chat, video and file sharing capabilities. Similar features would cost an arm and a leg in the on-prem PBX world. It’s incredible that with UNIVERGE BLUE, these features are free,” Mike shares.
- Enterprise Level Contact Center Features
With UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE, DTC can provide SMB customers a call center solution with enterprise-level features that are not available with an on-premises solution. Mike explains why a recent customer chose UNIVERGE BLUE, “The customer chose UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE because of the enterprise-level features and flexibility to deploy ENGAGE in any location for agents, whether at home or an office environment. Additionally, they chose NEC UNIVERGE BLUE because of the local support we [DTC] could provide with a product backed by NEC, a company that has been around for over 100 years with proven technology.”
- UNIVERGE BLUE CUSTOMER OWNERSHIP MODEL
Mike talks to the benefits of selling Cloud under the UNIVERGE BLUE Customer Ownership Model, “We’ve had great success operating under the customer ownership model. We love that we have full ownership of billing, bundling, adding services and support but don’t have to deal with any of the complex telecom taxation aspects since NEC handles all of that for us.” DTC provides the first level of technical support while NEC is always there is provide support if there is ever a need.
- UNIVERGE BLUE Sales and Marketing Enablement
NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE Partner Program helped DTC own more of the customer relationship, while NEC is always there to provide significant sales, marketing, and service support. Mike explains some the key resources that help DTC sell UNIVERGE BLUE more effectively, “The UNIVERGE BLUE team itself is extremely valuable to us, they’re incredibly knowledgeable and understand our business. For most of our existence, we have been a tradition interconnect company who sells on-premises equipment. NEC understands this and helps us position UNIVERGE BLUE to our traditional and non-traditional customers,” Mike Shares.
The Customer ROI Calculator has proven to be a great sales tool for DTC, in addition to the variety of marketing collateral and co-brandable campaigns NEC offers Channel Partners. Mike considers the ROI tool a critical element in discussing cloud with on-premises customers, “The Calculator lets me plug in costs associated with a customer’s existing PBX and compare them to costs of migrating to the cloud. This allows me to easily translate a customer’s return on investment (ROI) and the money they could save over the long-term with BLUE.”
UNIVERGE BLUE is excellent because it’s reliable and dependable solutions meet our customers’ needs, and the partner program allows us to maintain our customer relationships, reinforcing DTC’s reputation of providing exceptional customer support.
Mike Maccani,
General Manager of Digital Telecommunications (DTC)
The Results
Having UNIVERGE BLUE as a reliable Cloud Voice partner has resulted in a steady stream of new Cloud PBX customers. Maccani explains, “We have never had service issues with UNIVERGE BLUE. Because of the simplicity of the system and overall ease of use, we spend less of our own resources. UNIVERGE BLUE also significantly reduces the upfront chunk of costs that customers need to spend on expensive on-prem PBX systems. It’s been a welcomed change to our business model, and a cost-savings that we’ve been able to pass onto our clients,” concluded Mike.
Another benefit of partnering with UNIVERGE BLUE is gaining access to NEC’s comprehensive product-line according to Mike. “Some customers might not want to move directly to the cloud, they might want a hybrid solution and slow migration. The partnership with NEC enables us to be able to solve a wide variety of customer challenges through NEC’s broad portfolio of products. We can offer customers flexible deployment models and gradual migration paths with the local support that they want”. UNIVERGE BLUE has allowed DTC to maintain their customer relationships and expand their service offerings into existing and new areas of their customers’ businesses, in turn allowing DTC to grow their business.
Mike continues to explain the importance of technology providers introducing cloud to their customer base, “Whether it is with you, a technology partner, or a competitor, every customer will want to discuss cloud for their business. UNIVERGE BLUE allows us to start a dialogue with customers about their needs- staying on-premises, migrating immediately, or taking a phased approach to their migration – Regardless, DTC is apart of that conversation and will be ready to help them with their migration when the time comes.”
