Newsletter | Q1 2021

Ted Schuman
Founder & CEO, PlanetOne

From the CEO’s Desk

Growing Your Relevance and Results

Ted Schuman, Founder/CEO
PlanetOne

Company Name: RAN Telecom Consulting

Headquarters: Denver, Colorado

Website: https://rantelecomconsulting.com

Year Founded: 2005

Focus/Services:

RAN Telecom Consulting helps large enterprises with complex IT challenges and deliver the desired business outcome through next-generation technology solutions.

Specializations: Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery; Security (SaaS); Virtual Servers; Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS); Cloud Computing; Contact Center; Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

RAN Telecom Consulting Teams with PlanetOne to recommend Talkdesk CX Cloud to Krucial Staffing

Talkdesk cloud solutions offer stability, flexibility and agility to support Krucial Staffing’s exponential growth while deploying health care professionals to combat coronavirus pandemic

As a supplier of urgent staffing solutions, including health care professionals, during 2020 Krucial Staffing quickly became a go-to provider of nurses to medical facilities throughout the U.S. to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. Inbound calls and requests for health care support to Krucial Staffing’s contact center increased to nearly one million calls a day which overwhelmed its previous solution. The company moved to Talkdesk for the flexibility and rapid scalability of its cloud contact center solutions.

“The need for reinvention is never greater than in times of crisis,” said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst, ZK Research. “COVID-19 has driven companies of all sizes to accelerate their adoption of cloud-based solutions. The adoption was underway, but 2020 sped up the timetable for many businesses. The Talkdesk and Krucial Staffing case study is a great example of this and demonstrates the value that partnership between technology providers and agents can bring to the end user.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March 2020, Krucial Staffing needed to expand its operations overnight. Within a 72-hour period, Krucial Staffing quadrupled its contact center operations in order to send thousands of health care workers to New York City. Chief Executive Officer of Krucial Staffing, Brian Cleary, contacted business partner RAN Telecom Consulting to help source a new contact center vendor. Krucial Staffing sought a solution to accommodate its immediate need for a reliable, agile solution with the ability to future-proof its contact center as the business grows. Additionally, Krucial Staffing needed a comprehensive, omnichannel customer engagement suite including advanced and customizable call routing, detailed reporting and analytics, alongside robust quality assurance tools. RAN Telecom Consulting teamed with master agent PlanetOne to recommend a solution for meeting all of Krucial Staffing’s needs.

“At Krucial Staffing we depend on our call center to handle hundreds of inbound requests for staffing needs including urgent deployment of medical professionals for emergencies such as natural disasters and other crises,” said Brian Cleary, chief executive officer, Krucial Staffing. “Thanks to our quick-thinking, fast-moving and well-informed advisors at RAN Telecom Consulting, we connected with Talkdesk. After a brief phone call and live, online demonstration, we made the decision to move to Talkdesk — if the solution could be implemented fast. Talkdesk completed its implementation and go-live of more than 350 seats within three days, flawlessly.”

“For guidance in selecting a solution for Krucial Staffing, RAN Telecom Consulting came to PlanetOne and engaged with our team of contact center experts, who identified and recommended Talkdesk CX Cloud,” said Chris Werpy, chief operating officer, PlanetOne. “We are thrilled to have collaborated with Russell Novak and the team at RAN to make this happen and provide Krucial Staffing the contact center solutions they need to support their customers’ needs.”

Talkdesk scalability was a key differentiator in Krucial Staffing’s decision to move its operations to Talkdesk CX Cloud. The ability to adjust service levels to meet fluctuating demands and traffic spikes will help Krucial Staffing reduce costs and keep pace while improving contact center efficiency. Talkdesk’s reputation for reliability, and its rapid pace of product innovation, will provide Krucial Staffing with a consistent connection to its customers and ensure the latest industry advancements are always available to its support and sales teams. Talkdesk’s enterprise-ready, next-generation cloud architecture maximizes flexibility, allowing Krucial Staffing to stay agile and easily self-manage its contact center with clicks, not code. Powered by Talkdesk iQ, artificial intelligence (AI) increases operational efficiency for Krucial Staffing with intelligent routing, reporting, analytics, context and mobile solutions to improve customer outcomes and maintain visibility across its entire business.

“Flexibility and the power to scale services up and down as business needs change is a core component of Talkdesk and exclusive to our cloud-native architecture,” said Talkdesk, chief executive officer, Tiago Paiva. “Talkdesk offers customer service organizations a simple and easy path to customize their contact center and instantly bring new agents online, including remote agents in any location, to seamlessly and securely meet their customers’ expectations.”

For more information on the PlanetOne Partner Program, visit https://www.planetone.net/partner-program/.

Businesses are built by the experiences they provide, and everyday millions of those experiences are delivered by Avaya Holdings Corp. (NYSE: AVYA). Avaya is shaping what’s next for the future of work, with innovation and partnerships that deliver game-changing business benefits. Our cloud communications solutions and multi-cloud application ecosystem power personalized, intelligent, and effortless customer and employee experiences to help achieve strategic ambitions and desired outcomes. Together, we are committed to help grow your business by delivering Experiences that Matter.

Avaya’s Partnership with PlanetOne

Avaya chose to team with PlanetOne due to its deep understanding of the unique needs and requirements of Avaya’s traditional resellers and VARs, along with the phenomenal growth it has experienced.

PlanetOne’s technical background and expertise in migrating traditional premise customers to the cloud has created a mutually beneficial partnership leveraging the ‘Old School’ and ‘New School’ thought process; and, helping to bridge the gap for customers, both large and small, as they advance their technology to the cloud. Together, Avaya and PlanetOne can help the agent and solution provider communities migrate on premise architecture to the cloud, easily leveraging Avaya’s migration tools, resources, and mutual award-winning customer success teams for ongoing support.

PlanetOne’s year-over-year double-digit growth and its position as one of the industry’s fastest-growing Master Agents, along with is continued investment in both its team and providers, was something that was very attractive for Avaya.

Beyond that, Avaya has found that PlanetOne has a very loyal partner and agent community driven by a relentless focus on success and partner satisfaction. Avaya trusts PlanetOne’s abilities and their unique skillsets (i.e. Brain Trust), as well as the team’s direct expertise in Avaya solutions. PlanetOne has technical Avaya certifications and experienced resources on staff which will be critical in helping with the heavy lifting, making PlanetOne as conduit to partner success with Avaya OneCloud™ CCaaS and Avaya Cloud Office™ by RingCentral®

Avaya’s Focus on Outcome-Driven Solutions

Some of the key focus areas for Avaya in 2021 that PlanetOne agents and solution providers should be aware of include:

Grow Your Business with Avaya and PlanetOne

To help drive success with PlanetOne and Avaya in 2021, PlanetOne agents and channel partners should consider:

• Attending Avaya Trainings and Education Webinars about Avaya OneCloud
• Learning about the benefits to selling Avaya OneCloud
• Signing up to be an Avaya Agent and reap all the benefits to selling Avaya line our incentives, spiffs and cash bonuses including earning up to 8x MRR with Avaya OneCloud CCaaS and Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral

To learn more about Avaya, visit http://www.avaya.com.

DeAnna Sack
Inside Channel Manager

At PlanetOne, we value the contributions our employees make to ensuring both our success and that of our providers and partners. In our newsletter each quarter, we shine a light on one of our amazing employees. This quarter, we are featuring DeAnna Sack, Inside Channel Manager.

Q: How long have you been with PlanetOne? What did you do prior to joining PlanetOne?

A: I joined the PlanetOne team in January 2019 as Inside Channel Manager. Our fearless leader, Ted Schuman, always refers to this as “DeAnna 3.0, as prior to my current role here at PlanetOne, I was with one of PlanetOne’s partners, serving as a Customer Service Specialist. Earlier in my career, I was a Partner Success Manager with PlanetOne, and a channel manager with XO Communications, before it became Verizon.

Q: Tell us about your day-to-day role at PlanetOne.

A: I work in pre-sales, and I’m a member of TEAM Thompson. My primary role is to be the frontline resource for partners when they need to get quotes. I interact with the PlanetOne quotes group and other PlanetOne back office team members, managing quotes with carriers directly, aligning supplier resources, assisting in various capacities throughout the sales cycle, supporting escalations, and anything else that can be done to help our partners in their sales efforts.

Q: What do you like most about your job? Working with PlanetOne?

A: Working at PlanetOne is like working with family – I love the knowledge, the conversations and day-to-day interactions with the team. I’ve established some life-long friendships with our partners, team members and suppliers during my career with PlanetOne, and that is one of the best things about working here.

Q: What are some of your favorite things to do when you aren’t working?

A: I love spending time with family and friends. In the summers, when it gets unbearably hot here in the Valley of the Sun, we enjoy going out of town to camp at higher elevations, riding our Can-Am, motorcycling and enjoying the beautiful State we live in.

Q: Do you have a ‘bucket list’? What are some of the things you would want to do if time or money were no object?

A: Of course traveling the word is important, but I also want to spend more time with my kids, our family and our friends.

Q: Do you have a favorite saying, mantra or quote?

A: Make every day a little less ordinary.

Winning with SD-WAN, SASE and Software Defined Perimeter

Jason “JaMo” Morris
Senior Solutions Engineer

By Jason Morris, Senior Solutions Engineer
PlanetOne

You’ve heard acronyms like SD-WAN, SASE or even SDP. But what does each of them mean and how can they help your customers?

Providers today will sell you their flavor of the day when it comes to these products. However, are you sure your customer’s needs are truly being considered?

How do you know which product is the best and which providers can even support it? What design considerations are there when it comes to network access, equipment and even security?

There’s no one size fits all approach when it comes customers. EVERY customer has unique and individual needs when it comes to their business and how they operate.

Rather than shying away from these technologies, get me involved so I can help you put a solution together that works for your customer.

Let me get in front of them and ask the right questions that will help us to right-size a solution that you can be confident in. At the end of the day it’s not just about selling – its’s about selling solid solutions.

Here at PlanetOne it’s my job to help you win. So email or call me and let’s get to winning!

Introducing CommandCentral from PlanetOne

By Christi Clark
Vice President of Operations at PlanetOne

In business and in life, you must invest your time and the right resources to make things work. Good relationships simply do not happen by chance, and at PlanetOne, we know this to be especially true. That is why we have an entire team of people who are dedicate to, and passionate about, ensuring the success of our partners and providers.

Formerly known as PlanetOne’s back office, PlanetOne CommandCentral is a team of experts who are making a difference, each and every day for our partners. From pricing and order support, to commissions, to advocacy and lifecycle support, CommandCentral is essentially a concierge that partners can rely on during all stages of the pre- and post-sales process to troubleshoot and ensure that installations go as smoothly as possible, and result in an exceptional partner and customer experience.

One recent example of where the CommandCentral team saved the day was a last-mile fiber installation at a customer site that was new construction. The entire project took nearly 15 months from start to finish. Late into the deployment, the customer was told by the provider that they would have to pay an additional exorbitant fee for the last-mile connection. This was the first time the customer had been made aware of this and was about to cancel the contract when the CommandCentral team discovered the last-mile fiber connection was already installed to the meet-point at the site and the provider records were inaccurate.

In this particular instance, the relationships that PlanetOne has in the field made all the difference. The CommandCentral team was able to directly call one of the provider’s field technicians, who made a site visit and promptly discovered the existence of the fiber connection. The customer was able to save thousands of dollars because of this support. Furthermore, the partner and the provider were able to retain the customer’s business. Without CommandCentral, the customer would have walked away, and the partner would have lost the deal.

This is just one of many examples where PlanetOne’s CommandCentral team is making a huge difference in the lives of our partners and their customers.

For more information on PlanetOne CommandCentral, contact our team at commandcentral@planetone.net.

With the team still in WFH mode, the PlanetOne From the Heart initiative took yet another creative turn this quarter and set their sights on helping our furry friends residing at the Arizona Humane Society by participating in their “Wags N’ Purrs” virtual volunteer program. A Friday afternoon Zoom “Yappy Hour” brought the team together for a virtual tour of the shelter and lessons on how to make puppy and kitten toys and treats which were then donated to the shelter.

With craft supplies provided by PlanetOne, everyone’s crafting and braiding skills were put to the test and the end result was a fun variety of enrichment toys for the benefit of the pets waiting for their forever homes. Many furry PlanetOne team family members got in on the action with their humans and a few of the milk bone peanut butter sandwiches may or may not have made it to their final destination!

The Arizona Humane Society is an incredible success story. In the last six years, they’ve dramatically accelerated efforts to save more animals. Their life-saving programs expanded and became more innovative in their animal intake. They introduced new services to protect, treat and heal pets and reimagined the very notion of animal welfare. They also expanded work in the community, became vocal supporters for animals on television and in the news and even fought for pets in the courtroom, helping pass legislation that protects how animals can be treated in homes, in yards and in overheating cars. The result is the most rapid transformation ever achieved by an animal welfare agency: a dramatic 84 percent decrease in euthanasia and 57 percent reduction in intake.

Thanks to the PlanetOne From the Heart team for donating your time and energy to this important cause!

For information on the amazing Humane Society programs and on how to set up a virtual volunteer Yappy Hour for your team visit:

https://www.azhumane.org/virtual-volunteering/

For information on PlanetOne’s From the Heart initiative visit:

https://www.planetone.net/company/fromtheheart/

Join us for our first Tech Tour event of the year, coming up on March 9, 2021, where we’ll bring you hard-hitting tips and advice from industry experts. Our speakers are channel influencers you know and voices you trust to deliver it to you straight. When hitting our virtual stage, they have one common goal: Share key takeaways that will help you engage our resources, leverage solutions and win more opportunities. Amplifying your success. That’s our goal. We’ll cap our event with an online networking happy hour with dozens of prizes and giveaways you won’t want to miss. And as always, you’ll qualify for Engage & Win points for attending!

Register today at https://www.planetone.net/2021-tech-tour/. For photos from our previous Tech Tour events, check out our photo album on Facebook.