In the life of every technology, there comes a time when it simply no longer makes sense to keep the old system, no matter how much you want to save money. For one division of a large national commercial real estate company, it came time for a legacy phone system to go — and time for the company to consider unified communications as a service (UCaaS).
“The repairs were getting expensive, for one thing,” says MicroAge’s Chris Pirwitz. “The telecom manufacturer was no longer making new equipment for this system, so it was incredibly challenging to find replacement parts. And technicians were no longer certified in this system, making repairs tough too.”
For help with updating phones for the division’s 400 employees, the IT director reached out to Chris, who brought in MicroAge’s Collaboration team.
Chris and the team started with a consultative call to identify the client’s pain points. Based on the size of their physical environment and lack of on-site IT resources, they were confident a cloud-based PBX would be a good solution.
They recommended ShoreTel Connect CLOUD, an all-in-one UCaaS system that offers hosted VoIP call control, mobility apps, instant messaging, audio and web conferencing, video calling and online meetings.
“Plus, it’s easy to deploy,” Chris adds. “There’s no switching; the phones are the only hardware.”
ShoreTel Connect CLOUD has provided the client with enhanced reliability. There’s a 99.99 percent uptime guaranteed. But in the event that the Internet system does go down, there’s an option to route calls to cell phones.
And with support provided by ShoreTel, the IT team doesn’t have to worry about managing support and maintenance for the hosted VoIP system.
“We give every user a button on their phone that they can use to reach ShoreTel directly with any problems,” says Jason Fontana, a partner business manager for ShoreTel. “They don’t need to go to IT.”
Moving to the cloud requires a certain mindset shift, Jason notes. Companies are often accustomed to a large upfront total cost, but moving to UCaaS means an ongoing monthly fee for the service.
For this client, it makes sense. The IT director says implementation was simple, that the system is reliable and that he’s never had to call to complain.
“Employees are able to be more effective and productive, and we’re saving IT’s resources,” Chris says. “It’s a win-win.”
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