In an IT world full of acronyms, we unpack this brilliant technology
3CX is an open-standard[1], software-based business phone system that delivers advanced telephony functionality and is super easy to use, manage and install. 3CX is an Enterprise-grade communications platform that is primarily targeted at the SME market due to its affordability – and yet, in an interesting twist, many enterprise businesses are also adopting 3CX, as they take note of its benefits.
3CX offers very competitive pricing, as well as feature-rich Unified Communication functionality, which includes instant messaging or chat; Voice; video conferencing and data sharing; email, voicemail and SMS; and out-of-the-box integrations into popular CRMs.
Vox is a 3CX Titanium Partner – we operate at the highest 3CX partnership level, to the tremendous benefit of our customers. We are also one of a select few Titanium partners in South Africa, the highest level that a 3CX partner can achieve, and awarded only to 3CX’s most successful and experienced partners.
Benefits for Vox Clients
Titanium partner status is reserved for true 3CX all-stars! This, together with our Advanced Technical Certification, guarantees our customers excellent service and support. In addition, Titanium partner status ensures we get the best price from 3CX, which allows us to offer an enterprise grade product at pricing all customers can afford.
We are also Certified as a Preferred 3CX SIP Trunk provider[2] (one of only two in South Africa), which gives customers additional peace of mind that our network is compatible with any 3CX deployment. We have been thoroughly tested with 3CX to ensure no manual configurations, which means you can simply plug and play your PBX with our SIP trunks.
How the Vox-3CX Partnership Began
Before onboarding 3CX, Vox was selling a combination of open-sourced, on-premises and cloud-based solutions, which provided very basic PBX functionality. Although it satisfied the requirement for thousands of customers, we knew that we needed to expand our portfolio to be more relevant with our offerings and technology.
Simply put, we needed a product that would carry us into the future.
Before 2020, on-premises solutions were becoming less relevant, and our customer demands for UC&C[3] were increasing significantly – which our solutions at the time did not offer. When we were faced with the pandemic in 2020, it became clear that we required UC&C offerings to cater to our customers’ work from home communication requirements.
Becoming a 3CX partner for Vox was a very seamless process, but it did take drive, dedication and ambition to take this further and achieve Titanium status. Vox is an agile business, and so we are able to make decisions and change direction very quickly to ensure that our customers have the products and services they need.
In the quest to present the best solution possible, we spent significant time in our R&D labs running tests, documenting our installation best practices and automating many of our provisioning processes. The end result was being able to go to market confidently with a working solution, and without any hiccups. This was a critical step, as it cemented our long-term relationship with our customers.
Our engineers flew through the technical certification process and managed to achieve Advanced Technical certification within the first two months of becoming a 3CX partner.
Our team of sales specialists, who are dedicated to anything PBX, also completed their technical certifications, which gave them the ability to confidently design and sell 3CX solutions to prospective customers.
3CX made it easy for Vox to become technically certified with their free on-line training and assessments.
Along the Way
Together with the certification for Technicians and Sales Specialists, we also upskilled all our direct and indirect sales force employees, equipping them to understand the value of 3CX and uncover opportunities with customers. Overall, our comprehensive training programme included everyone from sales, pre-sales, installations engineers, support engineers, and core engineers.
We moved through the partner status ranks in record time – starting at Bronze, we worked our way up to Titanium status in less than one year (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Titanium) – a feat of which we’re very proud, as it shows our ability to adapt, and our willingness to do more.
It wasn’t very long after launching that we realised we had hit the jackpot – our customers loved 3CX, our sales staff loved 3CX and our engineers loved 3CX! This was a recipe for success and before we knew it, we were hitting the lights out.
Moving forward
Vox is able to support all types and sizes of customers – we have 3CX customers ranging from two or three extensions to customers with thousands of extensions.
And in addition to this, we don’t only sell 3CX – Vox offers a complete suite of complementary products: from last mile connectivity and market leading uncapped or rated calling plans, world-class data infrastructure to host customers 3CX services, to telephone expense management reporting. We are proud to add this to our 3CX achievements over the last three to four years.
The journey to Titanium Partner status demands a high level of technical skill, dedication to customer satisfaction, and a proven track record in implementing 3CX solutions.
Becoming a 3CX Titanium Partner marked a significant achievement for Vox, and we are very proud to be able to let our clients know that we have achieved this milestone in supporting and maintaining their 3CX systems.
[1] An open standard is a standard that is freely available for adoption, implementation and updates. Examples include XML, SQL and HTML Businesses within an industry share open standards because this allows them to bring value to both themselves and to customers.
[2] SIP Trunks are virtual phone lines that are delivered over the internet, replacing the need for physical telephone lines.
[3] Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) integrates diverse communication tools, such as Voice, IP Telephony Calling, Instant Messaging, Desktop Sharing, Presence, and Web Conferencing, Audio Conferencing, and Video Conferencing, to interact together in a virtually seamless way.
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