Author: Glen Taylor, PhD

As a potential partner, sales teams frequently ask “Why should I partner with INI? What is your specialty?” It’s an interesting question, but the answer isn’t what most sales teams are expecting. INI has created very useful application products like INI SureConnect and INI AutoCall. INI also has done extensive work with certain sectors like state and Federal government agencies and healthcare organizations. But, packaged applications and vertical market expertise aren’t the best reasons to partner with INI. The two best reasons are the quality we deliver and our culture. As an independent software vendor, INI depends on a good working relationship with its partners. For Avaya or one of its Business Partners to sell a self-service solution requires not only knowledge of the Avaya self-service platforms, but also the ability to deliver voice application software tailored to the customer’s requirements. INI’s sole focus is the delivery of high quality applications that support the contact center. It’s a perfect symbiosis. Avaya and its Business Partner sales teams have the customer accounts; INI has the expertise to help sell and then deliver the self-service solutions.

Methodology is rarely an acknowledged benefit prior to the agreement to proceed, but it really is a key differentiator for INI. With nearly twenty years of experience delivering self-service applications, INI has learned that there is no substitute for delivering a quality product every time. To ensure that outcome, INI has established a rigorous project and development methodology that pays INI, its partners, and ultimately its customers handsome dividends.

Quality starts with a highly experienced staff of solutions consultants who work with Avaya and Business Partner sales teams to develop the right solution for the customer. When the customer accepts the solution that is offered, the project is handed off to a certified project manager who will ensure that the solution is fully defined, built, and delivered to meet the customer’s expectations. INI engineering has developed an advanced toolset and development practices that take full advantage of Avaya Dialog Designer and that permit voice applications to be assembled in most cases from thoroughly tested and proven components. After the application has been unit tested by engineering, it is handed over to an independent quality control staff who system test the solution. INI maintains an extensive lab facility where the customer’s application can be tested in an environment as close to the customer’s production environment as possible.

Finally, INI maintains copies of the application and the environment used to create the application for the lifetime of the application. This permits INI to provide the best possible support including future improvements and upgrades that the customer may subsequently want. At every step in this process, INI maintains a discipline of learning from its actions and factoring that learning back into the process to ensure continual improvement so that INI can deliver products with ever increasing quality. The end result is consistently high customer satisfaction feedback and one of the best support teams in the business – when you deliver quality the first time, you don’t have to waste resources and customer goodwill fixing problems later.

Part of what makes the INI culture unique should be apparent from the seriousness with which INI takes quality. However, another major aspect of that culture is the belief that “we don’t win unless you win.” By that, INI means that its customers must be satisfied with the experience of working with INI and its partner. There is no secret to the fact that we, INI and its partners, are in business to deliver self-service solutions to as many customers as we can possibly reach. The only way to win over customers and make them repeat customers is for the combined team, INI and its partner, to satisfy the customer. When INI surveys customer satisfaction on job completion, INI views the delivery as less than satisfactory unless the customer rates the joint team highly. So INI’s motivation is to make our partners as successful as they can possibly be. “Dedicated to your success” isn’t a slogan; it’s the way we do business. Our quality and our culture are how a partnership with INI delivers value.

For more information on partnering with INI, please contact INI atsales@interactivenw.com or 800.732.3236.