The comms industry's most critical imperative is to offer faultless customer service, according to Inclarity Communications Director Enzo Viscito who leads by example.
It was Viscito's erstwhile deep attraction to fancy cars that ultimately drove him along the road to a career in comms. Seduced by the eye candy, Viscito has not looked back since he joined what was then a household name in the telecoms sector. "I got into comms purely by chance when I was looking for my first job in sales," he said. "Naively, I got an interview with a company called Norton Telecommunications without knowing anything about comms, but when I saw the sporty company cars the sales guys were driving I knew this was the job for me."
Fast forward to today and Viscito is comfortably in the driving seat steering Inclarity towards a new phase of growth based on sound business principles, spotless service, an advanced hosted strategy and impeccable technology. Inclarity has long been known as a trailblazer for hosted telephony, first taking it to market in 2002 when the company founder acted on his conviction that hosted would become a force in business communications. "It was early days, but he was right to turn his vision into strategy," said Viscito. "We now have a great channel model."
Inclarity's investment in the BroadSoft platform in 2010 created a new springboard to take more market share. A subsequent investment in the network is also certain to pay off with the year-long project nearing completion. "The network is state-of-the-art and fully resilient and will allow us to offer our channels more innovative solutions next year," added Viscito.
Most telecom VARs, SIs and consultants recognise the need to change and evolve along with their customers' requirement for innovation in solution delivery. But transformation can be challenging and requires dedicated support and resources from the hosted telephony provider. This in turn builds greater customer loyalty leading to lower churn and ultimately improved ARPU, believes Viscito. "As our partners look to develop new skills and adjust their business models to become more competitive, they need a compelling vision and roadmap from experienced best-of-breed vendors with strong financial incentives and clearly defined processes," he said.
Inclarity offers the full suite of hosted solutions through its channels including telephony, call centre, soft phones, SIP trunks, UC and video. The target market is predominantly SME but prospects in the large enterprise market are also bright with recent customer wins employing 500-plus staff. "One of the main trends we are seeing is customers wanting a flexible model that allows them to switch users on and off whenever they desire, with full disaster recovery built into every solution as standard," commented Viscito. "Customers are putting more emphasis on flexible SLAs rather than price, with customer support being paramount."
Customer service and growth strategies are two sides of the same coin and to flip-out on customer support is a gamble that is doomed to fail. "Customer service is everything to our channels and without it you cannot grow your business," added Viscito. "We invest heavily in our support team and our satisfaction figures are at 97.5 per cent, with 95 per cent of support calls answered within five seconds. Our growth strategy is dependent on our customer satisfaction level. We use a carrier grade best-in-class platform that provides 99.999 per cent reliability, achieved by using a resilient architecture with full redundancy built into both the hardware and software components. Outstanding customer service is the only way to do business."
Inclarity has a strong team that brings together decades of telecoms experience, a dash of entrepreneurial flair and a passion to empower the smaller business by using advanced communications technologies in a robust and straightforward way. "We are fortunate that our staff turnover is low," said Viscito. "We promote employee engagement across all levels of our business and encourage staff to adhere to Inclarity's goals and values. Every member of the Inclarity team has influenced and continues to influence the evolution and continued success of our business.
"Our mission is to help businesses use hosted communications to drive revenues and profits. We achieve this through innovation, hard work and investment in R&D and customer service. The challenge is ensuring that we all perform to the best of our ability every day. I like to lead by example."