Selecting the right white-label VoIP partner can be a make-or-break decision. The right partner will be there for you, setting you up for success with a high-quality product, support, and training. The right partner will provide you with quality support, more growth opportunities, and ultimately, more revenue-making potential.
When you’re trying to compare providers, it can feel like comparing apples to oranges. In theory, you know that you should be able to directly compare them to empower you in making the best decision. That’s why you need to understand what to look for in a white-label partner. When you know what to look for and what qualities make a great partner, it makes decision-making easy.
Why MSPs should consider offering VoIP
VoIP is a valuable addition to any Managed Service Provider (MSP) offering. Its flexibility, efficiency and adaptability make it a growing market. As it stands, currently 31% of businesses use VoIP for their communication system and this number will continue to expand with traditional landline systems being phased out soon.
For MSPs, the rewards from adding VoIP to their portfolio include ongoing revenue opportunities along with gaining a competitive advantage. It’s a service that is worth considering for those looking to build out their offering.
Learn more about why MSPs should be offering VoIP solutions.
What to look for in a white-label partner?
When you’re choosing a white-label VoIP partner, there are a few areas that need to be considered. You need to look at both what services they’re offering for you to pass on to your customers, but also what support your partner will give you. The best partners enhance your ability to interact with your customers and set you up to flourish with your new offering.
Let’s have a look at what aspects of a potential VoIP partner’s service you need to consider.
Reliability
When you’re selling business-critical services such as communications, reliability is a must. No one wants a phone system that drops out during calls. That’s why before you research anything else, you need to check the reliability of their system.
VoIP call quality is measured through the R-Factor. The R-Factor is determined by looking at metrics such as latency, packet loss and packet delay variation. Anything over 90% is deemed as excellent. Any provider worth their salt will know their R-Factor - make sure you’re asking every provider you speak to for theirs. To save you from asking, when we last measured in May 2024 our R-Factor was 91%.
Customisation
You want your brand to be front and centre in your customer’s mind. That means you want to be able to add your logo to any interfaces, insert your email addresses and badge the product as your own.
Most providers allow you to do this at varying levels. It’s important before you choose your partner to understand the different levels of customisation available and the level of support you’ll be given to do it because you might be surprised at the answers you receive.
Pricing and profitability
One of the main reasons you’re adding VoIP services to your offering is to maximise your revenue. To do this, you need to be in charge of your pricing. You want to work with a partner who gives you control over your price plans so you can maximise the potential for markups.
Choosing a provider who insists you use their pricing model or has limitations on discounts will restrict your revenue stream, and over time it could damage your business model.
Reputation
With a relatively low-cost point of entry to the VoIP market, it’s easy for newcomers to set up and start trading. They might be a strong option, or they might be an unknown risk. That’s where reputation comes in.
Before you make a decision, Google them and read what their existing customers are saying about their service and their technology. If you’re going to resell a service then you need to have unwavering confidence in that company and its offering, you can do that by researching their existing reputation. After all, their reputation will become your reputation.
Support
While you’ll be responsible for first-line support to your customers, you are likely to occasionally face an issue that you need support from your VoIP provider on. You need to understand what support your VoIP partner provides in those times.
You never want to be in a position where you’ve exhausted all of your in-house diagnostic and support services, yet the customer still isn’t happy. Understanding exactly what support (and when) you’ll have access to is key to ensuring you’ll be able to deliver a high-quality service and be able to support your customers' needs. You need to be confident that when you do contact them with an issue, they’ll be on hand to quickly resolve the issue for you.
Technology
When it comes to technology, not all platforms are created equal. There’s a big difference between a partner who’s developed their own platform over someone who’s reselling a platform that already exists.
The benefit of working with a partner that’s created their own platform is they’re also able to adapt to both yours and your customer's needs, creating a smoother process for your customers and improving the quality of service on offer.
Other factors to consider
Now you know what to look for in terms of the product and service side of choosing a partner. But what else should you check before committing?
It’s aspects such as how easy it is to get started, what support they offer with invoicing and payments, along with hearing about some of their other partners.
You want to build a complete picture of the partner experience to ensure you go into the agreement happy with every aspect and excited to get started.
Choosing a white-label VoIP partner doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be right. After all, this is a partner that you’re hopefully going to work with for a long time and one whose product you’ll be selling every day. You need to believe in both the business and the offering to succeed.
The Dial 9 partner programme allows you to easily sell our sophisticated platform and technology VoIP services. Discover more about our partner programme and how to get started.
