Centile: CCaaS is Ripe and Perfect for Disruption

‘The key to success is arming sales teams with true FMC’  

“We’re at a point, in the CCaaS market, where telecoms technology can cause the pivot of an entire business and sales team, including how it operates.” This is how Centile’s UK Director, Justin Hamilton-Martin, greeted me during a recent interview. During our time together, he shared a lot of insight into how we can modernize sales practices to remain ahead of the curve in the Contact Center as a Service market. 

He said refreshing outdated practices to ones that change the rules of engagement on competitors means you can create a strong sales differentiation to gain the upper hand. 

This sales tactic is not original, but Centile does have one of the freshest approaches to the method I’ve seen. So, I wanted to find out more about how they bring Jim Holden’s popular sales method to life in order to remain at the vanguard of telecoms tech. 

The Telecoms Sales Approach 

Selling office communications systems is motivated by numerous factors. For starters, enterprise leaders might want to replace a system because of relocation or expansion. Customers also want to migrate to the cloud, but increasingly crave mobility. 

“Enterprises are moving to the cloud while looking for mobility as the main driver” 

Hamilton-Martin said. As such, he maintains there are countless benefits to cloud migration including resilience. “Between a VoIP phone on a desk, I’ve counted seven pieces of a kit to connect a call from the exchange to the handset that could go wrong or are at least involved in the connection.” This is where Centile’s FMC solution comes into play – it skips all these steps – you just have a SIM as part of our platform and a mobile device. 

Customers can enable mobility through VoIP handsets, softphones, and mobile twinning to support remote workers or BYO SIMs, however, the simplest option is a SIM on our platform – it’s the game-changer that will any day soon become the preferred path as long as it is on the right mobile network. 

Remote Work Considerations & the State of Mobility 

Better collaboration and remote work go hand-and-hand, yet reside at two ends of the same scale, a gap that necessitates bridging. This all brings me to a need for strong computing power that remote workers can leverage on their mobile devices, laptops, and tablets. 

These devices have the CPU to unshackle remote workers from traditional business environments. Looking at contemporary offerings in the UCaaS market, Hamilton-Martin believes customers have become complacent and grown to accept what he calls the ‘norm.’ 

“That does not mean the market isn’t ripe for disruption, though” 

Although there are exceptions, the ‘norm’ is to accept mobile networks and fixed networks as separate entities. This has far-reaching implications, including sacrificing true presence visibility because you’re using a mobile device. For remote workers who rely on their mobile devices, this level of trade-off makes little sense. 

Another part of the comparison is business call logging, which only covers half the story. The way today’s PBX, cloud PBX calls, and key data from mobile devices are all captured remains separate, impacting billing. On the other hand, call recording may capture a call if it goes through the right channel. 

“Remote workers in 2019, and going into 2020, want their call flows to work in a similar way on their mobiles, and while not all companies are ready for FMC, sales teams ready to change the rules of engagement on their competitors with a simpler, more compelling offer will blindside their competitors – the world of UCaaS and CCaaS are about to change for good – now that is disruption,” he added.