Wholesale Telecommunications and Owning the Customer
In the world of telecommunications, there are two main approaches to selling services: selling wholesale directly to customers or using channel partners to reach customers. We’ll explore the differences between these two approaches and help you decide which one is best for your business.
January 24, 2023 | 4 min read
Using Wholesale Telecom
When you sell wholesale telecommunications and own the customer, you are essentially selling your services directly to the end-user. This approach is typically used by a managed service provider of telecommunications services who have the resources to handle customer acquisition, management, and support. By owning the customer, these companies can control the entire customer experience, from pricing to service delivery to support.
What are the advantages?
- More Control: Selling wholesale telecommunications and owning the customer gives you greater control over the customer experience. You can set your own prices, manage the service delivery process, and provide customer support directly.
- Better Customer Insights: When you own the customer, you have access to their usage data and other information that can help you better understand their needs and preferences. This information can be used to develop targeted marketing campaigns and tailor your services to meet their specific needs.
- Flexibility: Owning the customer gives you greater flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. You can quickly make changes to your services and pricing based on customer feedback and market trends.
- Greater Profits: You are purchasing at wholesale with very low carrier costs and selling at retail. An average of 70% more profit than using Channel Partners.
What are the Disadvantages?
- Cost: Owning the customer can be more expensive. You need to invest in marketing, customer acquisition, customer support, and service delivery infrastructure. This can be cost-prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses unless you have a partnership that provides all the back-end servers and hosting, like QuestBlue.
- Limited Reach: When you own the customer, you are responsible for acquiring new customers and managing customer relationships. This can limit your reach and make it difficult to scale your business.
- Access to Expertise: Companies like QuestBlue can provide valuable expertise in areas such as configuration assistance, transparent customer support when you need it and need to count on it. This can help you improve your services and better meet customer needs.
Using Channel partners
What are the advantages?
- Lower Cost: Using channel partners can be a cost-effective way to reach new customers. You don’t have to invest in marketing or customer acquisition, as your partners handle these tasks for you.
- Greater Reach: At the start, using this approach can help you reach a broader customer base until you are established. Your partners may have established relationships with customers in your target market, allowing you to quickly expand your reach.
what are the disadvantages?
- Less Control: When you use channel partners, you have less control over the customer experience. Your partners may set their own prices and provide their own support, which can impact the overall customer experience.
- Limited Insights: When you use channel partners, you may have limited insights into customer usage data and other information that can help you better understand their needs and preferences.
- Limited Flexibility: Using channel partners can limit your flexibility to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs. You may be dependent on your partners to make changes to your services and pricing.
conclusion
Selling wholesale telecommunications and owning the customer and using channel partners are two approaches to selling telecommunications services, and both have their advantages and disadvantages. Which one is right for your business depends on several factors, such as your resources, target market, and growth goals. Ultimately, the key to success is choosing the approach that aligns with your business vision. Moreover if you want to build a long term recurring revenue stream where you are the direct contact for your customer and not a third party then ‘owning the customer’ is the correct approach by purchasing access to the telecommunications network at a wholesale rate and reselling to your end users.