A new Virtual Product Demo program pairs with a Bounty Program that gives a SPIF to channel reps for setting up a customer demo.
Stan Klebanoff, Business Development Manager Canada at ViewSonic
On the heels of the previous day’s announcements of new commercial and interactive display solutions at the virtualized InfoComm Connected 2020 event, today ViewSonic is announcing some new initiatives within its Finch Club channel partner program around the same event. Finch Club is a North American program, so the changes impact both the U.S. and Canada.
“ViewSonic has always been a channel-first company, and in these challenging times we took a look at our business model – including our site, Finch Club, brochures, everything,” said Stan Klebanoff, Business Development Manager Canada at ViewSonic. “We looked at them with new eyes to determine what works best in the changed workplace today. We really needed to update things right now.”
The IT industry has been impacted in wildly different ways by the pandemic, but ViewSonic has been one of the winners because the move to Work From Home has accelerated demand for monitors.
“March was a record month for us, and April was great, and May would have been even better except we haven’t been able to keep monitors in stock,” Klebanoff said. “It’s because at the office, most everyone had a dual monitor set up on their desktop. And now they have to work at home, where they didn’t have that, so they need at least one additional monitor. We had to airship cameras in to keep up with demand. If we had a monitor with a webcam built in, we would be printing money right now, but our old one was end-of-lifed and our new SKU with that won’t be ready till fall.”
Klebanoff said that ViewSonic is presently engaged in two major initiatives, around remote learning and teaching, and around interactive collaboration
“Between those two, our tools are being utilized in a different way, and our partner programs had to be aligned with that,” he stated. “In addition, it was a good time for a program redo. Finch Club has been around for so long, some people tend to forget that its there. There is a lot of churn in the channel and a lot have never heard of it. Some hadn’t used it for a while, and didn’t realize what resources were there. We inform partners, but they are always bombarded by manufacturers all over the place, so it’s not hard for them to forget.”
One new program, Virtual Product Demos, are an explicit response to the changed sales environment created by the pandemic.
“This was not available at all before,” Klebanoff said. “It is completely because of the pandemic. They will be able to do a demo with the ViewSonic person in their territory. We are just starting to roll this out. They will be able eventually to see an online calendar. Right now, we just use a web form, but are looking to implement more of a seamless solution.”
Klebanoff pointed out that the Virtual Product demo initiative should be viewed in tandem with their new Bounty Program, which offers financial incentives for partners who invite ViewSonic to strategic customer meetings or demonstrations.
“It’s a $100 bounty fee for a reseller rep to set up a demo with a ViewSonic account manager,” he said. “That’s a nice SPIF for setting up a demo. We’ve been running this in the AV program and have opened it up to the Finch Club channel. Going into the workplace is not coming back any time soon. This makes it easier to set up demo calls with their customers.”
Continuing elements of the program include SPIFs and special pricing.
“At beginning Finch Club was just SPIFs, although it has become much more that that,” Klebanoff noted. “We are continuing to make it more of a portal to get more information. We also have our SPA special pricing for registered opportunities, and we are highlighting this because some resellers may not even know we have the program.”
ViewSonic is also highlighting the enhanced multimedia-based digital tools and customized content that present ViewSonic solutions to customers and prospects.
“We have had Finch University, which is more an internal library of content our reps use,” Klebanoff said. “We are trying to put more of this at the fingertips of channel partners.”
