In this article we look at how an already established Telecom Managed Service Provider ...
…took on the challenge of growing revenue in a crowded marketplace.
The Telecom Managed Service Provider had enjoyed another reasonable year. Customer satisfaction remained high, support performance was strong and retention levels were healthy. Yet despite these positives, net new growth was low, a feeling of stagnation persisted.
As per previous years, the leadership team had been tasked with increasing revenue over the next 12 months.
- Win more customers.
- Sell more services.
- Grow the business.
The reality, however, wasn’t this simple. Like many Telecom MSPs across the UK, the business operated in an increasingly crowded market. Hosted telephony, connectivity, SIP services, Contact Centre solutions and Managed IT Services are available from countless providers. Essentially following the same pattern to increase revenue was getting more difficult.
While every business likes to believe its service is different, prospective customers often struggle to see meaningful distinctions between suppliers.
Sales conversations frequently follow a familiar pattern. A prospect invites several providers to quote, proposals are submitted, and before long the discussion turns to pricing.
This usually means, margins come under pressure, deals take longer to close, and differentiation becomes harder to demonstrate.
The management team knew they needed to find a way to stand out. Not by becoming the cheapest provider in the room, but by delivering something genuinely valuable that competitors weren’t discussing.
Looking Beyond Traditional Telecom Services
The obvious and traditional answer was to focus on customer acquisition. Meaning more prospecting, more meetings and more proposals created.
Yet acquiring new customers in this fashion was becoming increasingly expensive and competitive. The MSP began to question whether growth had to come exclusively from finding new customers.
Instead, they looked at the organisations they already supported.
After all, they had spent years building trusted relationships with businesses across multiple sectors. Their account managers regularly spoke with their customers and understood many of the challenges they faced.
What if there were opportunities already sitting within their existing customer base? Would that mean growth wasn’t simply about selling more telecom services?
It was during these conversations that an interesting pattern began to emerge.
A Question That Changed the Conversation
One account manager asked a customer a seemingly simple question to one of the organisations that he had spent years nurturing.
“How do you currently take payments over the phone?”
The answer was received with unexcitable pause “the same as everyone” which sparked some curiosity.
After some deliberation, the customer explained that staff typed card details spoken to them during calls into a virtual terminal, then processed the payments.
The question was then asked again during further customer reviews.
Before long, the MSP realised that a significant number of their customers were taking card payments over the phone every day.
- Healthcare providers collecting appointment fees.
- Membership organisations processing renewals.
- Educational establishments accepting course payments.
- Professional services firms collecting deposits and outstanding balances.
- Retail businesses supporting customer orders.
The more conversations they had, the more they realised many organisations shared similar methods, and many had concerns.
Some were uncertain about the security of their payments that made them uneasy but unaware of their PCI DSS obligations. While others were aware they needed to be PCI compliant and wanted to fix this mandatory requirement.
Another common theme was the desire for better tools in managing customer payments, along with more options that suited how customers preferred to pay.
While some simply assumed their existing processes were sufficient because they had always worked that way and did not know any better. This definitely provided an educational opportunity.
For that account manager, this represented something that had been overlooked. A customer challenge that sat directly alongside the communication systems they already provided.
More importantly, it was a conversation that very few competitors were having.
Discovering A Different Kind of Opportunity
As the Telecom MSP explored the opportunity further, they realised they were looking for a solution that would genuinely help customers while allowing them to differentiate their services.
Based on the payment conversations and the research that followed, they discovered PayGuard. What stood out wasn’t simply the technology itself, it was how naturally the solution aligned with the services they already delivered.
Customers were already speaking with clients over the phone, with many already taking payments during those interactions. Secure PCI DSS-compliant phone payments felt like a natural extension of existing Telecom and Contact Centre environments rather than an entirely separate service.
More importantly, it gave the MSP something many providers struggle to find, a reason for customers to listen. The more they explored the solution, the more they realised it addressed multiple customer challenges at the same time.
Compliance Without Complexity
The follow up conversations centred around PCI DSS compliance.
While many organisations knew they had responsibilities when handling cardholder data, few fully understood the extent of those obligations!
Some assumed their payment provider handled everything. Others believed compliance only applied to larger organisations.
By enabling customers to securely enter payment details using their telephone keypad, sensitive card information is removed from the conversation itself. Staff never hear the card numbers, the information is never exposed within the Office, Home or Contact Centre environment, and businesses can remove completely their systems from the scope of security controls that must be applied to systems involved in handling cardholder data.
For many organisations, the prospect of reducing compliance burdens and minimising risk immediately resonated, especially when it was made so easy for them.
For the MSP, this created a far more valuable discussion than they had been having previously and created a new selling point.
What About the Customer?
Protecting Customer Data and Business Reputation
As conversations developed, another benefit became increasingly apparent.
Businesses are investing heavily in cybersecurity, yet payment processes remains vulnerable. A data breach involving payment information can lead to financial penalties, reputational damage and a significant loss of customer trust.
Customers quickly recognised the value of ensuring sensitive payment information never passed through employees, recordings or business systems unnecessarily. The MSP realised they weren’t simply discussing compliance. They were helping customers protect their reputation.
And in an era where trust can be lost in an instant, that matters.
Improving The Customer Experience
One unexpected discovery was the impact on customer experience.
Traditional phone payments often involve customers reading card details aloud while an agent manually enters the information. The process can feel outdated, uncomfortable and, for some customers, insecure, particularly if doing so in a public space.
With secure keypad-based payment technology, customers remain on the call with the agent while entering their details directly. The conversation continues naturally, support remains available and customers maintain greater confidence in how their information is being handled.
For many organisations, this represented a simple but meaningful improvement to the customer journey. It meant it wasn’t just more secure; it was more professional and improved the user experience.
Offering Greater Flexibility
The Telecoms Managed Service Provider also recognised that customers wanted flexibility. Not every client, customer and payment journey was the same.
Some organisations preferred secure keypad payments during live calls. Others wanted the ability to send payment links through SMS, email or digital channels.
What appealed to the MSP was that PayGuard could work alongside existing telecom and payment infrastructures rather than forcing customers to replace systems they already relied upon.
The solution adapted to the customer rather than the customer adapting to the solution. That flexibility made conversations significantly easier and opened opportunities across a wider range of industries and use cases.
Creating Genuine Differentiation
These types of conversations were opening up opportunities, where one of the biggest benefits wasn’t technical at all, it was commercial!
While competitors continued discussing hosted telephony, connectivity and pricing, this MSP found itself having entirely different conversations.
Discussions centred on:
- Compliance
- Customer trust
- Payment security
- Business risk
- User experience
Now prospects had a reason to engage beyond comparing monthly costs, as the MSP wasn’t simply providing telecom and IT services. It was helping customers solve business challenges.
While many providers can offer similar telecom solutions, far fewer can help organisations improve the security, compliance and customer experience surrounding phone payments.
A Different Way to Think About Growth
Would every customer adopt secure phone payments and transform the Telcom MSP’s business? Most likely not.
But that misses the point, the real value wasn’t found in adding another product to a portfolio. It was found in uncovering a challenge that customers genuinely faced and providing a practical solution.
By introducing secure phone payment services, the MSP created new opportunities within existing accounts, opened more strategic conversations and positioned itself differently in an increasingly competitive market.
For some customers, the benefit was compliance, for others, it was security and to some it was improving customer experience.
For the MSP, it became a way to deepen relationships, increase account value and create conversations that competitors were not having or even thinking about.
The lesson is one that many Telecom MSPs may recognise, growth doesn’t always come from finding more customers. Sometimes it comes from understanding existing customers more deeply and creating incremental revenue.
In a market where many providers look and sound remarkably similar, the businesses that succeed are often the ones solving problems that others haven’t even thought to ask about, or educate customers about.
And for many organisations that are taking payments over the phone, that conversation could begin with a simple question:
“How do you currently take payments over the phone?”
Could Secure Phone Payments Create New Opportunities Within Your Customer Base?
PayGuard helps Telecom MSPs differentiate their services by offering secure, PCI DSS
compliant phone payment solutions that protect customer data, reduce compliance burdens and improve payment experiences.
If you’re looking for new ways to create value for existing customers, strengthen customer relationships and unlock additional revenue opportunities, perhaps it’s time to start a different conversation.
One your competitors may not be having.
Get in Touch to see how we can help you and your customers…
