For MSPs and IT service providers, adding cloud communications can create new opportunities to expand customer relationships and build recurring revenue. But choosing the right provider involves more than comparing features and pricing.

Rob Katzer, Senior Sales Manager at FluentStream, joined the MSP community at ChannelPro LIVE Parsippany. After a few days of conversations with MSPs and IT service providers at the event, Rob shares his perspective on the questions and challenges that kept coming up, the opportunities MSPs are exploring, and what they're looking for from their cloud communications partners.

Q: What should MSPs look for in a cloud communications partner?

Rob: Features and pricing are important, but I would look just as closely at what happens after the sale.

For example, who supports the customer? Can you reach a real person when there's an issue? What will the provider handle, and what ultimately comes back to your team? How reliable is the platform?

The communications provider you choose becomes part of the experience you're delivering to your customers. Support, reliability, responsiveness, and ease of doing business can matter just as much as what's on the feature sheet.

Q: Why should MSPs consider adding UCaaS to their service portfolio? 

Rob: For an MSP, cloud communications can be another way to deepen the relationship with customers while creating recurring revenue.

Your customers already depend on you for technology. Communications is another critical part of how their businesses operate every day. Being able to address that need can help you provide more value and become an even more important technology partner.

The key is making sure the opportunity doesn't come with so much additional complexity that it offsets the value you're creating.

Q: How can MSPs offer voice services without adding more work for their technical teams?

Rob: Start by understanding exactly what the provider is going to handle.

Ask about implementation, number porting, configuration, billing, taxes, regulatory requirements, ongoing maintenance, and technical support. You want to understand where the provider's responsibility ends and yours begins.

If every phone issue ultimately lands back with your Support team, you've added a new revenue stream, but you've also added workload.

A good provider relationship should allow your team to stay focused on the work where they add the most value while delivering customers the communications services and assistance they need.

Q: What questions should MSPs ask when evaluating a UCaaS provider?

Rob: I'd ask questions that tell you what the relationship is going to look like after you've signed the agreement.

A few I'd put on the list:

• Where is your support team located?
• Can my customers reach a person directly via phone when they need help?
• What does your team handle versus what my team handles?
• How do you manage implementation and number porting?
• How do you handle billing, taxes, compliance, and ongoing maintenance?
• What level of platform reliability do you provide?
• How does your partner model create recurring revenue for my business?
• Are there minimums, certifications, or other requirements I need to maintain?
• Who do I work with when I need help with an opportunity or customer?

The answers tell you much more than whether two providers have similar feature lists. You're evaluating a long-term business relationship, not just a technology platform.

Q: What makes a cloud communications partnership work well for an MSP long term?

Rob: Trust and responsiveness are big ones.

An MSP is putting its own customer relationship on the line when it brings another provider into the picture. You need confidence that the provider is going to take care of your customers, respond when there's an issue, and work with you when something doesn't go according to plan.

I'd also look for consistency. A good partner relationship shouldn't require you to constantly chase people down or figure out who owns what. The easier the provider is to work with, the easier it is for you to build that service into your business over time.

Q: What opportunities should MSPs be watching beyond traditional business phone systems?

Rob: Business communications continues to expand beyond the traditional desk phone.

Customers increasingly expect communications to work across locations, devices, and different ways of connecting with their customers and employees. That gives MSPs an opportunity to have broader conversations about how communications fits into the customer's overall technology environment.

There are also specific needs around legacy infrastructure. Many businesses still rely on traditional analog lines or POTS lines for systems such as fire panels, elevators, fax machines, and other equipment. As that infrastructure changes, MSPs may be in a good position to help customers evaluate modern alternatives.

Q: What stood out to you about the MSP community at ChannelPro LIVE Parsippany?

Rob: The conversations covered a lot of ground. For example, we talked about pricing, demos, specific customer needs, new opportunities, and what MSPs want from the providers they work with. The conversations weren’t hypothetical technology discussions, they were more practical. People had real business and customer challenges they were trying to solve.

Q: What advice would you give an MSP evaluating its communications strategy for the next year?

Rob: Start with your customers and your own team.

What are your customers asking for? Where are you seeing gaps? Are there communications needs you're currently referring somewhere else? And if you add or expand a communications offering, what would that mean operationally for your team?

Then evaluate providers based on the entire relationship, not just the product. Look at reliability, support, implementation, ongoing responsibilities, economics, and how easy the company will be to work with.

The right solution should make sense for your customers and for the way you want to run your business.

Q: How does FluentStream support MSPs and IT service providers?

Rob: We built the FluentStream Partner Program around many of those same considerations.

FluentStream provides a cloud communications platform designed for small and medium businesses, backed by 100% U.S.-based support available 24/7/365. When customers need support, they reach real people, with no bots or overseas routing. Our platform also delivers 99.999% uptime.

On the operational side, FluentStream can handle Tier 2 and Tier 3 support, number porting, billing and taxes, 10DLC and regulatory compliance, system configuration and implementation, platform infrastructure, maintenance, and updates.

For our partners, the goal is simple in that we give them a way to build recurring revenue and provide communications to their customers without having to build and staff a telecom practice themselves.