Lypp
Feature-Rich Phone System Drives Customer Satisfaction, Sales for Small Firm
Partner: Lypp
Web Site: www.lypp.com
Partner Size: 3 employees
Country or Region: Canada
Industry: Telecommunications
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Partner Profile
Lypp provides teleconferencing services to over 300 customers across Canada. Most recently, the company has expanded into telephony as well, providing Microsoft® Response Point™ phone system software.
Software and Services
- Microsoft® Response Point™
"As a small-business phone provider, we need to be able to plug in the phone, hit a couple of buttons, and know it works. With Response Point, that is exactly the way it happens."
Erik Lagerway, President and Chief Executive Officer, Lypp
Company Profile
Based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Lypp provides teleconferencing services to more than 300 customers. With experience in telephony, Lypp leaders understood the business could easily support phone systems as well, but the company needed a product that offered a price point and feature set that would benefit small-business customers. To meet this need, the company began providing deployment and support services for Microsoft® Response Point™ phone system software. Lypp found that the solution met customer needs, making it a perfect platform for building customer relationships and, ultimately, to drive revenue and traffic to the company’s other offerings. Further, the solution has proved easy to support for customers and Lypp alike, letting the company easily add a new line of business without the need for extensive support resources.
Business Opportunity
Lypp prides itself on providing “Simpler Smarter Communications” to more than 300 customers across Canada. The company’s flagship product is a toll-free conference bridge service that customers can manage over the Internet, on mobile devices, and through a range of applications, including Microsoft® Office Outlook® and Windows Live™ Messenger.
With years of experience in telephony and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), Erik Lagerway, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lypp, saw providing small-business phone systems as a natural extension of his company. “Many of our teleconferencing customers were already moving away from traditional phone systems, and they were looking for a Canadian service provider,” explains Lagerway. “If we could provide them with a phone system that was as feature-rich as our teleconferencing solution, we could meet their telephony needs as well, with a solution that we could stand by and support.”
With no dedicated sales staff, Lypp relies on innovative features to drive interest and word-of-mouth marketing for its products and services. The Lypp teleconferencing solution achieved this by being one of the first teleconferencing solutions on the market that could automatically call out to the moderator and participants at a specified meeting time, eliminating the need for dial-in numbers and PINs. To maintain a word-of-mouth demand-generation model, Lagerway needed to find a small-business telephony solution that could stir a similar interest in potential customers.
“When we looked to providing a phone system, we had to know that the system would ‘just’ work,” says Lagerway. “And, we also needed to know that the response from our customers’ customers was going to be ‘Wow, that is really cool! Where did you get that phone system?’ Because, for us, this is how we grow our business.”
Lagerway also wanted the system to be easy to deploy and support for both his company and his clients—primarily small businesses that control costs by managing systems without employing IT or administrative staff.
Solution
When Microsoft introduced Microsoft Response Point™ phone system software, Lagerway saw it as fitting the needs of Lypp and its customers. Lagerway finds that the autoattendant and voice-activated interface of Response Point help to provide the unique experience that will drive interest among small businesses.
“It’s amazing what a difference Response Point makes to the customer. They can really see the value in having a system that does not require their callers to punch in digits to get to the person they want to talk to. Response Point does all of the heavy lifting—they love that,” says Lagerway.
At the same time, Response Point proves easy to implement and support for Lypp and its customers. Adding new phones is a matter of plugging them in. And, changing settings only requires someone to use an intuitive Windows®-based application, which can be deployed both client side for self-administration and server side for remote administration by Lypp.
Establishing an Offering
Lagerway views Response Point as a means to provide customers with a more complete communications solution. The company currently offers Response Point with phone wiring and switch installation—a service that the company had offered, but received little demand for prior to the phone system offering. Lypp also offers Response Point as part of a power-over-Ethernet package, which ensures that the system continues to operate even during a power outage. In the future, Lypp plans to expand business further by providing IT services for Windows Small Business Server, which can be integrated with Response Point.
Marketing to the Small Business
When marketing Response Point or initiating presales discussions with potential customers, Lypp focuses on the advantages of the autoattendant feature. Lagerway explains, “Many small businesses don’t have a receptionist or the resources to hire one. Response Point takes care of that—it’s self-sufficient and efficient at a very reasonable cost.”
Lagerway then discusses the voice-recognition feature and the delivery of voice mail to e-mail through integration with Microsoft Exchange Server. Although Response Point is feature rich, Lagerway notes, “It’s important to get a feel for what your customers’ needs are, speak to those features, and make customers realize how easy Response Point is to use.”
Benefits
Response Point is a welcome addition to the product offerings from Lypp, providing a valuable service to customers that is both easy to deploy and support. As Lypp expands its business, Lagerway sees Response Point as a key component to the company’s offerings.
“Response Point is going to become a considerable part of our offers across the board,” says Lagerway. “And, our customers are extremely happy with the phone system, especially with the advanced features and easy management.”
Fits with Small Business Needs
Tasked with growing his own small business, Lagerway must ensure that the solutions he provides meet both the capabilities of his team and more importantly those of his customers—small businesses themselves. Lagerway has found the ease of supporting Response Point as an effective means to drive customer satisfaction and establish trust with new clients. Says Lagerway, “Response Point is a system for everyone. Customers can easily manage the system, and we can take advantage of our provisioning and VoIP expertise and apply it here. As a small-business phone provider, we need to be able to plug in the phone, hit a couple of buttons, and know it works. And, with Response Point, that is exactly the way it happens.”
Drives Business
Alone or as part of a larger services offering, Response Point has enabled Lypp to quickly add another stream of revenue. Within the company’s first two months of offering the solution, Lypp has deployed the system at four customer locations—two of which were entirely new customers to the business and one of which later turned to Lypp for conferencing services. Says Lagerway, “Customers get a cool phone system that works just as advertised. And, once their phones are installed, some of them need conference-calling services as well, which we happily provide.”
Provides an Opportunity for New Services
Microsoft Response Point enables Lypp to provide customers not only with a phone system, but also with value-added services that stem from other Lypp offerings. This means that Lypp can support a broader range of customer needs by providing wiring, switch installation, and more.
In the future, Lypp aims to provide Response Point as part of a managed service, further enhancing the support it provides to customers. The company sees Response Point as a catalyst for its upcoming “last-mile” managed-broadband solution for those small businesses looking to make use of VoIP rather than standard phone lines.