BT Wholesale has unveiled its ‘Complete Switch’ ISDN migration proposition it hopes will enable resellers to ease the path to full IP, which thousands of small business customers have yet to tread with just 10 months to go to Openreach’s WLR stop sell deadline next September.
The initiative, dubbed ‘123 to all IP’ bundles up the three elements the company has identified as log jams in the switchover process, namely on boarding and number porting, educating and enabling customers and marketing support.
Speaking at the company’s Partner Plus live event staged at The Shard in London, BTW’s Data and Broadband Proposition Specialist Gail Ash stressed that around 80% of the SMB market is still on copper-based services.
“Even if you're ahead of the curve, even if you're well, down the line of converting your base to all IP, there's still a huge market opportunity out there,” she said.
“There’s apathy in the market. I'm sure you've all had conversations with family, with friends in the pub at the school gates, wherever, where people just don't know when it (the switch off) is happening.”
To address the challenge, BTW has amalgamated its layer three Broadband One offer and its WHC Express digital voice service into a joined up single order journey, underpinned by a suite of professional services. It claims this has reduced the time it takes to place an order from 13 minutes to 5 minutes. On number porting, the company says it has reduced customer fallout from 36% to an average of 10% and expects to reduce that further in time.
Detailing the ‘123 to All IP’ programme, Proposition Specialist Wing Yee Lo (pictured) said it has been designed to simplify the messaging to customers and navigate the complexities around migration.
“Step one is for partners to on board to the hub and take advantage of the Complete Switch products which will enable partners to hit the ground running. Step two is to educate and enable, which is exclusive to our partners and is arguably the most valuable step in this process. It’s a tailored, personalized learning journey that's dependent on your role in the business.
“Since you have cross functional teams, your teams will require different information depending on what team you are in. Therefore, we've curated three separate streams, technical, business and leadership so that you can consume the information that's right for you. And in terms of the elements, we've got small technical elements, such as hub have demos, and number porting deep dives, down to more software elements to help you build your ‘why switch now’ stories. These will be either live webinars or recorded videos by experts, alongside supported documentation. And we are building this on an ongoing basis.
“Step three is marketing support. We now have an integrated all-IP campaign in a box that has all the assets you need to build an all-IP campaign.
“There will be heightened pressure as we approach the stop sells and switch off in 2025 and doing nothing leaves you susceptible to your competition taking your base. Alternatively, you can attack, and embrace all IP. Being a leader in this space means that you're more likely to retain your current customers and attract new ones,” she added.