Many companies are switching from on-prem Unified Communications (UC) to Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). This growing demand presents an incredible opportunity for UCaaS resellers. But with opportunity comes complexity. This blog explores the essential UC management tools UCaaS resellers need to manage their UCaaS offering better.

Despite all the good, MSPs and UCaaS resellers still face many challenges in a competitive marketplace where many businesses are migrating to cloud-based UC, especially if they don’t have the right tools to manage their offering. To stand out, you need a tech stack that simplifies operations, enhances performance and supports long-term growth.

If you sell UCaaS or plan on adding it to your managed services offering, these five tools can help you improve your offering and stand out in the marketplace.

The 5 Essential UC Management Tools

#1: Network Monitoring and Performance Tools

Delivering UCaaS services effectively requires optimal network performance across all your clients. That’s where network monitoring and performance tools come into play. These tools are essential for ensuring a seamless user experience for your end users while giving your team the visibility needed to identify and address issues.

Network monitoring tools track the performance of network components that support UCaaS services, including bandwidth, latency, jitter and packet loss. 

This enables:

  • Proactive Problem Resolution: Network monitoring tools can spot potential bottlenecks or disruptions in real-time. This means resellers can resolve issues before they affect call quality or collaboration.
  • Improved Customer Satisfaction: Customers expect seamless audio, video, and messaging experiences. Proactively responding to problems ensures reliability, keeping customers happy and reducing churn.
  • Optimized Resources: Spotting inefficiencies like overused bandwidth or misconfigured routes can help resellers optimize resources and reduce operational costs.

#2: UC Analytics Platforms

UC platforms create droves of useful data. That’s why UCaaS resellers should prioritize adding a UC analytics platform to their tech stack. These platforms harness data like performance, usage trends and user behavior. 

Using this data can help UCaaS resellers and clients to understand better the value they are getting from their UCaaS investment by:

  • Demonstrating ROI: Show clients how their UCaaS solutions contribute to productivity and collaboration with clear, data-driven reports.
  • Identifying Growth Opportunities: Discover underutilized features or services clients can adopt, creating upsell opportunities.
  • Helping with Resource Allocation: Understand peak usage patterns and help clients adjust their plans or configurations for efficiency.

#3: Multi-tenant Management Tools

UCaaS providers must be able to manage multiple client environments simultaneously—or risk being overwhelmed by them. Multi-tenant UC management tools are essential for resellers scaling up their operations. They allow UCaaS resellers to manage many accounts and configurations from a single platform. 

This leads to:

  • Simplified Operations: Centralized customer management makes it easier to monitor, configure and support multiple clients.
  • Enhanced Security: Keeps client environments isolated to prevent accidental changes and cross-tenant data breaches.
  • Faster Deployment: Use templates and pre-configured settings to onboard new customers quickly and efficiently.

#4: Help Desk and Ticketing Systems

Customer support is a cornerstone of success for UCaaS resellers. Problems will arise even with a fully optimized UCaaS offering. In those cases, it’s essential that your tech stack includes a ticketing system that provides the structure and visibility needed to address support requests effectively.

Help desk and ticketing systems provide a centralized location for UCaaS clients to submit issues and monitor the progress of their submitted issues. 

These tools help UCaaS resellers:

  • Resolve issues efficiently: Organize and track support tickets to ensure service requests are addressed accurately and promptly.
  • Improve client communication: Keep clients informed with automated updates on status and resolution times.
  • Gain insights into recurring issues: Identify patterns in ticket requests and address root causes to improve service proactively.

#5: Automated UC User Provisioning Software

Last but not least, we have UC user provisioning software. User provisioning is an often-overlooked part of managing a UCaaS offering for multiple clients. However, an over-reliance on manual efforts and management can waste time and resources, especially as you expand your UCaaS offering and onboard new clients.

UC user provisioning software offers MSPs and UCaaS resellers many benefits, including:

  • End-to-end automation: UC provisioning software enables your MSP to fully automate many provisioning tasks associated with UCaaS deployment and ongoing management.
  • Enhanced security: The right UC provisioning software will offer features like job templates, role-based access and detailed audit trails. These help lock down your UCaaS offering by preventing cross-tenant changes and breaches.
  • Interoperability: Even if you provide multiple cloud-based UC platforms, there are UC provisioning software options that can work across multiple platforms and other associated business applications.
  • Speed and scalability: Automated UC provisioning allows for UCaaS deployments with just a few clicks, saving time and resources while easily accommodating increasing numbers of users and devices without compromising on efficiency.

Conclusion: Managing Your UCaaS Offering Just Got Easier

By adding these UC management tools to your tech stack, you can streamline your UC management processes, improve your UCaaS offering and ensure it remains competitive in a challenging market. While many UCaaS providers consider tools like network and analytics platforms, support and ticketing and multi-tenant management tools, many still overlook user provisioning.

Adding a solution like Akkadian Provisioning Manager can cut down on manual work, eliminate errors and provide ROI, all while improving your UCaaS offering. A UCaaS management tech stack isn’t complete without it.

See how Akkadian Provisioning Manager can help you better manage your UCaaS offering. Schedule a demo of Akkadian Provisioning Manager to see how it works.