Vocollect recently introduced its Vocollect Voice Partner Programme, aimed at ensuring the company’s voice partners are given the right knowledge, quality training and capabilities to be successful. VoiteQ has become the first Vocollect partner in the UK to be certified as part of a new Programme, in addition to being given the accolade of Vocollect Technical Partner of the Year at Vocollect’s recent European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) partner conference in Paris. This award recognises such attributes as technical competence, high-quality repair service, assistance with diagnosing and resolving technical issues, and sound knowledge of voice solutions.

“The VoiteQ team were the first to implement Vocollect voice in the UK, we were Vocollect’s first reseller in the UK and the first certified repair centre in the UK, so it seems fitting that we are now the first certified Vocollect Voice Solution Provider,” commented David Stanhope. “From our point of view, the certification is primarily a formal verification of the capabilities of VoiteQ. We’ve been implementing Voice solutions now as a team for nearly ten years, so we have a lot of Voice expertise.” Anton du Preez pointed out that VoiteQ had been working with Vocollect since 1998, and was one of Vocollect’s first international partners. “This certification validates its experience within the voice industry, and the value provided by Vocollect through the Voice Solution Provider Programme,” he said.

The introduction of the Programme was based on the fact that Vocollect wanted to provide end customers with a way of “de-risking” their decision-making when it came to making their choice of solutions and partners. “It is based around individuals achieving certifications as Voice professionals – also, when an individual partner company has achieved the appropriate number of certified individuals in the various disciplines, it achieves a full company certification,” explained du Preez. “Vocollect has grown very rapidly as a company, as has the Voice market in general over the past few years; helping distribution centres achieve higher levels of accuracy and productivity as well as a quick ROI on their investment in Vocollect Voice. Indeed, we now have in excess of 200,000 users globally. We also have a large network of systems integrators and resellers that implement our solutions, so we needed to introduce a set of Standards and a qualification that could be trusted by the end user.”

Vocollect has already awarded over 300 professional certifications to its partner network globally. These certifications cover all related Voice disciplines; sales, pre-sales, implementation, development and support. “In many cases – and VoiteQ is a good example – it’s more a ratification of what they already had than a case of teaching them something new,” said du Preez. “However, if a partner is Vocollect-certified, the end customer knows that the solutions provider in question has been independently validated. With so many resellers involved, it is important to introduce some sort of structure.”

Standardising Voice

The market is now entering the mainstream of Voice technology, believes du Preez. “Customers are no longer simply asking ‘what is Voice and how does it work’, they’re now really asking ‘how do I make the best decision as to how Voice is implemented’,” he said. “Standardisation provides a globally consistent way of customers evaluating the integrators and resellers that will provide the Voice solutions for them. Our Partner Programme helps here, as end customers can be confident that these integrators and resellers meet a level of knowledge and skill that will ensure basic errors and problems don’t occur in the implementation. It’s fundamentally a quality stamp for the customer.”

As part of the market’s scale and maturity, du Preez believes there are more and more multi-national pan-European and even international customers looking to deploy systems across a larger network. “And with Voice and the way it’s implemented, you need local presence and local knowledge; for example, a specialist who can speak to users in their own language and guide them through the process,” he said. “This is an ideal way of customers ensuring that, even though they might be dealing with local specialists, they’ll get a consistent level of capability and knowledge across that large, global deployment.”