Australian-based UCaaS provider Access4 releases NPS scores gained from MSP channel partners; signalling areas for innovation, investment and improvement.

Australian UCaaS provider, Access4, has today released this year’s NPS scores, gained from 97 MSPs in its partner ecosystem with an overall Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 46 – up 14% from last year and continuing on an upward trajectory.

Founded in 2016, and originally an MSP, Access4’s vision was to bring telecommunications and collaboration software to the MSP market. With an eye on emerging remote working and flexi-working arrangements, Access4 knew that MSPs were best suited to sell voice and data solutions to businesses that had changing workforce requirements.

Skip forward to 2021 in the midst of a pandemic, Access4 now proudly boasts 200 plus partners in its ecosystem and 100,000 plus services that have been sold through its platform making voice and data provisioning simple.

With MSP partners at the foundation of success for Access4, a key metric to gauge partner satisfaction is the annual Net Promoter Score survey. Run by an external organisation to ensure the integrity of result, the Access4 NPS survey asked partners a series of questions focused around Product features, communication, response time and knowledge/expertise.

When asked why the NPS score was important to Access4, Managing Director, Tim Jackson, said, “We measure everything in this business and the NPS score is a clear indicator of partner sentiment. The scores we get are constructive. We realise we’re not perfect, and like every business, we have areas to improve. The areas of improvement are highlighted in the score and allows us to invest in the right areas that are important to our partners and their customers.”

NPS can be as low as −100 (all detractors) or as high as +100 (all promoters). The calculation is quite simple: it’s the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of the detractors as determined by the survey with scores of +50 and higher typically considered best-of-breed. Although Access4 is not a telecommunications provider or a simple B2B software platform, a score of 46 sits well above the industry benchmark of 15-20.

Out of the 97 partners surveyed, it was clear that partner support and response times by the Access4 partner support managers was a high-performing area of the business – one that scored 77 points overall.
“Access4 is flexible to adapt to change, and they were willing to extend situations when needed to get the right results. The Partner Success Managers are always ready to help and happy to work on deals and work on requests that might be a bit left of field. When there are difficult issues they do everything they can to help us out.” – Anonymous Partner Testimonial

In the spirit of authenticity and transparency, Access4 has also identified and disclosed areas of improvement across the business.

“A number of our partners have had challenges in accessing some of our Solution Consultants for the tricky technical issues post-sales. We’ve learnt that these people are sometimes difficult to get hold of because they’re so busy within our business – so this has validated our strategy to invest more in this area,” said Jackson.

“We’re now putting in another level of support in our TAC team, a white-glove service for the non-critical technical issues where partners can access solutions expertise for P3 or P4 issues. This then frees up our senior support engineers to manage the P1 incidents with a super-fast response time.”

“We’re always on a journey to improve and we have a bit of humility about where those improvements need to be, says Jackson. “Every successful business needs to take feedback and make changes for the better – our partners are the core of our success, so we need to listen to them and develop with them in mind.”

“We’re on a journey to be great – and we’re doing it by gathering direct feedback and working on it. When you’re a small tech start-up you can’t be everything to everyone – however, you can put the right people in the areas that need improvement and focus on developing a ‘partner-first’ solution. With that in mind, I’m confident our NPS scores will continue to go up in future.”