How Tech Advisors Are Embracing Professional ServicesHow Tech Advisors Are Embracing Professional Services

Reno, Nevada-based Solus Technology Solutions is ramping up its professional services platform with new investments and talent.

The technology advisory firm has taken its SolusCare solution live for managing its business clients' IT and telecom infrastructure, after trialing the platform with key customers.

Customers have currently subscribed approximately 1,000 of their sites to SolusCare, which provides inventory management and conducts proactive circuit monitoring through a network operations center (NOC). Clients log into Solus' CRM and can view all of their office locations where they have a primary or backup interconnection.

"All the contracts are in there. They can click on the links and see them any time without hunting. We track the expiration of the contracts to make sure that they don't auto-renew at above-market pricing. The best part of SolusCare that the NOC proactively monitors all the customer’s circuits and automatically opens up a trouble ticket with the underlying carrier, typically before the client notices the outage. Then the ticket history populates into their portal," Solus chief revenue officer and partner Joe Jonovic told Channel Futures.

Solus' Joe Jonovic

Solus made a six-figure investment into building its platform. It is using a strategic partner for the NOC. The company in January added Sandra Phrases as onboarding project specialist and Ronald Milbank as director of managed services and CRM innovations.

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"It's an expensive business model. I've got project managers and customer service reps with 25 years of industry experience," Jonovic said. "We don't hire and train. We've got a band of all-stars committed to delivering an exceptional customer experience."

Solus is currently offering the solution for $99 per site, per month.

Solus Professional Services

A growing number of technology advisors (formerly known as agents) are adopting professional services as a way to build stickier customers and develop new revenue streams. In the advisor model, which came out of the telecom world, the vendor/supplier bears responsibility for billing and managed services, and compensates the agent for the sale. However, many agencies have remained a bridge between their clients and the vendors they recommend, often raising escalations.

Jonovic said that early on during his time as Solus, he felt he could add value as a salesperson by handling escalations.

"Our idea was that if you bought the circuit from us, instead of calling the publicly traded company that's the underlying carrier, call us and we'll provide the support. Our customers found that we have executive relationships, we speak their language, and we have leverage – both through our million-dollar book of business and through the 800-pound gorilla, Intelisys," he said.

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Jonovic said many of his earlier customers were small and lacked technical expertise.

"If I had just asked them to sign a contract and deal with the implementation team at the carrier, it would have been like throwing them to the wolves," he said.

But even if the customer has a sophisticated IT department, it still might not want to prioritize escalations.

"Nobody that's making six figures in an IT department wants to call one of the LECs or CLECs to open up a trouble ticket. It's just not a pleasant experience," Jonovic said. "You wait on hold, you get transferred around, you hope you don't get disconnected, and you finally open up the trouble ticket - and then you wait, and wait."

Some partners have stayed away from a back-office investment because they see their business as more focused on the core residual commissions they earn from sales. But Jonovic pointed to two problems with relying that model. First, agents are often waiting months for their first commission check to come in after selling something. And price compression in the internet market is impacting those commissions when they do arrive, he said.

"If I'm selling a commodity, how do I add value so that customers win and are loyal to us?" he said.

Beyond Services

If SolusCare previously pivoted to offering services, Jonovic said has evolved into a data company.

The new platform contains data on customers' inventory, including circuit IDs, IP addresses and account numbers. SolusCare sends that information to the NOC through APIs. The NOC pings each circuit every two minutes, and if one circuit continues to be unresponsive, the NOC will automatically open a ticket. Jonovic said that in the past he would have been personally making calls to the vendor over the weekend when circuits went down. Now he says the platform is automatically catching problems before customers do.

"Think about how much time we gave back to them, and think about the financial resources that they can reallocate to strategic initiatives because they're no longer bogged down managing the tactical part of that network," Jonovic said.

An Industry Trend

Virginia-based LAVA Technology Solutions launched its professional services arm with the expectation that clients will demand more support from tech advisors.

“They’re going to say, ‘Hey, I need more help here,’ and if you’re simply referring business to other companies and just acting as a broker exclusively, there’s going to be a time and a place where you’re no longer going to have the value your customer needs, and they’re going to seek it elsewhere,” LAVA CEO Jake Jansen told Channel Futures in 2023.

Nick Enger, president and chief technology officer for ATC of Ohio, predicted earlier this month that more suppliers will introduced tiered compensations structures for their agent partners to reward services.

"To secure ongoing compensation, including for growth, trusted advisors must demonstrate ongoing engagement, client support and alignment with selected solutions," Enger said.