AppDirect Brand Unification FAQs

On January 23, 2023, the unification of AppSmart under the AppDirect brand that was announced on October 18, 2022 became official. These FAQs provide answers to questions you may have about this change. Before you read the FAQs, access the following links to learn more about this important milestone:

  • The Advisor newsletter that you received by email from AppDirect on January 17

  • Our January 23 blog article, A Unified AppDirect—Where B2B Commerce Happens

  • Our January 23 press release, AppDirect Unifies its Advisor Business Under the AppDirect Brand

FAQs

Q. What does this unification mean for advisors and their customers?

Starting January 23, AppSmart was officially folded into AppDirect, and you can see evidence of this on the company sites and platforms that you visit. Anywhere you previously saw the AppSmart name or logo, they've been replaced with the AppDirect name and logo. You still access AppDirect the same way you always have, but the branding has been updated and you'll notice other minor changes. Some of the branding changes will be completed over the coming weeks.

Q. Does this affect the login process for my marketplace workspace?

On January 23, the marketplace login was updated with the AppDirect domain.

  • Old login URL: marketplace.appsmart.com

  • New login URL: catalog.appdirect.com

If you log in using the old URL, it automatically redirects you to the new one, but we recommend that you update your bookmarks and start using the new URL.

Q. How does the AppDirect unification impact my customers?

Both you and your customers will see many benefits from being part of the world’s most dynamic B2B commerce ecosystem. Your customers are under more pressure than ever to make sound decisions about their technology, and making it easier for you as their advisor to procure and manage solutions through a unified AppDirect ecosystem will give you more choices and better resources to support your customers.

You may have already noticed some of our recent unification initiatives, including converging our operations, sales, and marketing teams so we can leverage the speed and innovation of cross-company collaboration. As a result, we recently launched a unified experience for advisors that gives them one-click access from a single dashboard to every type of service offering—cloud, telco, and energy. From their dashboard, advisors can also quickly access all the tools and information they need to manage quotes and commissions and the back-end tools where they can create customer quotes and proposals. We also launched a single commission system, statement, and commission payment. This level of integration is unique in the industry and it simplifies advisors’ ability to cross-sell services and create solution packages that deliver the ideal technology stack for their customers.

The AppDirect catalog is the broadest in the industry, with thousands of technology, energy, cloud and telecommunications products from more than 1000 providers integrated on the AppDirect platform. Currently, not all of those products are available to advisors, and we plan to work with providers to offer more of their products to you so you can make even better technology recommendations to your customers.

Later this year, your customers may notice that the logo on their invoice has changed from AppSmart to AppDirect. Other than this logo update, your billing and payment methods remain unchanged.

Q. Are there any changes in my Workspace?

You’ll notice that some of the tools in your Workspace have new names that are aligned with our updated branding.

  • Connectivity Service Locator—Previously AppSmart Locator

  • Connectivity Quotes—Previously Telco Quotes

  • CableSeller—Previously ApSmart CableSeller

  • Provider Commission Rates—Previously Telco Commission Rates

  • EnergySeller—Previously AppSmart Energize

  • AppDirect Commission Rates—Previously Cloud Commission Rates

  • Provider Resources—Previously AppSmart Resources

  • Support—Previously AppSmart Support Ticket Portal

  • Training Center—Previously Advisor Training Center

  • Events—Previously Event Calendar

Q. What impact does this have on the support I get?

As of January 23, the email addresses you use to create support tickets was updated to reflect the AppDirect domain. Emails sent to the old email addresses will redirect, but we encourage you to start using the new ones to ensure you have uninterrupted access, in the event the redirects are eventually terminated. Following are the new email addresses:

Q. Can I still find advisor-specific information on your LinkedIn page?

Our AppSmart LinkedIn instance has been updated and renamed AppDirect for Advisors. This page is nested under the AppDirect brand, but everything else with respect to followers and content remains as is. Be sure to check the page often for news, insights, podcasts, blogs, events information and registration links, and much more.

Q. Do you have customer-facing messaging I can use to explain this to my customers?

Following are some points that you can use in communications with your customers to explain how they might benefit from the AppDirect unification:

  • On a practical level, this will have an impact on the services I can recommend to you. AppDirect is working on making more of its providers' products available for me to refer and resell to my customers, which will give me even more options to recommend in order to meet your business needs

  • As part of its unification initiative, AppDirect has already streamlined all of its operations into a single organization. AppDirect’s goal in doing this was to simplify how it does business with its customers and deliver a phenomenal customer experience. AppDirect has already made great strides in that direction, by making many improvements to the tools I use to search for and recommend products to you, enabling me to find solutions more quickly and efficiently, and to manage my business with you more easily. This year, you should start noticing how these changes support how we work together.

  • Another change that you’ll see in 2023 if you purchase from the marketplace is that the logo on your invoice will change from AppSmart to AppDirect.

  • When you purchase products from the AppDirect catalog, you become part of a vast ecosystem that includes 1,000 technology providers, 10,000 advisors, and 100,000 end business customers. Thousands of technology, energy, cloud and telecommunications products are available in the AppDirect catalog—the broadest tech solution catalog in the industry.

Q. What does this mean if I have sub-agents?

If you have sub-agents, they will experience the same changes and benefits as you, with access to a broader portfolio, and their customers will see the same benefits described in the answer to the previous question.

Q. Do  you sub-agent messaging that I can use to explain these changes?

You can use the same messaging for sub-agents as the ones described above for advisors.

For more information, contact your AppDirect CSM or PSM.