Conferencing: Commodity or Fat Minute?

 traditional telco agents. “The key is to move away from the traditional thinking that video conferencing is a ‘conference room only’ solution and present video conferencing as an application that promotes cost savings and team building,” Vernick said.

“Most agents are selling MPLS networks right now and usually when a company upgrades to a secure network, video is always on their minds to add to that network,” added Andy Goethals, sales manager, wholesale partner services for InterCall, which sells audio, Web and video conferencing through the indirect channel. “Also, if a company is not upgrading their network, customers still need video and this provides our agents the opportunity to sell more bandwidth to that customer after their new video equipment is installed.”

Reed Ellis, director of channel partner sales for ConferencePlus Inc., which has been offering multipoint video conferencing since 1994, said video is the highest revenue per-minute conferencing service it offers, but it requires a great deal of human expertise to get done well. “Video is very unique and our most successful agents and resellers simply engage ConferencePlus to sell the services on their behalf,” he said. “With our model, the agent only needs to identify the opportunity; our expert staff will then work with them to determine the customer’s needs and provide a proposal and pricing.”

Another way to position video conferencing is to place it side-by-side with its predecessors and let the customer decide, explained Jonathan Maley, director of U.S. marketing operations for Digital Samba USA, which sells OnSync, a rich-media Web conferencing and video communication platform sold 75 percent through the channel. “Seeing is believing,” Maley said. “So much of our communication as humans is nonverbal. Once you’ve been in a conference with high-quality video, you realize the extent to which telephone or data conferencing falls short of enabling users to meaningfully connect with one another.”

James Flynn, director of sales at Copper Conferencing , which offers agents traditional and IP alternatives for video conferencing, warns agents to be aware that in some ways video conferencing strays from the typical agent model in that it is event-driven. “For example, usually a customer will have one or two large executive events a year, but it is not the constant residual type of revenue-driver that most agents generally seek or that can be found in audio and Web conferencing alternatives,” he said.

Camille Andersen, vice president of sales for the conferencing division of RollCall Business Conferencing Solutions, agreed that while video conferencing is a viable offering, it might not provide the revenue stream an agent could expect with audio and Web platforms. “Video conferencing often requires an upfront capital investment, which can be costly for our target demographic,” she said. “RollCall partners with video conferencing providers; however, we have found that Webcams and content-based Web conferencing applications are the most frequently requested services.”

However, Goethals disagreed that all video solutions come at a large expense. “I would advise agents to ask every customer about video as you can even buy desktop video solutions in the hundred-dollar range and high-end solutions in the thousands [of dollars] range.”