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Company Background

Q: Who is AveriStar and how long have you been in business?

AveriStar Consulting was formed in September of 2007 and is headquartered in Charlotte, NC, with associate consultants located throughout the United States. Key practice areas focus on sales, training, marketing and engineering for BroadSoft platform owners. AveriStar was founded by Mark and Matt Averi, who have worked together in telecommunications for the last fifteen years, including positions at BellSouth Telecommunications, Lucent Technologies, and BroadSoft.

Q: What type of consulting services and products do you provide?

AveriStar provides both new and established platform owners with a unique three-phase consulting approach for platform engineering, product development and sales and marketing. An integral adjunct piece to our consulting engagement is AveriStar’s suite of training products. AveriStar specializes in stand-alone BroadWorks multimedia training videos for the end user, and customized on-site training development for sales and sales engineering. Each of these areas will be discussed in more detail in the products and services section of this document

Q: With whom does AveriStar Consulting work?

In the service provider arena, AveriStar works primarily with BroadSoft platform owners across North America. Our customer base covers a broad spectrum of companies including CLECs, ILECs, MSOs, and wholesale VoIP providers in all stages of production and deployment. In the vendor arena, AveriStar has established relationships and experience to include Acme Packets, Polycom, Cisco, Covergence, Adtran, Edgewater, Metaswitch and Audiocodes.


Stars Three-Phase Consulting

Q: What does AveriStar’s three-phase consulting engagement entail?

Prior to any phased consulting engagement with an existing platform owner, AveriStar performs a VoIP platform audit in order to quickly assess and document the primary areas of focus.

The first phase of our consulting package is perfect for, but not limited to, new BroadWorks platform owners, because it focuses primarily on network engineering, implementation planning, PSTN integration, and provisioning processes.

The second phase covers two distinct customer organizations simultaneously, engineering and product. AveriStar works not only with your internal engineering team to configure, provision, test, and troubleshoot all features, services and client applications, but will also work with all VoIP related vendors in your network to include session border controller, media gateway, softswitch, and IP handsets. AveriStar will engage product development and marketing in order to develop and price service packages for trunking, residential, and business offerings, document order process flows, and brand all client facing portals and applications.

The third phase concentrates on revenue generation, installation, and customer satisfaction through sales and training development. AveriStar will develop customized pre-sales site surveys and station reviews, assisting account executives in quoting the right products and services the first time. Training will be developed and delivered to all members of the sales organization covering topics such as customer evaluation, prospecting, product demos, competitive analysis. We will also ensure the processes developed in phase two for order provisioning are working as expected, and will even assist in new customer installations to provide on the job training.

Q: Is this service really suited for new BroadSoft platform owners?

While being able to start from the beginning of a deployment is ideal in many cases, it has not been the norm for AveriStar’s customers. Over 70 percent of our three-phase consulting customers have owned their BroadWorks platform for more than two years.

Q: Can the consulting package be customized?

AveriStar only does customized work for our clients. Our three-phased approach is only a starting point and summary of best practices that we have experienced with BroadSoft platform owners over the last six years. We can perform very specific engagements, provide the whole solution, manage your platform, or just be your sixth person on speed dial.


Stars Multimedia – Training Video Series

Q: What exactly are stand-alone BroadWorks multimedia training videos?

AveriStar has given literally hundreds of training classes on the BroadWorks platform to all types of users, including engineering, sales, sales engineering and end-users. This experience and knowledge was redesigned and formatted into a multimedia training product called Stars Multimedia.

Stars Multimedia training videos are not designed as a ‘one size fits all’ solution, but rather as a custom solution to include your company’s artwork, product names, specific feature set, and client applications. As a matter of fact, we even use your platform to produce and render the videos. Each video has an ‘active table of contents’, allowing the viewer quick and easy access to the information they need instantaneously.

Q: Who would benefit from these videos?

Stars Multimedia owners have successfully used the training videos internally to train both current and new employees in sales, sales engineering, support, and provisioning. The vast majority of our Stars Multimedia product owners, however, find them invaluable for their customers in all areas of the platform. The greatest advantage to them is reduction in re-training costs for new users and users that were absent for initial on-site training.

Q: What BroadSoft applications and IP handsets do your videos cover?

Web Portal | Call Manager | Assistant Toolbar | Communicator | Receptionist

Group Administrator Portal

Polycom SoundPoint IP 430 | 501 | 550 | 601 | 650 |4000

Cisco 7940 | 7960

Q: What format are the videos and how are they distributed?

Stars Multimedia videos are available in a variety of formats to include AVI, MPG, and WMV; however the most common format is FLV. Flash enables excellent video quality while maintaining small file size and can be distributed on multiple operating systems and digital media. The IP handset videos are approximately 12 minutes long, while the BroadWorks application videos range from 25 to 45 minutes.

Stars Multimedia is a onetime purchase, licensing the right to use them internally and to all direct customers without expiration. A yearly maintenance license can also be purchased to cover changes, service additions, and software upgrades.


Stars Trainer – Onsite Training

Q: What type of on-site training do you provide?

AveriStar builds customized on-site training modules for key product organizations to include sales, sales engineering, installation, and network operations center support staff.

Q: What is meant by customized, on-site training modules?

A typical on-site training engagement starts with a discussion between the organization and AveriStar to determine goals and objectives of the training class, student knowledge level, and platform specifics about 30 days prior to the training dates. This provides us the time needed to tailor fit the course material with the company and the students.

For example, when we conduct sales training for a company’s direct sales force, we work with the heads of sales and product marketing to outline in detail all products, services and features available. We also design pre and post sales processes and surveys that are based around the company’s current capabilities and tools. And finally, we understand our customer’s customer in order to train sales on effective competitive analysis, key feature points, and total solutions selling.

Q: Does AveriStar offer any on-site training for end-users?

AveriStar will conduct end-user training for our customers on an individual case by case basis. The majority of our customer base provides their own one day training class at the time of installation, and uses our Stars Multimedia training videos for refresher training and ongoing support. AveriStar has and will provide end-user training for sessions involving a large number of students, particularly in the call center environment.

Q: What on-site courses are available?

Sales | Sales Engineer | Customer Service | Customer Support

Installation Services | Network Operations Center | Call Center

Q: What course materials will be provided by AveriStar?

AveriStar will develop electronic course materials based on the type of training purchased by the customer. Course materials will use standard MS office applications unless otherwise requested by the customer. Training materials will be made available electronically via FTP at least three days prior to the training class, allowing the customer to print out the materials. AveriStar will also develop a class assessment quiz and trainer evaluation form for use after the training has concluded.