8×8 has upended its sales org and hired a new SVP of sales. Big deal. It’s negative sales growth isn’t because it can’t drive sales, it is because it can’t retain customers.
8×8 bought Fuze to gain enterprise customers, then failed to keep those customers!
Sales is important but the next 3 steps are just as important: service delivery, customer care and retention!
Most UCaaS players lack those ingredients. It’s like the old Seinfeld episode about reservations. Anyone can take an order, but delivering the order and keeping the customer is the primary mission of any business.
Cloud comms revenue has the same issue that ILEC business wireline revenue has: the continued decline to zero. All seats that are up for renewal with be $2-$5 less per seat than 3 years ago. And that is if you get a chance to retain the customer.
How much user training did you do? Years ago, RingCentral would embark on a mission to get users to login to the portal and use it while the handset was shipping. They tracked new customers to reduce the 90 day churn number. I don’t know if they do that anymore, but UCaaS players should be using AI to track usage and portal login.
Let’s say that the minutes of voice is declining per extension, wouldn’t that be a red flag? Either users have switched to cell phones or the business is in decline. Is there an uptick in other channels – like SMS? Indicators, right?
Webex has added over 400 features since the pandemic. Who even knows what those features are? Who is getting users to adopt them to make the platform, not just stickier, but useful for the business?
AI is supposed to be more than hype and smoke. It is supposed to make the platform more useful, simpler for the users.
I was on a call yesterday with an insurance company. They just want Call Park. In 2024. Extrapolate that over other small businesses that just want the basic key system features and you can see why a full blown, AI-enhanced, UC+CC platform is overkill. They just want Call Park.
What they want are simple features that are intuitive to use. Like their iPhone!!!
So, yes, sales is important, but after that ink dries on the contract, the provider has to deliver the service, make the customer happy and get the users to adopt the platform — or face churn. The next customer will be more expensive to acquire for a cheaper ARPU!