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Is the Old Way of Selling Cable Dead?
New technology is changing the rules when it comes to selling cable services.
AppSmart Guest Blogger
September 16, 2021
5 Min Read
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Sponsored by AppSmart
No matter how you slice it, broadband internet is big business. Cable internet is imperative for many SMBs and small enterprises for cloud computing, unified communications (UC) and connecting to other enterprise applications. Cable also pairs well with newer SD-WAN technologies so that customers can run more intelligent and efficient networks. And, while some customers are moving to faster fiber circuits, there’s a large customer segment that will continue to rely on cable internet like coax to meet internet backup requirements and connect to enterprise cloud apps.
The Downside of Selling Broadband
However, as a technology advisor, selling broadband internet is no picnic. That’s because selling cable, whether coax or fiber, has traditionally been an incredibly time-consuming and manually driven process. Let’s review the major sticking points.
The middle-man game: One of the biggest challenges is that technology advisors must go through third parties to access serviceability and pricing information. With a high level of coordination needed, it often takes several hours, if not days, to prospect each potential customer.
Manual-driven: Tracking down serviceability and pricing information generally requires going to each cable provider portal, inputting addresses and pulling that information to prepare a quote. Taking the approved quote and generating the contract also takes several manual steps and requires multiple emails. Prospecting for multisite locations is even more labor-intensive.
Low ROI: The manual nature of selling cable means that often small cable contracts equate to low-value opportunities. And potential multi-site cable contracts that offer high MRR (monthly recurring revenue) are often too time-consuming and cost-prohibitive to pursue. As a result, many technology advisors don’t pursue new cable deals or they fail to cross-sell cable services with existing customers, leaving money on the table.
Written proof: Another factor is that customers want to see accurate price quotes for each location in writing before moving to the contract phase. Coordinating with third parties to obtain written quotes is exceptionally challenging, and it can often delay or kill opportunities.
High customer expectations: In 2020, the customer experience was the No. 1 key brand differentiator, beating out both product and price. And it’s no different when selling cable services. Whether customers are looking for cable internet for one location or 100 locations, they expect the same level of service.
Finally, Technology That Accelerates Your Success
There’s new technology available that is changing the rules when it comes to selling cable services. Some master agencies offer tools to give technology advisors access to cable serviceability and pricing information directly, eliminating the need to coordinate with third parties to generate quotes and contracts. Here’s what to look for in evaluating cable selling tools.
Automated and self-service: The best cable selling tools should be self-service and enable technology advisors to look up customer locations, serviceability and pricing for cable services from multiple carriers from a single interface. Click on Page 2 to continue reading…
Deliver quotes in writing fast: The ability to quickly generate accurate cable quotes in writing, including the best possible promotions applied, is key.
Streamline single site lookup and multi-site searches: Streamlining single site lookup and bulk serviceability requests is critical for helping technology advisors make more money selling small contracts and targeting higher-value MRR cable opportunities.
Ability to brand quotes: A company’s brand establishes trust within the industry and marketplace. Technology advisors should have the ability to use their own brand logo and identity on cable quotes to build loyalty and trust with customers and prospects.
Tools to digitize the contracting process: Gartner reports that 77% of B2B buyers believe their latest purchase was very complex or challenging. That means that technology advisors need to modernize the complete customer journey, including contract generation. Tools with built-in e-signature capabilities provide a significant advantage to advisors and customers.
AppSmart CableSeller, Powered by CableFinder
Truly, we have entered a new era of selling cable services. For advisors to deliver a superior customer experience, they need more control. They need a way to streamline accurate serviceability and pricing with carrier APIs, automated quote generation and a digitized contracting process. Technology advisors are meeting these challenges and becoming more competitive by automating their core sales processes with AppSmart’s complete ecosystem of technology, tools and support resources.
AppSmart CableSeller is the ideal cable selling tool because it modernizes the complete cable selling process. AppSmart CableSeller is an integrated self-service tool that enables Technology advisors to find, quote and contract cable services–coax and fiber–in minutes.
Directly in the tool, advisors search customer locations for serviceability and receive quote information for cable services for Comcast, Cox, Spectrum and more. Advisors can save search histories, add their logo to quotes and very quickly generate contracts through built-in e-signature capabilities from DocuSign.
Learn More
In the past six months, technology advisors have already submitted more than 2,500 multisite searches in AppSmart CableSeller. The tool has processed over 500,000 addresses and generated more than 500 contracts for electronic signature.
Weekly training: Sign up and attend one of our weekly training sessions to learn how to start using AppSmart CableSeller today.
Start basic, then build MRR with multi-site searches: Start using the tool to perform basic serviceability searches. Then, quickly prospect larger MRC cable contracts with bulk serviceability site-lookup for up to 100 locations at a time.
Leverage cable selling experts: If you have questions or need additional help using the tool, the AppSmart Team of cable experts are always available to help.
To learn more, sign up for an upcoming webinar on using AppSmart CableSeller, or review other AppSmart CableSeller resources.
This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.
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