with Alex McBratney and Aarde Cosseboom

Don't have time to listen? Read the full transcription.

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Hello, and welcome to Another Cloud Podcast, a podcast designed to bring you stories from the smartest minds in it, operations and business and learn how they're using cloud technology to improve the business and customer experience. Yeah, so Cooper Johnson, man, good to have you on the on the show here. And it's been a hot minute since we've last hung out. And I know, since that last time that one of our Sandler summits that you're at, you've had the pleasure of meeting Aarde separately. And so, from what I hear you guys are cranking away. And it's just been a whirlwind ever since this COVID-19 hit us last year.

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, no, it's definitely been a whirlwind. And ironically, Aarde and I just recently closed that pretty nice, pretty nice deal together in regards to headsets. I think just last week, right Aarde? 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, just last week, and they got the headsets I, I would say that they already have the headsets, but it wasn't like in a couple of days. So, they had a go live of end of March, they decided to pull the trigger, I think beginning of March, and they got it, you know, within a week, week and a half and the IT guy was sitting there and he's like, Oh, I don't know I'm in the dark. I don't know if we ordered the headsets or not. And then Jennifer turns to him and says they're in the storage room behind you. Like we ordered a couple days ago. They already showed up. So great turnaround. Great win. Awesome for the customer. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, no, that's really good to hear. Typically, our standard ship time is usually one to four days really just depends on where the client is within the US. So, based on what you just told me sounds like we got them there. And you know, thumbs up for our wind together. 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, and the funny thing is, this customer was in Denver, and they had a huge snowstorm. And the person that I usually talked to, he said there was like a three-foot snowbank in front of his office door and he kind of pull in and all stuff. So, you guys delivered through a snowstorm and that's a pretty cool testament to your dedication and your company. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it, definitely appreciate it. And Alex, you're righted It has been a while since we've spoken face to face. I think it was a possibly about two years ago or two October's ago, one of the two, 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Just about, just about you guys came down to Huntington Beach. Got to enjoy the good weather and the surf and sand. So it was, you know, it was interesting when we first met and we were actually introduced by a gentleman named Ivan Elias. And correct What a great business model to be sold and niche focus just on headsets. You know, having, you know, worked with in it and being a consultant and whatnot, we're, we're here selling, you know, contact center services, you know, UCaaS, SD-WAN, internet, we kind of have like this big bag, but then it's like you guys come in. And just like, here's where we focus. It's a perfect little niche. And lo and behold, COVID hits and I can imagine just what that was like with everyone going to work from home. Tell me a little bit about how that was for you guys, and how you handle the influx of business. And then what the challenges were that people were facing when they actually started jumping home? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, that's a great question. And since we're kind of rebounding off of COVID, when it originally hit the influx of need for wired and wireless office headsets, USB specifically was at an all time high. And with us, we provide all the leading brands from Plantronics Sennheiser discover gay link, so we have access to 1000s and 1000s of units. But right when COVID hit, shockingly, all those units disappeared. People were on national back orders, people were calling placing orders for hundreds, if not 1000s of units at one time. So over the course of let's say, March is when COVID really started to spike and people were heading home, I'd say easily 50,000 units went out of our warehouse of Sacramento within two weeks, two weeks, 50,000 units gone. And it progressed, it continued throughout the year. And some companies, organizations truly brand loyal, they want to stick with Plantronics and I don't blame them. I'm personally using Plantronics right now, great organization, they have great products, but at certain points, the Plantronics stock gone, you couldn't get wired, you couldn't get wireless. So some clients would have to budge on what they found to be, you know, suitable for them and just grab what they could. But nonetheless, what about you guys? Um, obviously you're helping out certain clients. Did you see an influx in certain onboarding or what did that look like? 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

I did so I'll give you a little backstory of what happened. Well, the pandemic was hitting, I was actually in Hawaii getting married. So, March 11 when I got married. And while we were planning, call it a honeymoon, but we were still on Hawaii before we came back to our nine to five jobs. That's when the world kind of started to shut down. That was March I think, 14th, where we're getting texts from our co-workers and friends saying, Hey, stay in Hawaii, like, hey, oh, by the way, there's a toilet paper outage or like shortage out is it we're just like, what are we going into. So, we didn't have the luxury, myself and my wife, to be able to go back into the office and pick up our office equipment. So, we literally had whatever we had brought to Hawaii, which was a power cord and a computer. So, we were coming to a work from home environment, where we literally had nothing. And the first thing we did want on Amazon was buy computer monitors, I had to buy a physical desk. And thankfully, I had this USB headset, which is now probably three or four years outdated, but I had to find I had to go find it, it was like in the garage, dusted off blue. plugged in the USB. Hopefully, it works with you know, this computer I don't think I've ever used, I think it replaced the computers two or three times before I even replaced this headset. So, it turned from a kind of a luxury beforehand, two or three years ago to a need to have and (100%) in my story is very unique. But I think also, the same things to be said about all of our customers that we support, who have agents who had physical, maybe Cisco phones, and you know, and now they're moving to work from home, they had to migrate quickly to like a VPN or some sort of soft phone on their physical computer or device. And they want a USB headset, because what we had we have found was, at least for our customers who have large BPOs in the Philippines or in third world countries where internet isn't as easily accessible in the home, it's hard to have two separate devices. So, a computer and a Cisco phone plugged in to, to a wife, it's just to Wi Fi, it's easier to put all the Wi Fi across and just use a soft phone on a computer. Which track means that you need some sort of headset to help with that. And then of course, we've had the problems with everyone starting with just the earbud phone jack ones. And then you know, you get with your iPhone. And then there's background noise. And then there's configuration problems. And it's just not as trusty as a physical USB plug in. So yeah, that's the kind of backstory that I have with the war from home and necessity for headsets. 

 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Sure. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Yeah, I was gonna say too that, you know, one of the things that we see a lot is that I hardly even use the phone, even with my soft phone is mostly just zoom calls, right? Like we're on right now. It's almost like zooms become this was Don't call me just let's set up a zoom calls, because then you have the space, right? And so there's no more need even have that desk phone. And so what we're seeing is we're working with a nonprofit right now. And they have 400 phones through RingCentral that they're paying rent for. And they call RingCentral. Like, we don't need these phones. And so right. Thank right RingCentral like did what was right and like, don't worry about paying the phones, just just hold on to them. Don't send them back to us. We don't want them back right now. And everyone have their in their office is just working from working off the headsets and whatnot. And I think for a lot of organizations, they could get by with the Hey, just forward the number two, your cell phone will forward it somewhere. Right. But I think we're really becomes a sticking point is in the contact center. Because you just can't. You can't forward customer support calls to someone no phone… 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

That’ve be a nightmare. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Yeah, so some organizations are getting by, they're still on their Cisco, they're still in their Avaya. And it's working because they're not heavy phone users like we work with architecture firms. They're not on the phone at all, hardly like their outbound usage is nil. And they can get by with just zoom in. So a lot of those companies are waiting to just get rid of the PBX when they can but it's not. It's not urgent. I say in the contact centers where it became really urgent. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, no, I completely agree with the both of you on that. And it's it's really disappointing that it took COVID for a lot of people to realize that they need to be focused on the future rather than just the now. And the reason why I state that is a lot of headset users. Their equipment is 100% desk phone compatible. So, when COVID did strike, everyone is calling our organization. They're calling me directly and they're saying hey, Cooper, can my Plantronics headset, CS 540 can it work with the computer and unfortunately, I have to tell them that it's not going to be the best solution or it's not compatible. So, when you just spent, you know, a couple $100 on desk phones, 100 plus dollars on wired or wireless headsets, it's a shocker when you get told no, it's not going to be compatible. So typically for us even before COVID, we like to speak with the clients to figure out what their current needs are, but also look at it in a sense of what could possibly come in the future. So yeah, before COVID and now we highly recommend clients getting a desk phone compatible headset, plus a computer or computer compatible headset just for the fact that it will safeguard them now and in the future. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Yeah, that's an interesting point that I didn't think about that he spent a couple $100 somewhere sometimes upwards of $300 for this nice Plantronics you know, headset that attaches to your Polycom phone. But then all of a sudden, you go go to this work from home, and you have to go buy a whole another headset, or you know, do the air pods or, you know, just the wired ones, but…

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Correct. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Are there any, I'm not as familiar with headsets but are there devices out there that can do both? Like work with the phone and just unplug it and plug it into the mic? jack on the computers? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yes. So, in regards to wireless headsets, that's going to hit the nail on the head to your question. So, in situations where there are clients using desk phones, let's say the VX series through Pauline, but then they also have a soft phone on their computer. There's wireless headsets that will connect into both seamlessly at the same time. So, you don't have to touch any wires or plug unplug. When you want to toggle between the two. There's actually buttons on top of one's charging base that you can simply touch to beyond the desk phone, or you can untouch and then touch the other button to get on the PC. So, you're able to toggle seamlessly without, you know possibly wrecking something while trying to plug in plug out. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Yeah, so yeah, really, like you said a future is a future proof type of 100 where you going to be in three years and five years? And are people going to be working off the soft phones versus the desk phones, which I think Exactly. I think we know everyone knows, like in technology that this COVID has accelerated technology adoption, especially cloud adoption. Asher's are likely like you know, have we even heard at our Sandler summit that there's a guest speaker there that wrote for the New York Times and has books as a professor at you know, NYU, and he was saying COVID accelerated technology adoption by 10 years. I mean, look at what the e commerce was doing. And now all of a sudden, eCommerce has just shot through the roof because everyone's just at home ordering off Amazon. I mean, Aarde your line of work. I mean, gosh, the retail side at Techstyle. 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, retails is absolutely insane. Especially anything having to do with supporting the work from home environment, we add textile. We have a brand called fab politics, which is athleisure wear, I'm actually wearing it right now. Like I literally live in my fab bloodaxe comes to my door I like it, if it doesn't fit, I return it you know, it's that leisure wear that you have that you sit around the house, Cooper talking a little bit down the path. And we talked about hardware and having to replace hardware and potentially upgrade to these new headsets that are enabling across soft phones and things like that. So what I had learned because we worked on a deal recently what I had learned that I did not know this was there's actually options So talk to us a little bit about you know renting headsets or potentially rent to buy and then also talk to us a little bit about trading up so trading hardware like phones for credit towards new and improved headset. So, what do you guys do there? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, so when it comes to the options that we're going to have for the clients, there's a wide range. Like I said earlier, when it comes to the hardware, we have access to all leading brands Plantronics, Anheuser discover gay link Logitech, so we really like to narrow down the options. With most companies, they're typically just selling new. And like us, we actually have access to new and professional grade certified refurbished. So, we like to give our clients two options. Some people are okay with spending 200 $300 on a wireless headset. However, if they're on a budget, they can look at our professional grade refurbished and save a couple 100 get the same quality get the same warranty. So, it really just depends on the client that we're working with. But on top of that, some clients just like with their phone service, they're on a month-to-month rental or they're on a one-year, two-year, three-year lease where they have the service side of their contract or they're, you know leasing their desk phones. So, some people want to lease their headsets as well. However, our headset rental compared to others on the market actually going to take that back. I know a lot of people are not renting headsets whatsoever. So, that's definitely a niche of headset advisor. But when it comes to headsets being rented from us, in general, there's no contract, it's a rental agreement, that's month a month. So, just like the situation we're in with COVID, we had clients renting before COVID. And they were renting desk phone compatible wireless headsets. And they called me when COVID occurred, and they said, Hey, Cooper, we're heading home, we're going straight to soft phones, we can't use these older headsets. Since they're not in the lease, and there's no binding contract, we were able to return those current headsets, swapped them out with a computer based wireless, and then they're good to go. So in regards to purchasing, whether it's new, certified, refurbished, we also have the rental option to meet anyone's needs and be flexible. Because at this current time, everyone's needs have to be flexible, and we want to just give them that specifically. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Yeah, I was just gonna say I mean that that offers the ultimate flexibility, because everything's up in the air, they don't know if they're bringing back their full staff to the office, if it's going to be hybrid. And so to have something in the interim with a rental program makes a lot of sense. And especially when you look at the cost of typically with the carriers, like RingCentral's, Vonage’s, call it the poly v v x 300 400, you're paying anywhere from four to $8 a month for the rental. So essentially, if everyone's going soft phone, you take that hardware cost that you're going to spend on the phone anyway with the rental. And you just transfer that over to the rental of the headset, then right? I mean…

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, 100%. And what's nice about this as well, is let's say we had a client that's renting 100 headsets, and let's say after a year, two years, or even a month of them renting the headsets, they can buy these out, they don't have to continue renting, they can buy out, they can swap out they can reduce quantity. So realistically, they're not stuck with anything. So it's definitely something that a lot of clients have been taking advantage of. And it's been very successful. So I'm glad I'm I'm actually really happy that we have that offering very happy. 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

And something to know is a lot of the contact centers that have seasonality, let's say they say their retail online e commerce like textile, they may ramp up 400 agents in a one-month span, but then in four months, they may ramp back down 400 agents. So, you've got you know, these, these potential customers who have warehouses of headsets literally collecting dust for six months out of the year, or even nine months out of the year. And then they're used for a couple months, and then they're gone. Again, same with like huge training classes. I've always heard this is like the major problem is when when you're growing hyper growth mode in the context center. The one thing that you need the most is headsets that have the wide Jacks that you can have two people listening and one person talking. And that if you don't have that you can't train people and you hire people just sit there and they can't be trained. So, the ramp up time for those trainees takes a much longer if you don't even have the physical hardware. So, the ability to rent these products is pretty amazing. And that's an option that I didn't even think about, until I think it was like a month ago when we talked about that a little bit on this one…

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Of course, yeah, I've seen the need for why jacks increase substantially. Because you're right, if you have a brand new hire, come on, you're speaking with clients, you want to be able to hear what that client is potentially saying. So that when you're off the call, you can train them on how you should have possibly paused how you should have responded. So why jacks are readily available. We just truly need to figure out if it's going to be a desk phone connection or if it's going to be a computer-based connection. But nonetheless, we have it available for wireless and wired.

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Very awesome. 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Cooper, you mentioned earlier about essentially the supply chain issue right when COVID first right and we couldn't get toilet paper. You couldn't find a bike for your kid's birthday. I mean, I remember like I couldn't find anything that was recreational for but it also technology wise to how is that has that been fixed as a production and supply chain caught up with all the demand? And how has that been reached? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yes. Yeah, great question. So, I'd say for most major suppliers such as Plantronics Jabra Sennheiser, after about three months of COVID when everyone was heading home when it was full effect. We were on a national backorder with all the distribution centers, so you could be contacting them. Main players such as Jenne, ScanSource, just Ingram Micro them a lot of the main players that hold stock for the larger corporations. And they would directly tell you that stock is not available. But the good thing about our company, headset advisor here in Sacramento is that we do have our own warehouse where we actually held stock. So, we would have stock of Plantronics, discover Sennheiser. So, we weren't reaching out to the distribution centers looking for stock, we had it here right on hand. So just like Aarde had mentioned with his client, just last week, is we were able to help people during COVID and have these units shipped out within just a couple days, and even get them to people's home location. So, we were getting, we were getting orders for, you know, let's just say 100 users, but we had we were shipping to each individual home office, rather than shipping it to a main, you know, district office or headquarters and then have them disperse. We were dispersing for them. So essentially became part of their team. And we were able to assist fairly quick, but your original question, Alex? Yeah. It was no joke, just like the toilet paper headsets, same exact thing. They were here one day, and they were gone the following. So, all time high, to say the least.

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host) 

So, I have a question around noise cancelling and maybe make it a little too technical here, but, but we'll kind of give it a shot. So, what we have found is that a lot of the work from home agents have a lot of background noise, surprise, surprise, right. You know, kids, dogs, even some of our workers in the Philippines. They live in a rural area where there's chickens outside and you could hear chickens crowing, roosters crowing. So, with regards to headsets, are there headsets out there that have built in noise cancelling? Is it you know, top of the market will really cancel pretty much everything around them except for maybe a small bubble around where their head is? Talk to us a little bit about that? Yeah. Are there ones out there? And if so, are those the ones that are going out of stock first, or those are the ones that are a little bit higher end? A little bit price here? And there's a lot of backlog of that and you've got a lot of stock? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest) 

Yeah, great, great question. So, when it comes to noise cancelling office headsets, you are going to have options within the wireless realm, but also the wired. Now, there's two situations when it comes to noise canceling. One, there's noise cancelling when it comes into what we hear when we're wearing headsets, so that we can focus in on the clients conversation or exactly what they're saying. So that's noise cancellation for us to cancel out background noise within the office environment. However, like you mentioned, in certain areas, there's there's roosters, there's chickens, there's kids, there's dogs, it get fairly loud. So, what most people are looking for is a noise cancelling microphone boom, so that you're not getting background noise from the outside realm coming into your conversations like the crowing of the chickens. So, when it comes to specific models, there's going to be products within the Plantronics line, the Discover line. And it really comes down to user's needs. And what I mean by that is like, if it's noise cancellation of a crawling rooster or a dog, it might not be that they can't hear what's in their location. They just don't want their client to hear what's going on. So really narrowing down the client's needs based on their environment. And what they personally need is critical. Because I could get someone a single ear wireless headset semi like what I'm using currently. Because it might be good enough for their situation. However, it needs a better microphone boom, a better noise cancellation microphone boom. So, to answer your question, it's very broad. It's hard to pinpoint one specific headset on to one specific needs. But to say the least there are multiple noise cancelling wired or wireless headsets for everyone's needs. We just have to narrow down that option. Now your second question Aarde was what units were selling the fastest, correct? 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah. Are the noise cancelling headsets selling off the shelves? Or are they still sitting up there and people just aren't aware of that technology? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yes, so when COVID did strike and everything was moving quickly. Every headset that was USB compatible was selling. It could have been a unexpected or an inexpensive wired headset, or it could have been an expensive wireless headset with noise cancellation. Some clients really did not mind the price at the time. They just wanted a solution as quick as possible. However, let's say pre COVID. Pre COVID. headsets are readily available. However, I'd say for contact centers when there's 100 users, 200 users, even 300 users. Most importantly for them is to find them a wired or wireless solution that does cover both ears, but truly does cancel out noise. A lot of time, there's security purposes, or there's regulations within the offices and the clients where other clients can't hear other individuals phone calls for confidentiality purposes. So noise cancellation headsets were still readily wanted and readily sold. So, before COVID, and after COVID, it's been an all time high. So, I don't see them going anywhere soon. They're, they're gonna be around for a very long time.

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Let's see, what's the range in price like when for the noise cancelling? To where is it there's a fit for for everyone. But it's like the bottom line, like if you want noise cancelling, that's going to be good enough up to like the really expensive, like, what kind of price range are they looking at? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, that's a good question. So, for Wired USB office headset, that gives you yourself noise cancellation for both ears covered, but also noise cancellation through the microphone, boom, you're looking at about 70 to $100, give or take 70 to $100. But in regards to wireless, you're looking from around 180 up to 300. It really just depends on the product. But nonetheless, speak after speaking with the client, you're really able to narrow down what they're looking for what their price ranges, and then who knows purchase versus rental. So we're able to really get them exactly what they want.

 

Alex McBratney (Host) 

Really quick Aarde. So, when we advise clients on contact center solutions or UCaaS, there's always these gotchas with the carriers, right? Whether it's fees, hidden fees, they don't tell you about. What would you advise, you know, people looking at headsets for, say, 100 users or just in general? Some of the gotchas that Oh, man, I wish I would have known that before I spent $10,000 on all these headsets? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Sure. Ah, that's that's a good question. Because we're not the type of company that does that the gotcha or Hey, I have to tell you something. A lot of people undermine warranties when it comes to purchases. And what I mean by that is certain makes and models only come with a one year warranty, while other brands come with a two year or three year. So, a lot of the time someone might break their headset physically break it in half. And a lot of the time certain providers only cover manufacturer defaults, such as microphones not working properly, or the headsets not charging properly, something along those lines. So sometimes clients come back and they're like, hey, my headsets broken in half. And then we have to inform them, well, you bought this product that's only covered by XYZ. But we like to inform people as best as possible of what the headset they're looking at what warranty is included and what the warranty entails. So if that is categorized in a gotcha moment, I'd say that's, that's the only one that we have. That's kind of at that level.

Alex McBratney (Host)

No, that's perfect. And a lot of times, you know, we are on the same side, right? Whether it's contract in dates, or auto renewals for contracts and whatnot, that just aren't readily talked about unless you let your clients know. And I'm so I'm sure through your evaluation and working with clients, you know, the litany of questions to find out, or you don't have those gotchas from the actual hardware side of things, or from the manufacturer side. So it's always interesting to learn because there's, you know, sometimes there's always those things where it's like, I wish I would have asked that question as a client, but you just they just didn't know to ask it. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, there's definitely certain if I can elaborate on that. With certain service providers, let's say ring Central. And let's say, LogMeIn, that used to be jive. When individuals are using soft phones per se. Certain clients, they want to have the capability with wireless headsets. To wear the headset, get a phone call, answer the phone call directly from the headset top. It's called remote answering. And certain soft phones are not optimized for remote answering. So with RingCentral, if you're using Plantronics, such as the one that I'm using, I'm able to answer my phone call right when I get that phone call. But with other providers, if you have a soft phone that's not optimized, you have to touch your mouse and click the soft phone on your computer. So for a client standpoint, if you don't go through a thorough factfinder and figure out if that's exactly what they're needing that could be a moment for them, because then they're a little disappointed in the features that they were expecting to have. 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, that's a, that's an odd moment for me too. If I don't know that now, that's a good, that's a good little nugget there. cuz I've never even thought about that, as far as being a feature that someone might want. Yeah, that's a, that's a really good call out. Also, for customers who are looking to maybe test out two or three or four different headsets in their call center to figure out what's the best fit, you know, maybe go through some user adoption testing? Do you guys provide, you know, proof of concept phases? Or would you give them a selection of maybe four or five and say, let's ship, we'll ship you, you know, rent these four or five, then when you're done with the month, just send them back? And then choose the one you want to buy? Like, how does that work? How do you advise them or work with them during that proof of concept phase? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, great question. So, we like to give our clients and potential clients the ability to test out the hardware that we're presenting. So, after myself or one of our account executives goes through the thorough factfinder, and the client is open to demoing the products, we simply send them out at no cost. All we need is the shipping address, the contact name and the contact number. And we do ship them out for free. And typically, what we like to do for the highest success rate with clients is, before I ship out the demo, I usually get the individual who ultimately makes the decision for the products for the location into the email. But also, I like to have every single tester involved with in the email as well. And the reason for that is, yes, it's a headset, it should be plug and play. However, that's not always the case. So, we get headsets to people's location, we actually do zoom meetings, or we do video meetings with each tester either all at once or all individually, just so that we ensure that they're all on the headset, it's working properly, it's functioning how it's supposed to, and then the service providers PLC, plus the headset meshes well together as one for a great success. So, that's what we typically do. But to add on to that, let's say for an example, the client doesn't like the demos, and they do not want to keep those demos, we provide the prepaid shipping label, and we have the headset shipped back at no cost. But if they want to keep them perfect, we'll charge them for that headset. And then we can deploy the remaining amount they're needing. And we'll do the same thing. We'll do the installation with them. We'll walk them through how it's supposed to be used. But we're also readily available after the fact. So they can contact us Monday through Friday with any questions phone call email text, it just gives us a little bit more security for each user. Because a lot of the time they don't know who to contact, they'll call their help desk, they'll call the actual manufacturer of the product and at times not to put shade on anyone, a lot of the times even the manufacturer doesn't know how to do certain troubleshoots because they're not used to connecting it to ring central zoom. Log me and Vonage, there's so many different platforms now. But that's our expertise. So, we know how to maneuver across each platform.

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

That's awesome. Yeah, I've never heard of that proof of concept. And that really, truly is the second part of your business name, which is advisor, which is amazing. You know, a lot of your competitors will say, Oh, you want to buy the headset, then pay for it. And then we'll ship it to you that if you don't want it, if it fits in the return policy, we'll take it back. But you know, having that hands on white glove experience. I think that's what we all need in the industry. And I love that from you guys. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, I'm glad to hear and we're actually we're not trying to be too confident. But we've we've gotten to a point now where we're actually offering 110% money back guaranteed. So, if the clients aren't happy, we're gonna bump it up an extra notch. 

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, and we we had a podcast guest earlier, I think it was on the third episode with Graham. And he used to be a contact center agent for a very, very long time. And he said to us, the headset is the creature comfort of a contact center Rep. Literally they have that on eight hours a day. There's only maybe three things in their physical world that they focus on that they need. That's really good. It's the headset, the computer and the chair. Other than that, like everything else could be gone wrong in the world. As long as they have those three things, they can do their job. So it's high value, and it's important to choose the right headset, but it's also important to collect the feedback from the agents or the people who are using the headset, whether that's internally or you know, pass that along to you guys that you guys have that for your information. It's really important to collect that. I did have a question. I know Alex, you're going to jump in. But I did have a question. We've been talking a lot about headsets. But what other products do you guys do? Do you guys do like hockey pucks or conference room phones that are USB or computer compatible or iPad compatible? What? What other products or services do you guys do beyond just headsets? 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Yeah, that's a great question. So, we do have the hockey puck speaker phones, we do have the large conference room speaker phones for analog and void because some people are still, you know, a little bit behind in regards to their service. But then we also do desk phones. It's something that we don't typically do. However, some people are needing additional VVS desk phones, a link to series that's phones. And that's something we can help with. We just can't help with the service for those that phones. But we can update firmware, we can do proper configurations. So, in regards to headsets being our main focus, we do have other hardware, we just have to figure out the current situation of the client and see if we can plug in that other equipment where it makes sense.

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Which is awesome, because Alex can help with all of the service behind those phones as needed help with that. That's reached out to Alex. 

Alex McBratney (Host)

Shameless plug shameless plug. Well, I don't want you to get locked in your building because I know you're saying earlier that you had a hard stop at quarter till. But man I'm…

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

…running out right now. 

Alex McBratney (Host)

It's been great having you on and I'm really glad we got a chance to just dive into the headsets. I know there's a lot of people out there that just don't understand what's going on in the market and don't understand the nuances of just buying a headset for the organization. So glad to have you on and we'll have to definitely do it again. 

Cooper Johnson (Guest)

Happy to be here.

Aarde Cosseboom (Co-Host)

Yeah, absolutely. And before we go for everyone who's listening, I absolutely love their marketing their branding, not only the purple everywhere, but also if you ever email them they have these like bitmoji like, you know, little big characters of themselves, which is absolutely hilarious and awesome. So, email at cooper@headsetadvisor.com to see that and gladly respond to your email. So, yeah, keep it Keep it up. You guys are doing great, Cooper. Thanks again for being on the show. Thank you guys. 

Alex McBratney (Host)

Well, that wraps they'll show for today. Thanks for joining. And don't forget to join us next week. As we bring another guest in to talk about the trends around cloud contact center and customer experience also. You can find us at adleradvisors.com, LinkedIn or your favorite podcast platform. We'll see you next week on Another Cloud Podcast.