Case Studies Prove Hosted VoIP’s Business Continuity Power During Crisis
Remote work is no longer unfamiliar territory for most information workers. Due to the pandemic, employees who typically worked in the office now are working from home – some or all of the time.
While the ability for companies to continue business operations with remote workers is good news, it also highlights the need for a communications system that can handle the increased demand and unique needs of telework.
At FlexIP Solutions, we’ve been working with many of our existing Flex Hosted VoIP and Flex UCaaS customers to enable work from home quickly. We’ve also fielded our fair share of frantic calls from business owners who reconsidered putting off the switch to cloud-based communications, and we helped them, too. In every case, we’ve proven the success of cloud-based phone system, unified communications, collaboration and contact center in enabling remote work.
Here are a few examples of the power of cloud communications:
Equity Company Leverages Call Center Agents at Home
One of our customers, an equity company, first came to us to help them fix inefficient call handling. Customers were calling into individual salespeople, giving the company no visibility into when, how, or if their calls were answered. The company wanted to maintain the personal relationships customers had with individual salespeople, but also ensure a consistent customer experience. We helped them to do just that by deploying cloud-based Flex Hosted VoIP and Flex Contact Center. Now, if a caller reaches a busy salesperson, they have options to wait on hold for their rep, send an email to their rep, or get into a queue for the next available representative. Plus, the equity company now gets metrics, such as caller wait times, from the contact center solution on how calls are handled.
When shelter-in-place orders came down in their state, our customer was able to quickly enable their call center agents to work from home with our help. Because their communications system is hosted in the cloud, all we had to do was have each rep download the contact center application on their home desktop or laptop computer. Now, more than half of their call center agents are working from home, and the company still has access to vital call-handling metrics as if those reps were in the on-site call center.
Dermatology Practice Keeps the Doors Open
Another customer, a dermatology office, had an older phone system that could not keep up with the large volume of calls the practice receives daily. At the same time, they had acquired other practices and were looking to consolidate their disparate communications systems. We recommended they move to the Flex Hosted VoIP service, which scales easily to meet the current and future needs of their expanding practice.
Coincidentally, during our discussions about this approach, the outbreak prompted orders to shelter in place. The company’s aging and disparate systems also were no match for enabling quarantined remote workers. Forwarding calls to workers’ home phones required two call legs (one from the office to the home worker and one from the home worker to the customer), which tied up their telephone lines, making it more difficult for patients to reach them.
We recommended they accelerate their transition to Flex Hosted VoIP and Flex UCaaS, which includes desktop and mobile applications that their staff members could access from home, so the practice could keep serving its patients.
A Criminal Defense Law Firm Goes Remote in Four Days
Another longtime customer, a criminal defense law firm, first came to us with an aging phone system that was literally on its last legs and needed to be rebooted every day. We replaced that system with Flex Hosted VoIP and Flex UCaaS hosted services that would work around the clock and handle increasing numbers of users with ease.
When the pandemic hit, the firm suddenly needed to support its 150-member team remotely. With Flex UCaaS in place, we simply activated the browser-based UCaaS client for their employees to use with their laptops and smartphones at home. As a result, the law firm’s entire staff transitioned to remote work in only four days. With their previous on-premises system, this move would not have been possible.
The Case for Cloud Communications
These are only a few examples of the successes that FlexIP Solutions customers are having migrating to remote work with Flex Hosted VoIP and Flex UCaaS. While the impetus for their rapid transitions has been a worldwide crisis, it has proved the efficacy of cloud communications technology for business continuity and productivity. Our customers are not only staying up and running; they realize that remote work has benefits they plan to make permanent.
Ready to Move Your Communications to the Cloud?
Contact a FlexIP Solutions Specialist Today!
