Posted: 01/2001
Bundled Services: No Sign of Dwindling in
2001
By Tara Seals
Providers such as Access One Inc. (www.accessoneinc.com), TheAgentsNetwork (www.agents-network.com), AT&T Corp. (www.att.com) and Igaea Inc. (www.igaea.com) say bundled options will figure prominently in their agent offerings this year.
The packages help agents cross-sell, up-sell and minimize churn.
Tier 1s and startups embrace the "simplify-the-sale" strategy. According to Karen O'Connor, field marketing manager for the AT&T Independent Sales Channel, AT&T Business Network bundles were created to make the sale and management of AT&T services easier. The offer includes Internet access, local, long distance and wireless products, and the carrier will add "data and IP services" later this year.
Meanwhile, newcomer Igaea, which launched in August 2000, has a three-pronged multimedia product strategy: voice, data and video, says Carl Churchill, company vice president of agent sales. During the first and second quarters, it will move aggressively forward with data products, and in quarter three it will roll out video services to agents. All products will be bundled for simple up-sell and cross-sell, Churchill says.
Access One offers bundled private line, frame relay, local, long distance, DSL and dedicated Internet. In the first quarter of 2001, Access One will add UNE platform (UNE-P) offerings in California and the Ameritech Corp. (www.ameritech.com) regions of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. According to Brian Barkley, Access One's president, products such as the integrated T1 and multiple exchange are central to agents' success.
"Value-added services [VAS] have played a very important part to our great success here at Access One in Chicago and Los Angeles," he says. "We've practiced selling VAS for many years, and it has really paid off. Far and away, the most valued benefit to selling such services is in customer retention.
"Yes, an agent makes money each month by selling the particular VAS, but keeping the customer 'on system' for as long as possible is real value."
The integrated T1 offering allocates the 24 channels for voice and data according to the customer's preference.
"The voice can be used for inbound/ outbound or any combination thereof," says Lance Honea, Access One's CEO. "The data can be used for dedicated Internet, frame relay or VPN solutions. The benefit to the customer is a much more efficient allocation of resources."
The multiple exchange solution allows a customer to spread multiple phone numbers, or "virtual offices," across the same LATA. All calls to those numbers will forward to a T1 at the customer's main location. This allows the customer to establish a local presence without actually opening an office or physically installing lines.
"In this competitive industry, if agents are not selling VAS, they're jeopardizing their efforts," Barkley says. "My definition of a VAS is selling anything to an end user in addition to their primary interest product. If a prospective end user's primary interest is frame relay, Access One and our agents will first aggressively sell our competitive frame relay product and then aggressively sell voice and Internet to the prospect. Selling VAS is part of our agent training program."
The trend also drives future offerings from TheAgentsNetwork, according to CEO Brad Miehl. It will roll out packages during the second quarter that encompass long distance, collocation, web hosting and e-commerce in an ASP model. Tentatively titled "Advantage" solutions, the bundles' e-business options will include turnkey websites, shopping cart services and custom sites designed from the ground up.
"We are finding that there is more to providing end-user solutions than just pure telecom products," Miehl says. "ASP services both vertically and horizontally focused will flood the market soon."
According to Miehl, Advantage will be a multivendor affair, but users will manage all services and report from a single web-based interface.
Miehl adds, "A single point of contact is also key to the success of this model, and in the field, this is managed by our value-added agents."
