Forward-thinking comms resellers are reaping the benefits of crossing service level boundaries with TSI’s fresh-to-market feature rich and user friendly next generation UCaaS platform with disruptive pricing models.
TSI Director Jack Michalski expects the Cross Connect UCaaS platform to drive seismic shifts in how businesses communicate based on levels of flexibility not seen before. TSI has been a reseller of cloud-based VoIP Unified Communications systems for many years and sold several different systems provided by the largest suppliers in the UK. Disillusioned with those systems TSI carried out a review of the marketplace and met with many suppliers to investigate solutions and pricing models.
“While all have strengths, all had the same issue of inflexibility with pricing models and the inability to create bespoke feature sets for businesses that have employees/devices with different levels of use, so TSI began a project to develop our own solution to address these problems,” stated Michalski.
“As a reseller we knew the pain points that needed to be resolved.” - Jack Michalski
In 2022 UCaaS expert Aaron Foster joined TSI as Technical Director. He was previously CTO at TelcoSwitch having spent just under five years building its flagship platform. “With Cross Connect’s powerful APIs Aaron has developed tools to easily migrate customers from other platforms at the click of a button and to automate the order process for partners,” added Michalski. “It’s a quick and efficient process.”
Cross Connect’s underlying technology is built upon Crexendo’s NetSapiens platform, which supports over three million users worldwide. “The development of Cross Connect never stands still to ensure partners can supply cutting-edge technology,” confirmed Michalski. “It can integrate with over 300 CRM and business application systems as well as MS Teams, and later this year TSI will be launching an omnichannel Contact Centre and embedding a bespoke audio recording tool using ChatGPT.
“Cross Connect will continue to stand out by having cutting edge features, packaged in a flexible way that allows channel partners to create bespoke solutions for their customers at a disruptive price point with no long-term contracts and a single pane of glass to manage residential and business customers.”
Cross Connect is designed for resellers to be able sell as their own product, with co-branded marketing documents and a Knowledgebase available from the end user portal, and can be white labelled by adding the resellers logo to the platform through to full branding of the entire product.
TSI launched Cross Connect at Channel Live ’23 and Michalski said it was ‘very pleasing’ to get such a great response, with an enthusiastic response to demo’s and many following through after the show to become resellers. “Everyone within TSI is just as passionate about Cross Connect and the test soft launch to circa 2,000 users went incredibly well with fantastic feedback and no issues,” added Michalski.
“While perfectly suited to end users of all sizes, from a PSTN replacement through to large enterprises and contact centres, the disruptive pricing of Cross Connect allows resellers to target verticals that cloud UC has been less competitive with compared to onsite PBXs.
“For example, in education and hospitality settings resellers can create bespoke solutions by mixing and matching subscriptions so that the end user does not have to pay the same price for a low use handset in a classroom or hotel room as they do for reception. And Cross Connect Integrator connects to their CRM system, such as SIMS within education.”
TSI offers a fully managed dealer and reseller model, as well as bureau billing and a full range of hardware. “We have onboarded some fantastic resellers already this year who have had great success in winning new business by selling Cross Connect in sectors that they were less competitive in with the previous systems that they sold, as well as migrating their existing customers to make more margin,” enthused Michalski. “The uptake has been fantastic since we launched and TSI is going from strength-to-strength, scaling up and hiring new resources in both our London HQ and regional office in Runcorn. TSI is committed to providing ongoing fantastic support while developing new tools to simplify the journey for our partners.”
TSI is an established and profitable business that is entirely owner managed and self-funded since inception. “We are not beholden to external investors, we are well resourced and big enough to trust but small enough to care about each and every partner,” stated Michalski. “By delivering exceptional service TSI has grown through recommendations over the past 30 years, particularly in the fields of structured cabling and data connectivity.
Martin Coleman, Operations Director for TSI said “developing accounts and repeat business through outstanding service have been our strengths. The launch of Cross Connect marks an exciting new phase for TSI focusing on channel partners. The combination of cutting-edge features, robust and reliable architecture, flexibility to create bespoke solutions for clients and disruptive pricing gives our partners the ability to win any deal.”
