What IT Resellers Need to Know About Ethernet Connectivity Services

The experience and rewards of selling connectivity have been disappointing for many IT resellers in the past. All that is changing with the recently unveiled new Luminet online channel portal that makes ordering market-leading services simpler, faster and more profitable. 

Trusted IT advisors, consultancies, VARs, system integrators, managed service providers – call them what you will – they all take technology originated by someone else to deliver an integrated and tailored IT solution for business use.

This gives all IT resellers a trusted, privileged and extremely valuable role in the technology supply chain: ownership of the customer relationship.

It also presents a challenge to understand enough about the many overlapping elements of a holistic IT solution to be able to bring it all together and sell it successfully.

An IT reseller that can’t offer a comprehensive IT solution is left to specialise in niche areas, and forced to share the overall revenue pie with other third-parties. For their part, customers respect specialisms but they also question the relevance of working with multiple IT partners – none of whom fully understand their business problem or have the complete capability to solve it.

Time to reject the groundhog day of the connectivity services monopoly

For IT resellers, the missing connectivity part of the solution puzzle has a painful reputation, especially among pros with long memories. Many partners bear the scars of working with dominant telco operators that have created so many problems for them that precious customer relationships have been put in jeopardy.

First there is the complexity of offerings which can be difficult to understand and hard to distinguish between. Operators have historically done a poor job of making connectivity services stand out with compelling differentiators. This makes them appear as commodities rather than enablers.

Secondly is the bad state of customer service in the telco industry. Luminet happens to buck this trend with a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 42, compared to the sector average of just 17, and delivery timescales measured in days compared to the month-on-month delays offered by major competitors. But working with the lowest performers, resellers quickly get the feeling there can be no ‘partnership of equals’ with a faceless, multi-billion-pound global corporation who doesn’t feel like empathising with a customer issue.

Connectivity has never been more relevant – and more of a business opportunity

Failing to be engaged with connectivity offerings puts IT resellers of all stripes at a commercial disadvantage. SLA-assured access to high-speed connectivity is a strategic imperative for customers, as the platform for SaaS, cloud, unified communications and a host of other business applications is increasingly adopted.

This explains why Luminet is so committed to turning IT resellers back on to connectivity by taking advantage of its easy-to-do-business-with principles. This is underscored with a new online portal, which fully automates all marketing and sales processes for channel partners. This channel-only resource makes it simpler, easier and faster to order and reorder services and gives better value and margins. All partners need to do is complete an easy, two-step online self-certification to get up and running.

Outside of the platform, the Luminet channel-facing team has grown to provide maximum face-to-face support – delivering the human touch that has earned industry-leading NPS levels.

Luminet is unconstrained by legacy technology, owns its networks and has streamlined, faster and easier delivery processes for an enhanced set of Ethernet connectivity services that are ready-made for partner success. These include Wireless Pro/ Lite, a wireless business internet service offering between 10Mbps and 5Gbps symmetrical clear channel services. Rather than wait 90 days or more for revenue recognition from reselling traditional leased lines, partners can start billing almost straight away as Luminet’s Wireless Pro/ Lite service is typically installed in 10 working days. Luminet Wireless services need none of the wayleave permissions that fibre connections need either.

Another key service is 100% Always On, that combines both Fibre and Wireless services to provide a truly diverse and resilient connection with continuous uptime underpinned by a 100% SLA.

Offering 15-25% margin compared to the 10-15% available elsewhere in the market, Luminet believes it’s time for IT resellers to come in from the cold and claim a bigger share of connectivity revenues and boost their bottom lines without undue hassle or complexity. If you aren’t selling connectivity to your customer, then someone else is.

Find out more about the Luminet partner programme.