AireSpring Enhances VeloCloud SD-WAN Offering with

White Glove Professional Services Solution

AireSpring has released a new, integrated  VeloCloud Powered AireSpring offering as part of our multi-vendor SD-WAN solutions package. Our Platinum SD-WAN is an innovative and customizable package that helps companies optimize their communications networks.

• Free 3rd Party Vendor Support - AireSpring will proactively open repair tickets on behalf of customers for non-AireSpring circuits.

• Free Flex Licensing - AireSpring’s licensing package saves customers money because they pay only for what they need.

• Free Read Access to SD-WAN Cloud-based Orchestrator - AireSpring offers free read access to a sophisticated SD-WAN web-based portal that gives all customers deep monitoring visibility into their network

• Free Write Access to SD-WAN Cloud-based Orchestrator - AireSpring offers free write access to the web-based portal, enabling greater control over configuration level capabilities.

Pricing and configuration options on this new SD-WAN solution are available in QuoteSpring. Go to agentStar.net or contact your Channel Manager for more information and a preview of this exciting new package! 

AireSpring Named Winner of Channel Partners Evolution Influencer Award 2017

AireSpring's Achievement Recognized as

Channel Solutions Provider

The Next-Gen Solutions Influencer Award recognizes AireSpring for its exceptional influence on the partner channel. AireSpring is widely known for being 100% channel-focused, and for the outstanding value it provides to its channel partners, including the industry-leading quoting tool, QuoteSpring, for instant quotes online, along with a team of expert channel managers and solutions engineers. The company also provides some of the highest SPIFFs and commissions in the industry. This award joins the growing collection of accolades the company has received from industry ogranizations, most recently for its AirePBX UCaaS product (Communications Solutions Product of the Year 2017), and for Ron McNab, AireSpring’s Senior Vice President of Channel Sales (for Top Midmarket Vendor Executive 2017).

“We are thankful to be honored with this award which validates AireSpring's strategic commitment to the Partner Channel," said AireSpring COO, Daniel Lonstein. "We look forward to continuing to exchange ideas, share new product developments and grow sales together with an expanding family of forward-thinking channel partners. We work hard to maintain the AireSpring Advantage, designed to help our partners gain opportunities with award-winning products, including our fully managed, nationwide, geo-redundant MPLS MESH multi-vendor network, SD-WAN solutions, free AireNMS 24/7 WAN network monitoring, white glove product installation and premier customer support programs." 

Earn Gifts & Prizes Above & Beyond Your SPIFFs

with AireSpring!

• Avoid oversizing your SD-WAN solution: learn how AireSpring's flex licensing saves you $$$ because you pay only for what you need.
• Learn why many SD-WAN vendors are limited to replacing not leveraging MPLS.
• Understand the difference between SD-WAN Quality-of-Experience (QoE) and MPLS Quality-of-Service (QoS).
• Discover the SD-WAN "AireSpring Advantage" of choice, 3rd party circuit support, free portal access & more.
• Glimpse the future of service chaining, service stacking, and universal CPE (uCPE).

WHAT: AireSpring Partner Training Webinar

WHO: Mike Chase, AireSpring SVP Solutions Engineering

WHEN: Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017 | 1:00-1:45 PM PST

Visit AireSpring at These Events

Sandler Partners Year End

MB Financial Park

Rosemont, IL

December 5, 2017

Sandler Partners Year End Celebration -Dallas

III Forks

Dallas, TX

December 7, 2017

Sandler Partners Year End Celebration - SoCAL

Portofino Hotel & Marina

Redondo Beach, CA

December 12, 2017

TCG Channel Source

Westin Hotel-Fort Lauderdale Beach

Fort Lauderdale, FL

November 7, 2017

TCG Holiday Party

Shooters Waterfront FTL

Fort Lauderdale, FL

December 8, 2017

Telarus Innovation Conference

PNC Park

Pittsburgh, PA 

November 16, 2017

Telarus Innovation Conference

Canyon Creek Country Club

Richardson, TX

December 7, 2017

TBI Bootcamp

Chicago, IL

December 6, 2017

Welcome to the latest edition in our series of profiles, shining the spotlight on AireSpring’s amazing partners. This month, we’re speaking with Eric Savitsky, Managing Partner of CrosStar Network Solutions.

Eric, please tell us a bit about your background and the history of CrosStar.

I learned from working for these carriers that the agent world was where all the power resided, with independent contractors who represented their own clients. They would come to me as a direct sales rep, to discuss how their clients were being handled. It taught me that when I worked for the carrier, I was an employee, I didn’t have the same ability to work on behalf of the clients that I would as an independent agent—I couldn’t take the business to someone else if there was an issue. I felt that my hands were tied with just one carrier and one network. Now, we are in that position, we represent many carriers, and we expect them to ultimately serve us and our clients’ needs. We like to work as equals, and we don’t pay much attention to titles.

How do you differentiate yourselves in the industry?

We started CrosStar thirteen years ago with the intent of creating a different kind of master agency. We don’t necessarily target any one particular vertical, it all depends on the mix of clients that our agents and referral partners bring us. When I was an agent, I targeted many retail and government clients, developing a lot of relationships and referral partners along the way, then drawing on them to source business when we started CrosStar. We choose to use the term referral partners rather than sub-agents. Wherever they have contacts and connections, that’s where we have a presence.

We are unique and differentiated from traditional agent-to-master relationships because we are not only a clearing house. We have agents with years of telecom experience, but we also network with people in C-level roles at end-user companies, executives and business owners who refer us to their friends and colleagues because we’ve done a good job for them. We know that most of our referral partners are not the IT-telco savvy people. Instead, they are often the networkers, people who give us introductions.

Our approach with our customers is to say that we’re your advocate and we will deal with the carriers and suppliers for you. We sell, provision and perform quarterly reviews and bill reconciliations. We hold hands with the client and encourage them to call us. We’re their advocate, delivering a complete, 100% white glove service.

We are a little old school in that we get on the phone with our clients. Every new order gets assigned a project manager and scheduled weekly calls, which is different from other traditional masters. Some charge a fee for these services, which means the agent has to give up some of their percentage. Our agents and sub-agents always get a sales organization and a back office. Our sub-agents and referral partners come to us and know we have the back office.

What do you like about working with AireSpring?

I love working with AireSpring. You guys know how to hold a client’s hand, from the solutions engineering team and presales, to customer service. We’ve had a lot of success with AireSpring products. For SIP trunking and call centers, AireSpring is one of the best, if not the best for rates and products.

When converting call centers and larger customers from TDM to SIP, you are very patient and methodical, and you don’t rush orders through. Don Greenstein and his team are great at that handholding, making sure that we “measure six times and only cut once.” In some cases they have guided us to make different choices, decisions we hadn’t thought about, where other carriers might have left us hanging out there to dry. Mike Nesci has been our steady contact at AireSpring from day one, and he does a great job for us.

What would you say is the secret to being a successful agent?

Honesty, period. Honesty and a lot of hard work. The industry is changing so fast. Two years ago when Verizon laid off half of their sales force and took on the agent world, we knew for sure that the agent world was the place to be, but we weren't alone.

We’re lucky to have Fortune 100 and 500 companies as clients, but it’s an uphill battle when you're fighting to show them how you can bring them better pricing than a carrier representative can, so a big part of the secret is communicating with your clients.

Another secret to success is to be an advocate for your clients. We hear about agents who run the other way when a client has an issue, then try to pin it on the carrier. One way to become a successful agent is to offer project management services to your clients, which is what CrosStar does and it has served us well. If there’s an issue, we keep an open door, greeting them with open arms. You need to go to bat for your clients and make sure they know what the carrier is doing. We will kick and scream to get a problem resolved for clients, if necessary. Then, when the problem gets fixed and their boss comes in wanting to know what happened, they look like they were on top of it. Agents may get paid by the carriers, but never forget that the customers are your clients and you work for them. That type of scenario is where you will get a referral, when you have bent over backwards to keep the client happy, so your reputation for reliability and customer service grows, and your success grows with it.

Because of CrosStar's back office service and all that we do for the customer, we often become an extension of their own IT department. We mimic the phone company in a way, making our back office customer-service oriented. If there’s an issue a year or two years down the road, we do what we promised, we follow through. Our back office portals offer training and can automatically notify multiple employees, so we have backup and more than one person is notified if there is an issue.

What is the “next big thing” you think agents should be aware of in 2018?

People need to be more knowledgeable on products and the IoT space in general. Cybersecurity will get much more attention. Even after the Equifax breach, everybody panicked for a week, but then things move on to the next issue, the next breach and it’s like nothing has changed for the better.

 
SD-WAN is certainly the hottest thing in the industry now, and not enough people understand it. We have implemented quite a few SD-WAN projects, even though we were a little late to the game. We deliberately take a wait-and-see approach when a new technology is launched. We will offer it if someone needs it, but we watch to see how it rolls out in the marketplace, what the failures and successes are and why. We want to see how well the new technology works out in the field, and see what was missed--we listen to learn what works or what does not. We don’t want to be the guinea pig for the carrier.

There will be more VARs (value added resellers), who have traditionally avoided the telecom world, jumping into it head first. They recognize that they can provide one total solution, selling managed services, hardware and connectivity. The more their services become an eco-system and technology that touches everything, the more it makes sense for them to go to their customer and say they’ve partnered with “ABC Company,” they can set up the circuits, get a dedicated line and get the services for them.

The other big trend I see coming in 2018 will be 5G, and understanding how that will play out for businesses. I will follow it to see how it rolls out and performs to residential first, then to businesses. A lot will depend on whether or not they can add the right kind of security. We work with a big group of municipalities who are often beta-testers for wireless providers who want the rights-of-way on poles, or access to other local assets. This makes us the town’s consultants, which is a very nice position to be in.

As long as the economy doesn’t crash, you’ll see a continued, slow change from the end of traditional coax markets and TDM copper, as carriers continuously expand fiber. Copper will never go away totally, the networks are too big, but Verizon replaced their entire network with fiber. It’s a 50-year play, $400 billion—slowly, they’re doing it. I’m curious to see when cables will be synchronous and meet up with FiOS and others, and go to their customers and say “you’re no longer 50 by 5, you’re 50 by 50, or 50 x 100. That will be a big game-changer, with good bandwidth that’s cheap. It will mean everyone has to buy a lot of bandwidth.

What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of telecom?

I like to surf, snowboard, golf, travel, explore, anything that gets my adrenaline going a bit. I spend whatever time I can with my lovely wife Jacqueline. My company and I support many different charities, including Habitat for Humanity and the New Jersey State Police charity. I have another business, started about a year and-a-half ago, called Accepted to School. It is designed to change how colleges and students interact and build relationships, and market themselves to one another. There are many portals that guide kids into a major or a trade, but there’s nothing that physically makes that match.

At AireSpring, we know that it is our dedication to customer service that sets us apart, and customer service begins with great employees. Here is your chance to get to know the AireSpring team that oversees your orders and delivers great service every day. This month we are talking with Ilya Shvartsman, Director of Product Management.

Hello Ilya. To begin, can you tell us about your professional background and your role at AireSpring?

I began my professional career in the world of PC security systems during the Windows 3.1 days, when they were controlled by VCRs and tapes. I worked for Silicor Technologies, based here in Los Angeles, which was one of the first companies to develop security camera software. I was in charge of beta-testing new technologies as well as all tech support for the company. My role also included building the systems as well as training other staff on how to use the products. For several years, I traveled all around the country, training our partners on these systems.

Then, I left Los Angeles for a while and moved to New York to start a company with two business partners, writing software for PC security functions. By the time I moved back to L.A., the industry had mushroomed and was saturated with competitive products. So, I began looking for the next big growth industry, and it was at that time that I was introduced to AireSpring by a long-time employee. I interviewed with Daniel [Lonstein, AireSpring COO] and was fortunate to get my start in telecom at AireSpring. I began in the quotes department before the days of SIP and fiber, when everything was T1-based. I eventually worked in several roles at the company, including account manager, learning all I could. But my entrepreneurial nature got the best of me and I left to start another business, which was a call center company servicing the life insurance industry.

Eventually, my contacts at AireSpring invited me back for another opportunity and the Lonsteins, Avi, Daniel and David, offered me a new position as an analyst, which leveraged my skills in using the Microsoft SQL data programming language. I worked closely with David [Lonstein, Executive VP Product Management] on cost analysis, at the same time helping the carrier operations group and the NOC analyze call records. After some time I decided I wanted to get into sales again, so I left to become a senior account manager at PAETEC Communications and stayed there until the company was bought out by Windstream. After that I moved on to perform direct sales for an agency. It was there that I had the opportunity to learn how challenging the job is when it comes to selling decision-makers on the advantages of a particular product.

I have always been grateful to the Lonstein family for giving me the foundation I needed to grow in the industry. Over the years I’ve become what is known as a telecom lifer, and I will stay in it. Telecom is my life now. I returned to AireSpring this year as Director of Product Management. My team and I manage vendor negotiations and help identify new products to release, as well as handling special pricing requests and quotes. It’s our job to get the product out to the market, from concept to agent trainings and rate sheets. We are tasked with coordinating all the various internal teams to release the product, once we have the design and pricing in line.

The most rewarding part of all this has been having a world of different experiences, those small building blocks that help shape who you become, personally and professionally. All those prior technical experiences prepared me to take on this new role, helping me to understand our agents’ perspective, what their sales process is like. It gives me more compassion for the struggles they go through on a daily basis, and an overall understanding of how much work it is just getting that seat at the table in front of a potential customer. When you have to be in a leading sales role, you gain a whole different perspective. Now, part of my responsibility here is to make it as easy as possible for agents to do business with AireSpring and to sell our products. I want to arm our channel partners with as many tools and as much knowledge as possible to help them push AireSpring products. They have enough challenges on a daily basis, and we don’t want working with us to be one of those.

  
What do you enjoy most about working with AireSpring?

I like the fact that no two days are the same. It’s exciting to be always developing new solutions. I enjoy the leadership team here, working closely with Avi, Daniel and David, and the whole family of people that work here. I was gone for 5 years and now that I’m back, it’s like coming back to the family, being accepted with open arms. AireSpring’s willingness to trust me with a significantly larger role means a lot. I’ve learned that if you persevere and are willing to take on more, you come out a better person in the end, and have a chance to serve the whole enterprise. A piece of me has always been at AireSpring and I am very grateful for it. It’s so awesome to see what AireSpring has become, and how much it has grown over the years. Having left for a time and returned, I can really see the change.

Currently, our number one focus is on our new SD-WAN offering. AireSpring is doing things with SD-WAN that other carriers and managed service providers do not, and we are excited to see how the market will respond to our offering.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of the office?

The number one thing is spending time with my wife, Kea, and our two children. We especially enjoy camping and backpacking. The kids are very easy to be with when they’re out there. We started camping with them when they were four months old, so they are at home in nature. I do backpacking alone or with a handful of friends, as the kids are still a little too young. My son Kai is 5, and Carla is 3. If we don’t go for a month or so, they start asking me, “Daddy, when are we going camping?” I want to instill that in them like my parents did for me, teaching me to appreciate the simple things in life, like a walk through the mountains. We camp in the Sierra Nevadas, in the most remote locations possible, far away from civilization, deep into the wilderness where you won’t see a single person for a few days.

It is so majestic to see wildlife and to experience the silence, with no technology around. We’ve seen lots of deer, a bobcat, bear droppings--not bears--but we have seen evidence that they were around trying to get at the food. My friends outside of work call me a “walking oxymoron,” because I am immersed in working every day in technology, but on weekends I typically go sleep on a mountaintop with my family. I do camp in winter, even in the snow, but I usually don’t take the kids, they’re still too young for that. I enjoy extreme hiking now and then, to the top of mountain peaks. I’ve done all the tallest ones in the Santa Monica Mountains near us, hiking up a path, gaining 4-5,000 ft. of elevation, then back down.

I used to do motorcycle racing in my younger days, but can’t do that anymore--I’m a little too old for it now. Being outdoors is my passion and what feeds my soul. It really helps you appreciate everything around you. We have a little off-road popup trailer for the kids. We also have 2 huskies and they sometimes go on the hikes with us. If I can, I like to get out early in the morning to go fishing at Ventura Harbor for halibut. I’ve caught some big bass and even barracuda—they put up a fight. I use ultra-light fishing gear so you give the fish a fighting chance.

 
I love to cook, especially barbeque. I cook just about everything, but my specialty is smoked ribs, with my own sauce. Cooking outdoors in the fire is the best. We make “hobo packets,” wrapped in foil—everything tastes better out in nature.

Ilya, thank you for sharing your story with us!

AireSpring is an award-winning provider of Managed Connectivity and Cloud Communications solutions providing fully managed and connected end-to-end, next-generation solutions for multi-location enterprise customers, including:

• AireContact Cloud Contact Center
• AirePBX Cloud Phone System
• MPLS Mesh
• SD-WAN
• SIP Trunking
• Managed Connectivity
• Managed Failover
• Dedicated Internet Access
• Wholesale Long Distance

AireSpring's services are delivered over its revolutionary nationwide MPLS Mesh Network, providing customers a fully integrated, end-to-end solution from a single vendor.