Broadview Networks Revamps Partner Portal With Strategic Service Provider Partners In Mind

Cloud-based communications provider Broadview Networks rolled out a slew of new features for its enhanced partner portal Wednesday to make it easier for partners to manage end-customer accounts and add new lines of revenue quickly, the company said.

The latest iteration of the online portal -- MyOfficeSuite Agent -- will give Broadview's telecom agent, managed services provider and reseller partners more visibility into their customers' environments, according to the company.

That greater visibility can translate into increased customer satisfaction as well as increased sales opportunities for partners, according to Feliks Kiliski, owner of New York-based Glacier Communications, a telecommunications solution provider and Broadview agent partner that has been testing the upgraded portal for about a year.

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Glacier has already seen its Broadview sales grow, Kiliski said. "The portal gives us more time to sell as opposed to managing our customers," he said.

Glacier had to use multiple platforms to achieve the same level of visibility before the new features were added, according to Kiliski. Now, with the revamped portal, "we can service our customers really quickly through one interface -- it's just a click to order new services and phones," he said.

Broadview's revamped portal gives partners a streamlined, centralized database with all the resources they need to help their customers, Kiliski said.

"The new portal has made it easy for us to service our clients, as well as given us the ability to bill our clients for management services and check on our commissionable revenue streams," he said.

The partner channel has been historically dominated by resellers, but the modern partner is a value-added strategic service provider that focuses on recurring revenue, said Stephen Farkouh, executive vice president of Rye Brook, N.Y.-based Broadview Networks.

Broadview wanted its solution provider partners to be able to help their end customers get the most out of their services. To do that, partners need a portal that can do more than just generate orders, Farkouh said.

"Partners need a portal that inserts them into all the different processes -- like onboarding, caring for, and growing the customer -- and one that lets them see what the customer sees," he said.

"We can go in and configure our customers' services or make any changes they need," Glacier's Kiliski said. "It wasn't this simple before."

MyOfficeSuite Agent now offers Order Wizard, a feature that lets customers upload customer information after the sale to reduce install times.

"Before, the fulfillment of that service was between Broadview and the customer. Now, the agent can insert themselves directly into that process to ensure the onboarding experience is something they can completely control," Farkouh said.

The new customer pulse function can give partners insight into a client's environment. The feature crunches system data to assess the health of the customer. Partners can use the feature to track satisfaction and engagement levels, and take action, if need be, Farkouh said.

"This portal will help partners ensure that their customers get the value that was promised to them from our services, whether that’s increasing their sales, decreasing their costs or increasing productivity," he said.

Using the new Quick Quote feature, partners can create a quote for a customer instantly, and the Orders Tab function lets the partner keep track of the customer's order in real time. Under the "insights" tab, partners can identify additional revenue opportunities for their customers.

"We've given the partner the ability to see what cloud services the customer has, and what services might they be interested in," Farkouh said.