Welcome to the Gradwell Partner Newsletter!

Admin Area Developments

You may have noticed some new developments in the CSR area over the past few weeks. Amongst other things, including bug fixes and tweaks, we have added plently of new long awaited features. Some small, others somewhat larger but here is what’s been delivered so far:

CSR Rename - The CSR area has been renamed the “admin” area, available at voip.partner.tld/admin/. CSR will redirect to admin.

Password Constraints - Added text notifying users on signup that an 8 character mixed case alphanumeric password must be chosen.

Price List - Added price list to CSR area. White label partners will see both wholesale and end user pricing.

Mail In Direct Debit - Added an option for white label partners to upload a pdf direct debit form and make this available on the signup form as payment method. End user posts completed form back to partner. Partner activates services when the direct debit is authenticated.

Default Bill Package - Removed “Default” as an option for extensions billing package. Will now default to any inclusive minute package that is available.

CSR Timeout - CSR timeout value now set to 60 minutes.

Reseller Tab - Renamed to the more logical name “Settings”.

Website Integration - Added a website integration tab including theme features, package sales links, and tariff calculator code.

Additional Admin Users - Partner can now create and manage additional admin area users.

TOS Numbers - Implemented bug fix which was preventing the TOS numbers section from working correctly.

Default Email Template - Added an option to view the default email templates.

Email Template Variables - Added list of available variables for use in email templates.

Tabbed User Page - Added tabs to the admin customer record page for easier viewing.

Bulk Tariff Change - Added ability to update multiple customers tariffs

SMS Alerts - Added support for multiple numbers.

Reporting - Added reporting functionality. Initial support for Commission Report, Concurrent Calls, Total Income by Customer, Number of Packages Sold, and Minutes Called.

Maintenance Windows

Gradwell is committed to keeping disruption of your service to a minimum. To help you plan ahead, we are introducing regular maintenance windows, which are times where we will schedule our planned maintenance work.

The maintenance windows will be 10pm-2am every Tuesday and Thursday.

Service Updates

We will notify all customers of scheduled work, a minimum of 7 calendar days in advance. Notices will be posted on our GradwellStatus.com website, which provides a variety of ways to subscribe to notifications (including email, SMS via Twittex, Google Calendar, and Twitter). It is highly advised that all partners subscribe to email updates here.

Suspended Cobranded End Users

On Thursday the 9th October we will begin preventing end users who are suspended due to non payment, from logging in to their control panels.

Implemented at the same time will be a new payment page, so that these suspended users can clear due invoices. This may be found at voip.partnerscustomdomain.tld/cardpayment.

New Porting Form

Our porting department have released a new version of the porting form, designed to make life a little easier. You may download this form here (in excel format). I would also advise our partners to read the following document designed to help you understand the porting process - Notes for completing the Porting Form.

Adapter News

We now stock a new ATA, the Grandstream HT-502 VoIP Adapter. End user pricing is currently set at £35.00. For more information, or to place an order visit here. We have ceased sale of the Flexor 151 and in future will offer the Grandstream 502 or Linksys PAP2T adaptor as inclusive hardware.

October Visits

I will be hitting the road again this month to visit some of our partners. Do you have sales leads that you would like assistance with? Would you like me to attend a pitch wearing your company’s hat? Perhaps some of your team may benefit from some training? If you would like to organise a meeting with me, please get in touch.

Feedback

Your views on what we’re doing and how we could make things even better are important to us. So if there’s anything you want to say please don’t hesitate to contact our Partner Manager, Matt Park, on 01225 800 900 or via reseller-support@gradwell.net.

Can you communicate the benefits of converged communications directly to the UK SME market place? Have you mentored a marketing team and expanded their marketing skills and expertise?

Gradwell operates at the Micro/Small end of the SME market place, providing email, telecoms and broadband services to over 7000 billing customers. We’re one of the largest UK SME VoIP service providers (user base of over 30,000) and we have strong ambitions for growth. We have a turnover of 2.4 million and 30 staff based in our offices in Bath.

The Role

To continue our demanding growth, we are looking for an expert in product marketing to work with us for an average of one day per week in order to develop our targets into a marketing strategy and to provide advice and help with its implementation.

Presently, marketing activities are directed informally by Peter Gradwell and executed by Jake Johnson, our marketing assistant. We retain an experienced journalist, Jack Ozanne of Full-Media Solutions as our PR Agency.

70% of our customers come to us directly, with 30% via our reseller channel. This role will focus on the direct customer business, acquiring new UK Micro and Small businesses.  The majority of our advertising is done using Google Adwords, in which we have developed reasonable skill, using email marketing to our customers, and Public Relations work. We also attend an annual trade show event.

The key objectives:

•    Transition the day to day responsibility of developing the marketing plan and the current marketing activities from Peter Gradwell.
•    Define a new company marketing plan for the 2009 FY (Oct 08) with agreement from the management team, to meet the sales objectives and within available resource constraints.
•    Specifically, improve the terminology and methodology that we use for explaining our products and services to prospective customers.
•    Set short term work tasks and supervise the delivery of the plan on behalf of the Sales Manager.
•    Maintain and review the progress of plan delivery, providing a quarterly review of the Marketing activities to the company.

Time commitment and budgets:

•    Up to 60 days per year, on average one day per week (preferably Tuesday or Thursday) in our Bath offices.
•    Currently we spend an average of 3% of Turnover aiming to increase to 5% in the financial year on marketing activities. It’s not a huge budget, so your work will need to have a rapid affect on sales in order to continue our growth.

Person specification:

•    You will be an experienced marketing professional with a track record in the industry
•    You will be a freelance professional, or an executive within a consultancy that wishes to retain our business
•    Ideally you will have worked within small businesses in the technology service provider sector
•    You will have a strong grasp of internet based marketing, including Google and email based marketing
•    You will have strong copy writing skills and an ability to interpret technically developed products for a wider mass market.

Application Details

For an initial discussion, please contact Peter Gradwell (peter@gradwell.net, 01225 800 810) and apply via email.

We are planning face to face meetings on 21st and 22nd October 2008, with a view to starting work in early November 2008.

Our offices are located on the Lower Bristol Road in Bath, a 10 min walk from the train station, next to the Green Park Tavern.

This position is now closed.

We are pleased to bring you uptodate with our latest news summary. Since the summer’s update on the company, email hosting and VoIP we’ve made further improvements and we’d like to tell you what has been happening… Read the rest of this entry »

We are delighted to announce a number of price reductions and several new accessories to our store to help improve your VoIP experience.

Phones

The Linksys 94 has been reduced in price from £69.99 to £64.99 and is now included as an option, alongside the Grandstream GXP2000, in our Centrex Unlimited calls packages.

Headsets

The Snom MM3 headset has been introduced for use with Snom 300 phones

The JPL Comms JAC headset with 2.5mm jack has been reduced in price from £19.95 to £11.95 and is suitable for all phones with 2.5mm socket, including Siemens, Linksys and Grandstream phones.

The JPL Comms Mono headset price has been reduced to £31.50 and comes with a choice of bottom connectors, for use with all our phones, at £14.95 each, reducing the overall price from £49.95 to £46.45.

Accessories

We have introduced a range of Snom stands to raise the profile of Snom business phones on your desk.

Full details can be found at http://store.gradwell.com/

If you have any questions please contact Sales on 01225 800800 or via sales@gradwell.net