Jive Communications Award Write Up

2017 North American
Hosted IPTelephony and UCaaS
Customer Service Leadership Award

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© Frost & Sullivan 2017 2 “We Accelerate Growth”
Contents
Background and Company Performance ........................................................................3
Industry Challenges..............................................................................................3
Quality of Customer Service and Customer Impact ...................................................4
Conclusion...........................................................................................................8
Significance of Customer Service Leadership .................................................................9
Understanding Customer Service Leadership .................................................................9
Key Benchmarking Criteria ..................................................................................10
Best Practice Award Analysis for Jive Communications ..................................................10
Decision Support Scorecard .................................................................................10
Quality of Customer Service ................................................................................11
Customer Impact ...............................................................................................11
Decision Support Matrix ......................................................................................12
Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best
Practices .................................................................................................................13
The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards.....................14
Research Methodology ........................................................................................14
About Frost & Sullivan ..............................................................................................14

Background and Company Performance
Industry Challenges
Businesses around the world are rapidly moving their communications and information
technologies (IT) to the cloud. A 2017 global Frost & Sullivan survey of 1,934 IT decision
makers and influencers revealed that cloud communications solutions are used by 80 to
95 percent of organizations across industries. Among cloud adopters, 64 percent have
already moved all or part of their telephony services to the cloud and another 31 percent
plan to do so in the next two years. Top drivers for cloud communications adoption among
respondents include greater flexibility at times of downsizing or rapid growth (38 percent)
and access to advanced features/capabilities (37 percent). Frost & Sullivan expects the
global hosted IP telephony and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) market, an
important segment within the broader cloud communications space, to experience robust
annual growth rates of 20 to 30 percent in terms of both installed users and revenue over
the next decade.
Cloud migration is, however, a daunting task. Developing a cloud strategy is rated as one
of top 3 challenges by 24 percent of IT decision makers around the world. Various factors
restrain some businesses from making the move to cloud. UCaaS penetration beyond
early adopters entails greater scrutiny with regard to service quality and reliability. Almost
half (49 percent) of cloud non-users state security as their primary concern, whereas 46
percent state that they prefer to maintain full control of their IT and communications
infrastructure. When selecting a cloud provider, 45 percent of respondents rank security
as one of their top criteria and 40 percent rank reliability among the most important
factors. Businesses also acknowledge that UCaaS solutions differ in terms of features,
price, underlying technology and architecture.
Although frequently overlooked in purchasing decisions, provider customer service and
support capabilities play a critical role in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Most hosted IP
telephony and UCaaS providers continue to experience high customer churn due to poor
service availability and/or inadequate provider support throughout the solution lifecycle—
from design and implementation, to customer onboarding and ongoing solution
management.
As competition intensifies, providers are ramping up their service and customer support
capabilities. To improve customer satisfaction and retention, providers are deploying
distributed, geographically-redundant architectures that ensure greater service availability
and also help improve voice quality. Forward-thinking providers are also placing a strong
focus on the customer experience and are enhancing their solution implementation and
lifecycle management capabilities, including more streamlined sales and provisioning
processes, a more holistic and custom-tailored approach to customer technology needs
and business objectives, and a broader team effort within the provider organization to
ensure successful deployments.

Providers that more strongly focus on customer value have invested in technologies,
processes and people to deliver superior customer service and support. They are well
positioned to capitalize on growing business demand for reliable and secure cloud
communications solutions and a long-term relationship with a trusted service provider.
Quality of Customer Service and Customer Impact
Jive stands out among UCaaS competitors with its exceptional attention to the overall
customer experience. It ensures greater customer satisfaction through a robust network
architecture, excellent customer lifecycle management, compelling communications and
collaboration solutions, and a sustainable business strategy.
Robust Network Architecture
Service availability is the top concern for businesses with respect to voice and other real-
time communications services. However, few UCaaS providers have built their networks to
significantly reduce the possibility of service downtime. Often, UCaaS services are
delivered from a single primary data center with a second data center serving as a back-
up. True cloud architectures are typically more distributed and extensible than hosted
solutions that often mimic the legacy telecom architectural model. As businesses look to
combine the flexibility and cost efficiencies of public broadband connections with the
numerous benefits of cloud communications, the robustness of the cloud architecture and
the UCaaS provider’s ability to effectively control service quality and reliability become of
paramount importance.
Jive’s cloud architecture features dynamic routing, load balancing, self-healing, and
distributed computing that allow the service provider to deliver greater quality while
maintaining competitive service prices. As a company born in the cloud, Jive has no legacy
telecom assets and services to contend with, which has allowed it to be more flexible and
more innovative in building a highly extensible, geo-redundant architecture to better serve
evolving customer needs. With services delivered out of several data centers in North
America— Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Monterrey, New York, Salt Lake City, and
Seattle—and two additional data centers in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and London (UK), Jive
ensures there is no single point of failure and greatly minimizes the possibility of
disruptive downtime that can significantly impact customer productivity and sales. The
distributed architecture allows Jive to handle device registration and storage closer to the
customer edge and thus realize cost savings, which it passes on to its customers. This
network design also benefits mobile users who can connect to a data center relatively
close to their current physical location and thus receive more persistent, reliable and
higher-quality access to their business communications.
Private connections among Jive data centers further enhance the network’s stability.
Multiple peering arrangements with call origination and termination carriers also help
ensure greater service reliability and more cost-effective call handling. Internet–based

diagnostic tools allow Jive to better monitor service quality and more proactively resolve
service issues.
Jive reports network availability of more than 99.99 percent, which is higher than many of
its competitors’ service availability and clearly demonstrates the value of its highly
distributed architecture. It also demonstrates Jive’s commitment to service quality and
customer satisfaction. The provider’s continued investment in network reliability is likely
to positively impact its ability to deliver top-quality services in the future.
Excellent Customer Lifecycle Management
Customer expectations of their UCaaS providers are constantly rising. Businesses require
exceptional service from the initial consultations, to implementation, to ongoing
troubleshooting and service updates/upgrades. As the market becomes increasingly
competitive, providers are looking to enhancing various aspects of their customer lifecycle
management capabilities. Few UCaaS providers, however, truly stand out with a holistic
approach to customer needs.
Jive places a particularly strong emphasis on solution design and customer onboarding. It
assigns dedicated project managers to all new accounts, regardless of business size. While
many of its competitors provide extensive implementation support only to businesses of a
minimum size (i.e., several dozen users), Jive provides all of its customers with the
needed attention to ensure deployment success.
Jive’s entire workforce is trained and encouraged to support customers throughout the
duration of their service with the provider. All teams within Jive’s organization are
empowered and cross-trained to quickly and more effectively address various customer
issues. Jive prides itself on short hold times for incoming customer calls, which it aims to
keep under 15 seconds, with actual hold time on some days down to zero seconds. Jive
closely monitors social media and service provider review sites to track customer concerns
and other feedback. Dedicated staff resolves potential issues using the customers’ medium
and communications modality of choice (e.g., social media, email, etc.).
Jive’s executive management, which includes three founders, consistently stresses the
importance of delivering a stellar customer experience. It provides compelling incentives
and rewards to company staff to ensure their commitment to customer service excellence.
Each year Jive sets a company net promoter score (NPS) target and encourages everyone
in the organization to be a customer service representative and help achieve this goal. To
boost employee drive to deliver superior customer service, Jive management launched a
particularly compelling program in 2017: if the company reaches its NPS goal all company
employees and their families will receive a free trip to Hawaii.
The results of Jive’s exceptional focus on customer service and support are evidenced by
its NPS of 68, which significantly exceeds the industry average of 27.83 (per G2 Crowd).
Jive also claims one of the lowest churn rates in the industry and reports that user

expansion within existing customers is more than offsetting any user or customer losses.
Also significant is the fact that more than half of Jive’s customers have participated in the
provider’s referral programs, recommending Jive to other businesses. Jive proudly shares
on its website customer reviews from various sources (G2 Crowd, GetApp, My VoIP
Provider, etc.). Customers praise Jive’s features as well as the professionalism and service
excellence dedication of its staff.
Compelling Business Communications and Collaboration Solutions
Customer satisfaction in the rapidly evolving UCaaS market is highly dependent upon the
provider’s feature set, service packaging and pricing, and technology roadmap. Businesses
of any size and industry require effective communications and collaboration tools to
withstand growing competition in their respective markets. Most businesses do not require
a full suite of UC applications for all of their users, but do need different features for
various users. Many businesses start small, with a limited set of UC features, but look to
expand their use of more advanced tools as their needs evolve. The cloud delivery model
allows businesses greater flexibility than premises-based solutions to adjust their
communications and collaboration functionality based on evolving requirements.
Most UCaaS providers offer broad feature sets, but packaging and pricing differ among
competitors. Jive delivers superior price/performance value with its competitively priced,
all-inclusive feature bundles. This approach greatly simplifies the customer purchase and
ownership experiences. Businesses can gradually expand their feature sets as they
acknowledge the need for different or additional communications and collaboration tools
throughout their lifecycle journeys.
With prices ranging from $19.95 for deployments of 50+ users to $29.95 for deployments
of one to four users, Jive bundles compare strongly against other available solutions. Each
bundle is comprised of an extensive set of core business voice features as well as more
unique features such as call reporting, call recording, analytics, voicemail to email, fax to
email, presence, user and admin web portals and more. Further, Jive mobile, desktop and
web apps provide users with access to their communications tools on any device and
network.
Jive also offers certain advanced solutions a-la-carte. Jive Video is a full-fledged video
conferencing solution for businesses requiring advanced visual collaboration. Jive Contact
Center provides businesses with an inexpensive customer care solution. Through a
partnership with InContact, it also offers a multi-channel contact center option.
Jive’s cloud architecture, home-grown UCaaS platform and software-based solutions
enable the provider to innovate rapidly and scale cost-effectively. The Jive platform is
based on open industry standards and therefore facilitates integration with other
standards-based SIP components and applications. Unlike many of its UCaaS competitors
using third-party platforms, Jive’s platform ownership allows it greater flexibility to
address evolving customer needs.

Jive also leverages advanced, contemporary software development processes. The company
uses a Scrum methodology based on Agile principles which includes rapid iteration and
continuous integration, whereas the vast majority of telecom vendors and service providers
use static/proprietary firmware and waterfall development processes. Cascading releases
enable more frequent functionality updates allowing Jive to stay at the forefront of
technology innovation.
Jive’s services are easy to set up and provision. Jive phones are shipped ready to plug and
play with no additional configuration required. For most small customers Jive provides a
“soft install”. Jive visually builds the PBX software for the customer using web share tools.
For large customers, installation is often provided by Jive channel partners.
Jive provides numerous engineering services to customers for free. It provides both off-the-
shelf and custom integration with third-party platforms such as Salesforce, Microsoft
Outlook, Zendesk and others, including vertical-specific applications (e.g., dental and
medical software).
It’s clear that Jive remains committed to delivering compelling UCaaS solutions to
businesses through further feature enhancements and integrations with third-party
software.
Business Stability
Provider financial challenges can be highly disruptive to customers. As the market
increasingly consolidates and provider mergers and acquisitions continually re-shape the
competitive landscape, businesses grow ever-more concerned about the future of their
partnerships with their UCaaS providers.
Jive has demonstrated considerable effectiveness in strategy execution and business
management that has resulted in rapid growth and profitability with limited external
financing. Since its inception, the company has consistently reported above-industry-
average growth rates, boosted by organic expansion as well as several acquisitions. A
combination of direct and indirect sales helps extend the provider’s customer reach. Jive
currently employs a direct sales force serving SMB, commercial enterprise and public
sector (K12, higher education, and government) along with several other vertical-specific
account reps focused on hospitality, food services, e-tailing, and so on. Jive has also
focused on expanding its channel network in order to ensure broader geographic reach
and better customer service. Channel partners include telecom agents, managed telecom
service providers as well as master distributors. Jive also operates a successful referral
program for customers and strategic partners, which allows them to recommend and refer
Jive to their associates.
Jive targets both small businesses and large organizations, including the public sector,
which gives it a broad addressable market. Jive employs vertical strategies (e.g., specific
industry certifications and custom integration with vertical apps) that create unique

capabilities to help businesses in different industries. Jive reports particularly strong
traction in education and the public sector as well as among national franchises where
customers appreciate its robust functionality, compelling pricing and platform agility that
enable flexible integrations and customization.
As the US market matures, US-based providers need to explore growth opportunities in
additional countries and regions. Its efforts toward gradual international expansion will
enable Jive to better serve businesses with presence in multiple countries as well as
capitalize on a larger addressable market.
Conclusion
Jive excels in the UCaaS market with a strong focus on the customer experience. Its
distributed cloud architecture, holistic approach to supporting customer needs and service
delivery, compelling solution bundles and effective business strategy has propelled Jive to
become one of the leading providers in the North American UCaaS market.
With its strong overall performance, Jive has earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2017 Customer
Service Leadership Award.

Significance of Customer Service Leadership
Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon customers purchasing from a
company and then making the decision to return time and again. The service experience
is, therefore, a critical component of a company’s efforts to retain customers over the long
term. Through successful retention, companies enhance their brand, increase demand for
their products, and differentiate themselves from the competition.
Understanding Customer Service Leadership
Customer Service Leadership is defined and measured by two macro-level categories:
Quality of Customer Service and Customer Impact. These two sides work together to
make customers feel valued and confident in their products’ quality and long shelf life.
This dual satisfaction translates into repeat purchases and a high lifetime of customer
value.

Key Benchmarking Criteria
For the Customer Service Leadership Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently
evaluated two key factors—Quality of Customer Service and Customer Impact—according
to the criteria identified below.
Quality of Customer Service
Criterion 1: Empowerment
Criterion 2: Leverage of Customer Feedback
Criterion 3: Speed/Timeliness
Criterion 4: Frictionless Interaction
Criterion 5: Technological Investment
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Best Practices Award Analysis for Jive
Decision Support Scorecard
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance
categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool
allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to
the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that
basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation.
Ratings guidelines are illustrated below.
RATINGS GUIDELINES
The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Quality of Customer Service and
Customer Impact (i.e., These are the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking
criteria; the definitions for each criterion are provided beneath the scorecard.). The
research team confirms the veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity
analysis, which confirms that small changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not
lead to a significant change in the overall relative rankings of the companies.

The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the
interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key
participants as Competitor 2 and Competitor 3.
Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)
Customer Service Leadership
Quality of
Customer Service
Customer
Impact
Average
Rating
Jive 10.0 9.8 9.9
Competitor 2 10.0 9.6 9.8
Competitor 3 9.7 9.6 9.7
Criterion 1: Empowerment
Requirement: Service providers are encouraged to take independent, informed, and
creative approaches to issue resolution.
Criterion 2: Leverage of Customer Feedback
Requirement: Customer opinions are continually solicited and monitored, leading to direct
changes to product features or the service model.
Criterion 3: Speed/Timeliness
Requirement: Issues are resolved within a time frame satisfactory to the customer and
the provider.
Criterion 4: Frictionless Interaction
Requirement: Service providers deftly avoid customer conflict by maintaining a friendly,
professional demeanor at all times.
Criterion 5: Technological Investment
Requirement: Investment in best-in-class technologies enhance customer knowledge,
accelerate issue resolution, and/or improve the customer experience.
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Requirement: Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar
offerings in the market.
Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Requirement: Customers feel they are buying the most optimal solution that addresses
both their unique needs and their unique constraints.
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service and have a
positive experience throughout the life of the product or service.

Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality.
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Requirement: Customers have a positive view of the brand and exhibit high brand loyalty.
Decision Support Matrix
Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,
analysts then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to
visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at
best-in-class levels.
High
Low
Low High
CustomerImpact
Jive
Competitor 2
Competitor 3

Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching,
Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices
Frost & Sullivan analysts follow a 10-step process to evaluate Award candidates and
assess their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the
Awards are based on close adherence to this process.
STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT
1
Monitor,
target, and
screen
Identify Award recipient
candidates from around the
globe
• Conduct in-depth industry
research
• Identify emerging sectors
• Scan multiple geographies
Pipeline of candidates who
potentially meet all best-
practice criteria
2
Perform
360-degree
research
Perform comprehensive,
360-degree research on all
candidates in the pipeline
• Interview thought leaders
and industry practitioners
• Assess candidates’ fit with
best-practice criteria
• Rank all candidates
Matrix positioning of all
candidates’ performance
relative to one another
3
Invite
thought
leadership in
best
practices
Perform in-depth
examination of all candidates
• Confirm best-practice criteria
• Examine eligibility of all
candidates
• Identify any information gaps
Detailed profiles of all
ranked candidates
4
Initiate
research
director
review
Conduct an unbiased
evaluation of all candidate
profiles
• Brainstorm ranking options
• Invite multiple perspectives
on candidates’ performance
• Update candidate profiles
Final prioritization of all
eligible candidates and
companion best-practice
positioning paper
5
Assemble
panel of
industry
experts
Present findings to an expert
panel of industry thought
leaders
• Share findings
• Strengthen cases for
candidate eligibility
• Prioritize candidates
Refined list of prioritized
Award candidates
6
Conduct
global
industry
review
Build consensus on Award
candidates’ eligibility
• Hold global team meeting to
review all candidates
• Pressure-test fit with criteria
• Confirm inclusion of all
eligible candidates
Final list of eligible Award
candidates, representing
success stories worldwide
7
Perform
quality check
Develop official Award
consideration materials
• Perform final performance
benchmarking activities
• Write nominations
• Perform quality review
High-quality, accurate, and
creative presentation of
nominees’ successes
8
Reconnect
with panel of
industry
experts
Finalize the selection of the
best-practice Award recipient
• Review analysis with panel
• Build consensus
• Select recipient
Decision on which company
performs best against all
best-practice criteria
9
Communicate
recognition
Inform Award recipient of
Award recognition
• Present Award to the CEO
• Inspire the organization for
continued success
• Celebrate the recipient’s
performance
Announcement of Award
and plan for how recipient
can use the Award to
enhance the brand
10
Take
strategic
action
Upon licensing, company is
able to share Award news
with stakeholders and
customers
• Coordinate media outreach
• Design a marketing plan
• Assess Award’s role in future
strategic planning
Widespread awareness of
recipient’s Award status
among investors, media
personnel, and employees

The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best
Practices Awards
Research Methodology
Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research
methodology represents the analytical
rigor of our research process. It offers a
360-degree-view of industry challenges,
trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of
Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.
Too often companies make important
growth decisions based on a narrow
understanding of their environment,
leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Successful growth strategies
are founded on a thorough understanding
of market, technical, economic, financial,
customer, best practices, and demographic
analyses. The integration of these
research disciplines into the 360-degree
research methodology provides an
evaluation platform for benchmarking
industry participants and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth
and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's
Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined
research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation
of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages more than 50 years of
experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the
investment community from 45 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,
please visit http://www.frost.com.
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