Explaining SIP Trunking to Your Customers

April 21, 2022

Reselling SIP trunk services is a growing industry as businesses are increasingly electing to transition their telephony needs from legacy services to a cost-saving SIP trunk option. Considering the many advantages a SIP trunk provides to its users, one would think they’d be a pretty straightforward sell. But the truth is that many professionals who stand to benefit from a SIP trunking service have never heard of SIP trunks. As a SIP trunk reseller, know that you’re not alone if you’re having trouble explaining SIP trunking to your customers.

The good news is that once you overcome your customer’s initial unfamiliarity with SIP trunks, the sale is much easier to make. This article aims to help SIP trunk resellers close more deals by introducing five effective tips for explaining SIP trunking to their customers. This article also highlights some common mistakes SIP trunk resellers should avoid in order to make more sales.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Explaining SIP Trunking to Your Customers

Many SIP trunk resellers are running into the same problems when making their pitch to a prospective buyer. Since the ins-and-outs of SIP trunking can get quite technical, many resellers find it difficult to bridge their customer’s knowledge gap. Luckily, there are simple ways to connect better with your prospective buyers.

SIP Trunk resellers can close more deals by avoiding these common mistakes:

Use of jargon and acronyms
Focusing on the product and not the benefits
Using a generic sales pitch
Talking too much, while client talks too little

Mistake #1: Overusing Tech Jargon and Acronyms

As a SIP trunk reseller, you likely have a super firm grasp of your product and all its associated terms. But your customer most likely does not. In most cases, your customer has never heard of SIP trunking, let alone any of the technical terms and acronyms related to it.

When explaining SIP trunking to your customers, avoid overusing technical terms and acronyms. Instead, replace those terms with easy-to-understand words and phrases your customer can make sense of.

For example, avoid using explanations such as: “SIP trunking offers several advantages over the old ISDN and PSTN services because it provides a multi-channel circuit for communications”.

While the above phrase is true, it’s not easily understood by people who aren’t familiar with SIP trunking. You can make the same point by saying “SIP trunking is more cost-effective than the service you currently use because it provides multiple ways of communicating with your customers using only one platform.”

Whenever possible, cut out confusing technical jargon and acronyms and explain SIP trunking using simple terms.

Mistake #2: Focusing on the Product and Not the Benefits

Focusing on the product instead of its benefits is another common mistake SIP trunk resellers make. Providing a quick introductory spiel on what SIP trunks are is expected. But it’s important to avoid getting bogged down in the details.

Your customer doesn’t need to leave your conversation as an expert on how SIP trunks work. They should, however, understand exactly how using a SIP trunking service will benefit their business. Keep the focus of your sales pitch on the benefits of SIP trunking and how your customer will be better off.

Related: The Reseller’s Guide to Wholesale SIP Trunking

Mistake #3: Using a Generic Sales Pitch

As a salesperson, it’s tempting to memorize your sales pitch to ensure you hit all the right points smoothly and confidently when talking to prospective buyers. However, having the same memorized, generic sales pitch for every customer can backfire.

As a reseller, you’ll find that some customers are much more knowledgeable about SIP trunking than others. It’s better to personalize your sales pitch for every customer in order to have a bigger impact and drive home the sale.

Mistake #4: Talking Too Much, While Client Talks Too Little

Talking too much is another common mistake SIP trunk resellers make when explaining SIP trunking to customers. Since SIP trunks can be quite technical and foreign to most people, the impulse for many resellers is to talk a lot in order to fill in every possible knowledge gap the customer has.

When explaining SIP trunks, you’ll find that it’s much more effective to field questions and concerns from the customer. This allows you to fill in their knowledge gaps while also addressing their pain points. As a result, your sales pitch is more relevant to the customer and more likely to drive a deal.

5 Tips to Help You Explain SIP Trunking to Your Customers

Now that you know what not to do when explaining SIP trunking to your customers, let’s go over some practical tips and tactics you can use to make more sales.

Selling a largely unheard-of service like SIP trunking can be a difficult task if you approach it like any other product or service sales pitch. Instead, you should employ these 5 tips when selling SIP trunks:

Know your audience
Be solution-centric
Break it up into bite-sized pieces
Use analogies
Reinforce your customer’s understanding

Tip #1: Know Your Audience

No two customers are the same. When explaining SIP trunking, it’s critical that you understand who your audience is.

You should know the following about every customer you speak with:

What is their familiarity level with SIP trunking?
What telephony service are they currently using?
What is the extent of their usage? Hours in a day versus minutes?
How satisfied are they with their current service?
What pain points do they have?
What roadblocks may be present for adoption?

When you know your audience, you can tailor your sales pitch to your customer and make a better connection. Knowing your audience also allows you to be more efficient with your time. Same customers will require a shorter sales pitch than others.

Knowing your audience and their specific pain points also provides more opportunities to sell peripheral products, such as inbound toll-free services, international long-distance calls, and direct inward dial (DID).

Tip #2: Be Solution-Centric

Your pitch should be solution-centric when explaining SIP trunking to your customers.

While many customers will ask “what are SIP trunks?”, they’re usually not interested in learning about the technical ins and outs of how SIP trunking works. What they’re really asking is “should we get SIP trunks?”

Focus your explanation around the solutions SIP trunking provides, such as cost-savings, scalability, and higher quality audio and video connections. Even in the instance your customer does ask about a technical term (e.g., what is VoIP?), always answer the question in a way that highlights the benefits of using SIP trunks over legacy services.

Related: Definitive Guide to Reselling SIP Trunks

Tip #3: Break Up Your Explanation into Bite-sized Pieces

Your customer will have an easier time digesting your explanation of SIP trunking if you break it up into bite-sized pieces.

Approach your sales pitch the same way you would a piece of writing. Avoid long, run-on sentences and lengthy explanations. Use short, concise messaging that gets your point across. Also, predetermine the key points you want your customer to take home.

Rather than trying to jam as much information as possible into your explanation, dole out your message sparingly. See what questions your customer has after each bite-sized piece of information. Your customer will receive your explanation and sales pitch better if you allow their curiosities to lead the conversation.

Tip #4: Use Analogies

Analogies are one of the most effective tools you can use when explaining a complicated or unknown topic. Using analogies when explaining SIP trunking to your customers will make SIP trunking and its benefits more relatable and relevant to the customer’s needs.

For example, you can explain a SIP trunk channel as “explain a pipe that carries data channels inside it to connect two locations.” Analogies with easily understandable imagery allow the customer to better imagine themselves using the product and benefiting from it.

Tip #5: Reinforce Your Customer’s Understanding

The fifth and final tip for explaining SIP trunking to your customers is to reinforce their understanding periodically throughout the conversation.

Even after avoiding confusing jargon, breaking up your pitch into bite-sized pieces, and using analogies, there’s still a possibility that your explanation isn’t landing. You can cut out all doubt by asking your customers questions and leaving space for them to ask their own.

As a general rule, your questions should be solution-based, not a quiz on the technicalities of SIP trunking.

For example, you wouldn’t ask your customer to explain SIP trunking back to you. Instead, you might ask “how do you think a SIP trunking service would improve your current communication needs?”

Based on your customer’s response, you’ll know what to clarify and which SIP trunking benefits you should focus on in your explanation.

Choose the Right Wholesale Partner to Resell SIP Trunk

Experts at SIPTRUNK believe in the numerous benefits of SIP trunking for business communications and thus provide an innovative platform that makes reselling SIP trunks easier than ever before.

Our services platform is designed for businesses that want to build a SIP trunking practice and recurring revenue stream selling SIP trunking services, quickly and painlessly. With SIPTRUNK you’ll get access to a simple to use SIP trunk solution that makes selling and managing your customers a breeze.

Get started today as a partner with SIPTRUNK and start providing your customers with the modern telecom solution they deserve.