Bad Rep or Bad Rap?

In my last blog, I suggested that the agent community might be in the need of a PR makeover since they seem to have a bad rep or at least a very outdated image in the larger telecom/datacom marketplace and the channel. It might be a bad rap, but its looking like the agent image could use a spit shine and polish.

I think there are two separate issues here. One is definitional. The other is practical.

An agent, by definition, is an establishment doing business representing another. In most cases an agent represents a provider of goods/services, suggests appropriate goods/services and takes the order for goods/services. The provider then delivers the purchased goods/services.

The agent provides value by helping the provider to reach a wider audience of potential customers. And, the agent provides a local touch point for the buyer. It also may provide that touch point for multiple competitive providers, thus making the buying processes easier. Furthermore, the agent provides a thorough understanding of the goods/services such that he can suggest goods/services to match their needs.

In the telecom industry, this basic definition applies and should not be discounted or denigrated in any way.

Practically speaking, however (and this goes to the second point), it doesn’t describe every company that calls itself a telecom agent. The model has evolved beyond this definition to include more technological and solutions expertise.

You can argue – as some of the respondents to my blog did – that in fact, agents have not evolved and that more technologically savvy VARs and interconnects necessarily have filled their shoes. I suppose there is a percentage of the agent population that have their roots in an IT/hardware world, but I also think that there are plenty of agents from the carrier world that have had to acquire expertise (through training or hiring) in order to deliver the solutions required by today’s telecom/datacom users.

So does that mean agents need a new name? If we take cues from other segments of the channel, the answer might be yes. I am not from the IT world, but I suspect the “value-added” in VAR came as a result of some resellers who provided a solution (with software or integration, etc.) and wanted to distinguish themselves from the resellers who merely sold vendor gear at a markup. Many companies in the IT industry have taken to calling themselves IT solutions providers. That term gets them even further away from the commodity reseller label, IMO.

In the carrier world, the prevailing terminology for agent seems to be “business partner.” I am not sure that’s any more descriptive than agent as far as the consumer is concerned. It doesn’t do anything to shed light on the value or functions performed by the agent.

While it would be helpful if there were industry agreement on the accepted “label,” I think it’s much more important that there be a larger effort to help end users to understand the value of a channel partner – by any name.

PHONE+ asked the question in a recent poll: Does the Agent Community Need a PR Makeover?. Seventy percent of voters (as of May 10) said yes.

Of those, most said agents need a “seal of approval” or certification program. That usually is the province of an association. With the newly minted TCA, perhaps there will be something of the sort forthcoming, but it won’t be very soon.

Among the makeover supporters in our poll, a good portion backed the more immediately doable plan: vendors educating end users on the value of the channel.

This was an idea that I heard from Motorola’s new channel chief Janet Schijns. A consultant in her previous life, Schijns tends to be an out-of-the-box thinker. She said in a recent interview, “I think while many vendors have said, 'We sell through the channel,' there’s always room to show how channel partners for firms like Motorola are an extension of our solutions to the customers and make sure the end-user audience understands the value the channel brings to their businesses.”

She literally hopes to launch a PR/ad campaign around why people should buy from the channel. A similar effort by carriers might help the telecom agent community tremendously. I can see some of the carriers that use the channel exclusively embracing this idea, but I don’t hold out much hope for the onboarding of the big brands – mostly because they don’t seem to appreciate the value of the channel themselves. So, agents, maybe the PR campaign needs to start with the carriers first.