Outsourcing user data as product strategy: a case study

This case study explores how Telekit leveraged existing customer data to bridge traditional telecom with the broader internet ecosystem and offer accessible solutions for small businesses.  

Founded in 1991, Vail Systems built its reputation helping large enterprises deliver customer service through sophisticated voice solutions. Today, over 1 billion minutes flow through our platform monthly across financial services, retail, hospitality, and other sectors. Our capabilities include call routing, caller authentication, and advanced analytics. However, these solutions require substantial initial investments and ongoing maintenance for each customer, creating a barrier for small businesses.

In 2021, we launched Telekit: an affordable, no-code SaaS telephony platform designed specifically for small businesses. Rather than pursuing feature parity in an already saturated telecommunications market, we made a strategic decision to focus on two critical areas:

• User interface design for business owners (our direct customers)
• Caller experience design for their end customers

This is how we shifted our focus from routine business calls to dynamic, data-driven interactions that adapt to caller context, history, and preferences.

Competing in a crowded, mature market 

Telecommunications is one of the world's most mature industries. Despite its essential role in modern infrastructure for over a century, it rarely sparks the excitement or loyalty that internet-native platforms do. 

When we began building Telekit, we weren't entering greenfield territory. These customers already had solutions, and our feature set was modest by comparison. Competing on price seemed like the only viable strategy, but it wasn't one that inspired long-term confidence. 

We spent our first two years building primary capabilities like call-handling, voicemail, and account management. We designed a system that could evolve but strategic differentiation remained elusive until recent developments in AI, API integrations, and cloud infrastructure. 

Reframing "borrowed" user data 

Everything changed when we reframed user data not as something to manage internally, but as something to integrate externally. A McKinsey article from earlier this year validated our strategy of creating value for telcos beyond traditional telecommunications. The research revealed that nearly 80% of 3,000 B2B decision-makers across enterprises of all sizes believe operators should play a larger role beyond core connectivity. 

Instead of operating in a silo, products like Telekit can integrate with adjacent digital services that businesses already use to manage their customers, like payment platforms, website hosting services and social media. Even if Telekit doesn’t know who the customer is, we can access information in real-time from one of these digital touchpoints while maintaining a single source of truth.

The data gets integrated as needed, while still maintaining customer privacy.

Personalised, but privacy-friendly 

When customers call our SMB clients, we don’t want them to hear a generic greeting, but a personalized message. For example: “Hello Jane, thank you for calling. I see that you have an upcoming appointment for a haircut on December 12th at 10am. Do you need help with that?” By integrating contextual e-commerce data in real-time, we can proactively address issues and help customers as needed. 

In this case, without the external data, Telekit wouldn't know the caller’s identity or their existing appointments. Telekit would also not be able to offer help to manage their appointment directly if it weren’t for the access to the business’s scheduling platform. Still, we don't own the data; we coordinate its use through user experience and interface design, without requiring the SMBs to write a single line of code. 

We also added guardrails to help determine how the product should behave based on different types of callers, business settings and other limitations. For example, new clients calling into a phone system would be encouraged to ask service questions or schedule a free consultation rather than manage existing appointments since they wouldn’t have any. 

How this works

Telekit was built as a no-code solution so SMB clients without technical support or financial resources can have a professional business phone system running within minutes. With the addition of caller personalization and conversational AI we wanted to maintain this vision. 

Onboarding works as follows: businesses first create an account on Telekit. Then, using a secure authorization process they connect Telekit with their existing digital platform. Once connected, Telekit is able to make API requests to the 3rd party service for each call made to the business. 

Each time a customer calls, we look up the calling phone number to identify the customer and retrieve their relevant information: past and upcoming appointments, scheduled services, and appointment monetary values. Telekit then uses the information to make a back and forth conversation with the caller to determine their preferred time, location and service.  

Any changes requested during calls are made directly in the scheduling software’s database, so business owners don't need to take further action to keep data synchronized. Appointment scheduling is one example of a routine conversation that previously required one-on-one human interaction, especially for SMBs.

What we learned 

Telecom software companies don't need to own every technology layer to innovate. The ability to build value across ecosystems may be the most underused superpower. 

Outsourcing user data doesn't mean losing control, it means gaining access to information that otherwise would require dedicated resources, time, and financial investments to build. While building Telekit, we discovered a few ways to approach new product development in a mature industry. 

Collaboration over competition 

Even as a latecomer, Telekit leverages technology and channel partnerships to not only complement the product offering but also enhance its value proposition beyond core features. By expanding our scope of influence to 3rd party services, we improve business efficiencies and sales potential for our business customers. Using their existing customer data ensured that the conversations were concise, accurate and consistent. 

Avoiding all-or-nothing thinking 

With any new AI technologies, partnerships, and process enhancements, it's tempting to want to do everything at once. We initially considered building a completely open-ended “How might we help you today” greeting that expands conversation to anything the caller wants to talk about. 

However, we quickly learned to focus on integrating on one technology partnership and limiting the scope to scheduling. This also enabled us to target a sub-segment of the SMB market: service-based companies that use appointments. 

Experimentation 

Small businesses are becoming more comfortable with automation and using AI/ML tools to improve their productivity. However, we noticed that most prefer a hybrid approach. They want to offer their callers traditional phone options like routing calls to representatives or leaving voicemails alongside automated features that still feel natural and human-like. 

Rather than replacing its core technologies, Telekit gives small businesses the ability to customize solutions to their specific needs. As language models, API platforms, and user feedback improve, Telekit will continue to evolve and adjust to the changing needs of the SMBs.

Conclusion 

In a saturated market, the way to set yourself apart isn't always through building more features or competing on price. Sometimes, it's through reimagining how existing data can create new value. By acting as curators rather than owners of user data, we transformed a mature telecom product into something that feels native to the modern, interconnected business landscape. 

The lesson for other companies in mature industries: your competitive advantage might not lie in what you build, but in how intelligently you connect what already exists.