Exchange Communications partnership is a winner for new business

Overview

Our relationship with Exchange Communications is fantastic and continues to thrive. They are a leading cloud and digital transformation specialist, delivering telecom and smart building connectivity solutions to businesses. They provide innovative communication products, dependable maintenance and provide sustainable solutions in over 100 countries, worldwide. Focused on SMEs, mid market, local government and health sector clients, we have worked with them across a range of their customers. They deliver across a huge scale; from single office telephone systems to complex multi-site and call centre configurations and networked communications. With a wide portfolio of services and products they work in partnership with the best quality service providers like BT Wholesale.

The Challenge

Tom Sime, CEO of Exchange Communications, drives his team to deliver excellence in very competitive domestic and international markets.

No matter where they go to bid for work, their reputation for high quality products and superlative customer care are key factors in the accounts they have succeeded in landing.

That’s why a relationship with BTW matters. There’s no doubt that without BTW Tom and his colleagues would offer the same type of product, but the difference in quality, delivery and sustainability would create issues. Exchange Communications need to meet the expectations of their customers in every step: from bid proposal to implementation and managing the client.

The Solution

“They listen. When we have feedback, when we have new ideas and when we need help presenting to potential new customers,” says Tom Sime, “They’ve also helped the team get up to speed on technology and products too”. The support that we give Exchange Communications isn’t an extra service. It’s simply because we go the extra mile for customers. We understand the value that BTW can bring not only in terms of product and technology, but also in the support we can offer our customers.

Whether that be education and training or bid support and going with the customer to the meetings. “It works for us,” Tom explains, “obviously, but it also works for our clients too. It gives them the comfort and confidence of working with a business that is partnered with a brand like BTW”.

We work very closely with Exchange Communications to facilitate their business and meet the needs of their customers. While the value of our input to Exchange Communications is huge, there is a significant value for BTW too. We continue to develop and build our reputation across the industry and grow our business further. As Tom tells us, “There is no doubting the value of BTW in the bid process. Their competitors just don’t do it.”The Oxford NHS Health Trust contract bid highlights how hard we work for our partners.

“BTW were in constant communication and assisted throughout the whole bid process including being fully engaged over the Christmas and New Year holiday week.”

“We try to go the extra mile for all of our partners and we really value the relationship we have with Exchange Communications. We try to offer more than products and technology, and to support our customers wherever we can -be that through education, training,bid support and attending external meetings with our customers.”

Alex Tempest, Managing Director BT Wholesale

They really contributed to the process with excellent cost incentives and providing billing flexibility”. Trust and transparency have been key to our relationship with Exchange Communications and the foundation of our true partnership. “We’ve been able to share our bid planning, pipeline transparency, margin analysis and modified price model,” Tom explains, “It’s how our partnership works. If we were working with someone else we probably wouldn’t share that level of information”.

This level of trust isn’t something that happened overnight, but rather through hard work and over a series of successful and honest conversations over time. We value our customers trust and belief in us. We have a very powerful partnership and firm relationship with Tom and his team, where we can share a lot with them too. A shared level of transparency with all our partners has benefits that are obvious. We can offer so much more when we’re more familiar with the business and their challenges. Our experience and expertise can turn a challenge into a benefit for both our customer and the customer’s customer. But it’s more than that, especially when the work with Oxford NHS Health Trust is considered, as Tom explains, “It puts Exchange in a prime position to showcase the partnerships abilities to the Public Sector and promote the Exchange, BTW and Avaya partnership throughout the UK”.

It’s the strength of the relationship we have with Tom and his team that makes our partnership so productive and powerful. They will come to us as a trusted advisor around the products and services, especially around Avaya. For example, for a meeting with Oxford NHS Health Trust, on a joint partnership, they wanted us in the bid meeting. We were not only relevant to the meeting, but they had faith and trust in us to drive their vision for their client. Tom explains, “They’re always on-hand to assist and answer questions the client had which emphasised the excellent partnership we have with BTW and that our proposal was fully supported and backed up by BTW”.

Relationships are all about discussions and being honest. No where is that more important than in how we innovate our products and services. “Customers buy into the development and innovation that is part of the package and not additional to it,” says Tom, “The free-upgrade is important to our customers, just as knowing that we’re also future proofing their investment”. We listen to Tom and his team’s feedback and develop our products in line with their customer insight. “It’s a mutually beneficial partnership,” he says.

“They share their ideas with us and we highlight what we think will work well, but equally we have identified opportunities for them too. BTW have been very quick to market with ideas, getting them through interoperability studies and QA, ensuring everything works well before we begin to share them with our customers.”

The power of the brand is never more evident than in a partnership like this with Exchange Communications. It gives them a strength in negotiating, a sense of reliability and trust in the services they sell through us and engenders confidence in their customers. It’s not just our longevity and value of quality, but also that – in five years’ time – we give the customer confidence that their investment will still be around.

“To be honest, there are some cloud competitors who may be gone in five years,” explains Tom, “But not BTW”.How well does this relationship work for Exchange Communications?

Does the work with them and Oxford NHS Trust really make a difference? Tom is very clear with his response, “These projects should bring more opportunities and business our way, especially if the service we provide is of a high standard as proposed.”

The Result

Exchange Communication are a key Avaya channel partner. They are in
the top two businesses within the BT Wholesale organisation as a result of building and growing the relationship founded on trust, transparency, honesty, listening and belief.

Our role as a trusted advisor extends beyond Tom and his senior colleagues to pre-sales and operational teams. As a result we work together on their challenges and celebrate their successes like we would our own.

Tom Sime, CEO of Exchange Communications sums up our relationship really well, “The strength of the partnership between Exchange Communications and BT Wholesale is evident and built on the firmest of foundations, our combined strengths and determination to win new business, whilst delivering innovative solutions that meet the needs of our customers. There’s no limit to what you can achieve when your true partnership is as strong as ours.

Find out more at: www.exchangecommunications.co.uk