Every telco reseller out there knows the importance of connection.

After all, your job is to provide customers with cutting-edge solutions that make staying connected easier than ever before.

And to keep ahead of the curve, bringing products and tools that keep businesses unified and cost-efficient, it’s essential to put yourself out there and drum up strong relationships with like-minded professionals…

Do you see where we’re going with this?

What’s the deal with networking events?

These days, handshakes and introductions have been swapped for ‘connections’ and ‘likes’, and in-person conferences have been traded in for live streams and webinars.

Make no mistake: LinkedIn (and other networking channels like it) is undoubtedly a great platform to share updates, bounce ideas around and hold thought-led discussions between telco resellers and their customers. But commanding an online presence is time-consuming — and even after streams of comments and messages, it can be hard to build meaningful relationships online.

Does all this sound familiar? Have you found yourself retreating from face-to-face networking in favour of digital forums? Well, we’re here to remind you of the many benefits and how you can use networking events to your advantage…

Build your business contacts

As many of you know, networking is one of the most effective ways to get in front of new business opportunities.

Surrounded by like-minded people, you can learn so much about their careers, businesses and contacts — making you aware of potential doors and how you could get your foot in them.

Sharpen the saw

How can you bring these new solutions to your customers in a way they’ve never seen before? What do your clients need from you that they won’t find anywhere else? Sometimes, the best way to break out of a professional rut is to step away from the desk and sharpen your skills.

We all know telco is a fast-paced, ultra-competitive market. So, don’t waste time hacking away at the tree with a dull axe whilst your competition is cutting it down in half the time with a sharp one. Does the woodcutter reference work for you? We like it…

Where do I start?

Whilst there are those among us who are born networkers, it’s not easy for everyone. But with these tips and tricks, you’ll have lots of networking events under your belt.

Aim to inform, not just sell

It may sound counterintuitive because the goal is to generate leads, right? But actually, lead generation can sometimes come secondary to finding contacts and building relationships at telco networking events.

Of course, you’ll want to pitch your solutions and products to invite interest in your services. But instead of going straight in for the hard sell, why not think outside the box and encourage attendees to think differently about their needs?

When shouting about ChorusCX’ services, you may be tempted to dive headfirst into our best-selling Number Manager solution (we mean, who wouldn’t?). But if you’re chatting with a small to medium-sized business owner who’s wary of transitioning to the cloud, why not tell them about Avaya IP Office and the benefits of its hybrid mixture of cloud solutions?

Once you’ve reeled them in, you can let them know about ChorusCX products like Number Manager and ChorusCX Call Shield that enhance the solutions to their problems. Genius, right?

Demonstrate your expertise

Relationships exist between people, not corporations. So, connect with attendees more personally to demonstrate you have something valuable to offer — through tips, insights or recommendations.

One small conversation with a stranger can create a lead for your business or interest someone new in your services. So, make time to chat with as many people as possible (and hand out those business cards).

Follow up with customers

 

t’s always a great idea to email your new contacts to thank them for their time and follow up with solutions that’ll benefit them.

Adding that personal touch keeps communications and relationships strong. After all, you want to keep your name and services at the forefront of their minds whenever they need savvy telco solutions…

Become a familiar face

How many telco events are too many? We’re not sure it exists! Regularly attending these networking events is the best way to build confidence, enhance your skills and expand your network.

Not sure which events to head to first?

 

Why not join the UK’s connectivity leaders from across the public and private sectors at Connected Britain 2024 and listen to over 300 different speakers? Later in the year, discover the latest communications and collaborative technology at UCX Europe 2024! Looking for a smaller B2B event to put your networking skills to the test? B2B Expos is the perfect opportunity to make connections with other professionals.

 

Trust us: once you’ve attended an event overflowing with helpful knowledge and informative industry peers, you’ll be the first to volunteer for the next one. Consider yourself warned…

 

Though there’s no perfect formula for boosting your business, getting in front of prospective customers at networking events can go a long way. To find out how we can help you advance your telco sales, get in touch with our friendly team today!

Ah, Christmas. For many people, it’s the most wonderful time of year. Businesses, on the other hand…

Frantic customers. Last-minute requests. An enormous rush to get everything done before businesses close up for the year. Not to mention the higher-than-average call times, strain on customer support staff and, wait for it, increase in pesky spam calls.

That’s right. With such an influx of calls, the floodgates are opened and it’s harder than ever to keep scammers and nuisance callers at bay.

Unfortunately, that comes at a cost for businesses. Not very holly and jolly, is it?

Putting unwanted callers on the naughty list

No business wants to waste its time and resources answering and blocking spam calls. But with 28% of UK calls being spam, it’s safe to say they’re getting trickier to avoid.

In the past, one way to detect potential unwanted calls was to look for a single number being used to make large volumes of short calls. These days, though, it’s easy for nuisance callers to change their number frequently — and when it comes to blocking them, the perpetrator is likely to have moved to a new number by the time the issue’s been flagged.

It also makes tracing more difficult, as the number won’t have been assigned to the caller.

So, it’s annoying. But whilst many of these may end up being silent or abandoned calls, there’s also been a dangerous shift from nuisance to scam calls.

Cyber criminals are always looking for clever new ways to get people on the phone. And as scammers have learned that employees are more likely to pick up if they recognise the number, they’ve taken to number spoofing, using a false caller ID to hide their identity or mimic the number of a real company or person.

Once their victim is on the line, scammers will use phishing and social engineering tactics to steal information like bank account details, passwords and personal data.

Phishing is a means of retrieval and spoofing is a means of delivery — both are bad news for businesses…

‘Tis the season to combat caller fraud

ChorusCX is passionate about improving call security nationwide — and we believe our resellers should be, too. That’s why we’ve created several tools to bolster the safety and quality of your customer’s business calls.

Built into our best-selling Number Manager platform, ChorusCX Call Shield identifies fraudulent or spam calls based on their location, call source, number presentation and the volume of concurrent calls.

So, what are the ChorusCX Call Shield categories used to identify the potentially suspicious characteristics of a call?

 

• Significant entity: the caller will attempt to deceive businesses into believing the call is coming from a known financial institution, government agency or other significant entity.
• International spoof: this call will originate from overseas with a number presented as UK-based.
• Mobile spoof: This caller will be presented as a mobile number originating from a UK landline or trunk number.
• Public phone box: a call that arrives from a known list of UK public phone box numbers — or so businesses may think.
• Simultaneous mobile: two active calls are already in progress from the same mobile number.
• Premium number: a call presenting a number from a UK premium rate number range (e.g., 09 ranges).
• Unallocated number: this call arrives at the platform from a range OFCOM hasn’t yet allocated to a UK telecoms operator.
• Known bad actor: the call arrives from a number that matches a list of known fraudulent numbers from a national database maintained by the Telecoms UK Fraud Forum.

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, we can extract and analyse the metadata of every single phone call, profile it and establish whether or not it has the characteristics of a spam call.

Although not every category is designed to defend businesses against fraudsters, they still allow companies to intelligently route calls depending on their origination characteristics — putting users in control and keeping dodgy calls at bay.

The gift that keeps on giving 

Think unwanted callers can get past us? Think again.

Number Manager’s handy caller exceptions feature allows our customers to upload specific nuisance numbers in order to block or flag them. This enables your customers to define a workflow for handling scam calls and ensure they have proper security processes in place.

ChorusCX is also working on a savvy new feature that lets agents intercept malicious calls whilst they’re happening — barring the caller from getting in touch again (even if they hide their number) and protecting staff from malicious callers.

So, when you supply your customers with ChorusCX Number Manager and our integrable

Call Shield solution, they can keep their business operations running smoothly, safely and scam-free for the festive season and beyond.

Want to keep your customer’s details out of the hands of fraudsters? Keen to learn more about ChorusCX’ Number Manager and Call Shield solutions? We thought so. Get in touch today at +44 (0)161 444 3333 to book a demo.