The In Crowd

By Cara Sievers

Flashback to your high school cafeteria. The popular kids are asking no, begging you to sit at the good lunchtable. Youre almost guaranteed a slew of new friends, and maybe even a prom date, if you join them, but you politely decline their offer and find a quiet corner to eat your PB&J.

Some master agents might recognize this scenario as it looks a lot like a major partner relationship management (PRM) issue they are dealing with today. Several master agents and their subdealers have been putting pressure on carriers to electronically integrate with PRM companies, such as Salestream Software, to enable faster and easier quoting and proposal preparation. Even though the carriers are guaranteed to be quoted more often if they join this in crowd of integrated suppliers, they have been ignoring the requests of master agents and choosing to lunch alone.

Most master agents say that easy-to-use and informative PRM systems are not a luxury, but a necessity. A lot of resellers and master agents are rebranding such systems or creating their own portals from the ground up for self-provisioning of quoting and commissions information. But these machines currently need regular maintenance manual input of carrier and provider information a timeconsuming process that often reaches obsolescence upon completion. Without electronic integration, not only do agents spend precious time researching quote information, but channel managers could spend hours each day responding to quote requests.

Salestream Softwares MasterStream-MX for master agents electronically communicates with providers through an API, which fetches cost and coverage information. MasterStream currently instantly quotes 20- plus providers (see list below), and Steve Roberts, president and CEO of Salestream, conjectures that if you arent in that crowd, youre missing out on business. Salestream has heard from provider channel executives whose services are not available on Instant Quotes complaining that sales have dropped sharply when their best agents have licensed MasterStream-MX, explains Roberts. The drop in sales they witness is always the result of their competitors being available on Instant Quotes when they are not.

Roberts also notes time is often of the essence for customers when they are in the quote-seeking process for telecom services. So even if a providers quote far outshines anothers, if its late to the table, it might not even be considered. And, he says, the instant-quote process reflects positively on the agent as well. The overall impression is, I want to work with the guy who got me the quotes instantly because if he can do that instantly, hes on top of his game. And he probably can get it installed better hes using better tools. And I have better information to make my decision, says Roberts.

Ted Schuman, CEO of master agency PlanetOne Communications Inc., says the MasterStream product concept, in theory, is a desperately needed tool for all master agents and all agents in general, but there simply werent enough PlanetOne providers on board for instant quoting to make it a worthwhile investment for PlanetOne. The addition of four or five national carriers would have tipped the scales, but for now he says PlanetOne is a satisfied customer of RPM Software, a PRM company that does not have direct integration with any providers.

RPM offers commissions and channel management software, which is currently used by more than 80 companies to manage leads, quotes, orders, provisioning, trouble tickets and to complete all commission audits, calculations and reports. Instead of direct integration with carriers, a common approach is utilizing Microsoft Excel to move information from the provider into RPMs system. This allows our customers to deal with all of their partners within the system without needing to wait for integration that may or may not ever become available, says Bill Boyd, vice president of RPM.

Some carriers refuse to see life beyond their extranets. Carriers have their own proprietary systems that handle everything from quoting and ordering, to calculating commissions, says Boyd. Most of this information is considered proprietary confidential information that makes opening up their internal systems difficult and with a cost not only to provide access one time for an integration project but also the ongoing costs to maintain as internal systems are upgraded and modified.

Another concern providers have with electronically integrating is that a system like MasterStream couldnt handle their complex pricing structure. However, Salestreams Roberts says the system can handle complicated pricing that consists of any number of variables including special market areas, forbidden LATAs, special lit building pricing and so on.

Roberts says Salestream used to lobby to get carriers integrated with its PRM products, and some companies got it and came on board quickly. Other companies that are larger, like Verizon, who has its own Web site, think they have their own tool set, explains Roberts. But what theyre failing to remember is that many Verizon agents are not exclusive agents, and that they can use Verizon tools for their own stuff, but they still need a MasterStream to pull all that together to generate multiprovider proposals.

Master agent Schuman says pitches from the PRM vendor usually fall on deaf ears. Instead, carriers need to hear it from their master agents, he says, reciting the spiel: We just dont have the time to go to your extranet to price deals anymore. So, if you want us to continue to win business for you, why dont you build an API between your pricing engine and MasterStream and well start sending you more quotes and filling your funnel with sales opportunities?

Geoffrey Shepstone, president of Telecom Brokerage Inc., agrees. Providers are wise to facilitate the integration with PRM [companies] as it makes doing business with the provider easier. Ease of doing business is a major driver when choosing a provider to work with, Shepstone says. TBI currently works with RPM and is implementing MasterStream to automate quoting.

In addition to more sales, master agents say there are other benefits of integration for service providers. Stacey McCormick, director of sales at World Telecom Group, a MasterStream customer, notes that one of the perks is the shrinking margin of error as information is passed between carrier and agent. Brad Miehl, president and CEO of MicroCorp Inc., whose company uses its own homegrown PRM system called Nautilus, adds that collaboration, reporting and trend analysis are other benefits.

Dominic Antonini, president of master agency Telcombrokers, also says pressure from the master agents is required, but his wish is that the carriers [would] just get on it and stop lolly-lagging and ho-humming about electronic integration. I dont think anyone should have to pressure the carriers to get the product because they should just be able to see the opportunities themselves and want it, says Antonini. Its almost like we have to take them to water and force them to drink in some instances.

Some of them are drinking on their own. New Edge Networks is one example. The company is integrated for instant quotes on MasterStream. Bruce Barnes, director of channel programs at New Edge Network Inc., feels its his responsibility to provide as many resources as possible for the companys master agents. We take it personally take it as our own personal responsibility to try to connect with our master agents in the best way we can no matter how that is, says Barnes. We will work with API-type services. We just want to make sure that our agents have whatever tools they need in order to do business most effectively with us. Barnes further notes that instant quotes might be a good starting point, but in the end, we find that frequently in order to propose the right solution, we really need to be able to link up our sales engineering staff with the customer to properly match their applications.

RPMs Boyd says if integration is going to help carriers sell more, then carriers may be incented to do so. However, he questions whether master agents are creating the incentive by only recommending the providers that are the easiest to price. Instead, they still may be searching out all options for their clients, so the carriers may not be feeling the pain of lost sales.

Salestreams Roberts says the companys door is open to any providers that would like to be instantly quoted through the MasterStream product; his company takes on the expense. Salestream also offers a sponsorship program, through which a provider can sponsor instant quotes in the system for its agents. Salestream then bills the provider for the monthly fee as opposed to the agents. A growing number of providers, including Dynalink Communications Inc. and Covad Communications Group, are sponsoring instant quotes for their agents. In fact, Covad recently announced it will sponsor instant quotes for its agents currently using the system for six months. Covad partners should contact their channel manager to take advantage of this offer and [find out] how to continue their sponsorship beyond the offer period, says Debbie Jo Severin, vice president of marketing at Covad. Covad also is the first to offer DSL via the instant quoting system.

Master agency Telcombrokers sponsored an API for the companys No. 1 seller, a dedicated long-distance product with low in-state calling rates from carrier Teledata Solutions Inc. This Telcombrokers exclusive is sponsored for its agents and some master agencies, where they represent the product through Telcombrokers as a subagent. In return, Telcombrokers pays for the instant quote feature on Salestream. Thanks to branding, this relationship is invisible to subagents and customers.

Providers Salestream Can Quote Instantly

ACC Business (Coming Soon)
AccessLine Communications Corp.
Access One Inc.
AT&T Inc. (Calif.)
BullsEye Telecom
Conversent (One Communications)
Covad Communications Group
DynaLink Communications Inc.
First Communications LLC
Global Crossing
Level 3 Communications Inc. (Broadwing Communications)
New Edge Network Inc. (T1s in Metro Areas)
NuVox Communications
PowerNet Global Communications
Qwest Communications International Inc. (Coming Soon)
Speakeasy Inc.
Teledata Solutions Inc. (TSI)
TelePacific Communications
Telnes Broadband
Time Warner Telecom
UCN Inc.
Verizon Business
XO Communications