The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

PHILADELPHIA, PA – March 14, 2011 --  Alteva, a Unified Communications (UC) solution provider headquartered in Philadelphia, today announced its Unified Communications Certification program to enhance the value of its channel partner base. The program will allow its channel partners to learn how to position Alteva’s cloud based UC solution – which consists of hosted VoIP integrated with Microsoft Communication Services – expand their offerings, boost revenues and increase market share. The three tiered program includes a technical overview of UC, education programming on how to sell and position UC, and impact/reinforcement training led by the Sandler Institute, a provider in innovative sales and sales management training.

"Several years ago, the channel didn’t fully understand what UC was, what the benefits were and why they should embrace selling it. But, as the UC market continues to grow and more service providers enter the market to meet the needs of end users, we’re starting to see the channel realize the need for such a solution – now they just need to learn how to best present the sale to the end user," said Louis Hayner, Chief Sales Officer, Alteva. "This is what Alteva’s UC Certification program is all about. Part of it is giving channel partners the technical background needed to position UC and the cloud, while the other part will help them position their services, allowing them to sell on the benefits – and pains – of the solution to the end user."

Level One Training

Level one, day one training begins with a UC technical overview by Alteva - covering such topics as the history of telecom and the history of the desktop, LAN/WAN, customer network design, multilink internet, and much more. The latter part of the day’s training will concentrate on how to sell and position Alteva’s UC solutions.

Day two training is led by the Sandler Institute. The curriculum focuses strongly on providing Alteva’s channel partners with unique tactical sales and communication skills, outbound call scripts and techniques to use to control the buyer-seller dynamic that will help give channel partners a highly effective approach to prospecting. The second half of the day focuses on impact training in which Sandler provides a formula for successful selling, by teaching several of its proven techniques.

"As a consulting firm who is responsible to know the best directions to point customers towards, Alteva’s UC Certification program was a huge help in clearing the questions about what differentiates Alteva from other providers we can turn to," says Amy Servis, the Channel Manager with Chorus Communications. "I’m so glad I made the time to attend, it will absolutely help me steer our agents toward the best high end solutions for their customers."

Level 2 training will take Partners on a deep dive into the Alteva Sales Process and provide advanced questioning, presentation and closing techniques. Level 3 training will cover the mastery of questioning techniques, negotiation strategies and techniques, behavioral profiling and more.

In addition to the three levels, there is an optional Reinforcement Training package, which comes in the form of several follow up web trainings. The Level 1 Reinforcement Training package includes Alteva’s Marketing Tool Box program, which is a marketing plan on a schedule, including content in the form of email templates, phone scripts and much more.

"Education is crucial if the channel community is ever going to fully leverage the cloud. Revenue is only revenue if the cloud is sold, so it’s important to find the right solutions and applications to sell, but also partner with experienced and reliable service providers because your reputation is on the line," added Hayner. "The more informed our channel is the better informed our customers are, and an informed customer is the best one to have."

"Excellent use of your time," says TelecoWorks Founder and President Valerie Brauckman of the program. "Agents will learn how to leverage a customer’s need to communicate more effectively, offload time-consuming network management to the cloud and make residual commissions all from one company, Alteva."

About Alteva:
Alteva, North America’s largest provider of enterprise hosted VoIP, has become the pioneer for showcasing the high quality and reliability of hosted unified communications solutions. Alteva provides businesses with "Communications as a Service" that requires minimal installation and configuration while eliminating monthly phone and on-premise system maintenance charges and reducing overall communication costs by leveraging the power of cloud-based computing. With a sophisticated open standards infrastructure, Alteva enables businesses to easily integrate existing business applications. Rather than building their processes around the limitations of their phone system, Alteva’s customers build their phone systems around their ideal processes. Based in Philadelphia, Alteva provides internet access, telephone system/service and hosted Microsoft Exchange/SharePoint/OCS services to multi-location growth-oriented businesses in 50 states and 14 countries.