Glass Doctor
RingCentral Helped This Small-Business Franchisee Boost His Company’s Bottom Line, Increase Efficiency, and Improve its Already-World-Class Customer Rating
Industry
Construction
Hq
Matthews, NC
Year founded
1987
Employees
35
Industry
Construction
Hq
Matthews, NC
Year founded
1987
Employees
35
RingCentral and RingCentral Video have dramatically improved our efficiency and customer service. They’ve added 10% to our bottom line, easily.
Ed Sieber
Owner and President, Glass Doctor of Charlotte
10%
Higher efficiency
50%
Increase in support team capacity
By replacing the traditional dealership infrastructure with technology and exceptional customer service, Carvana offers consumers an easier way to buy a used car. Using the company’s website, customers can search through an inventory of 7,300+ cars, then finance, purchase, and trade in a car, 100% online. The Carvana approach also saves money. In 2016, customers who purchased a car through Carvana saved an average of $1,430 versus the Kelley Blue Book suggested retail value.
Customers take possession of their car in one of two ways. They can schedule home delivery of the vehicle. Or, if they prefer to pick up their car, they can opt in to Carvana’s “Fly and Drive” program wherein Carvana subsidizes $200 of the airfare to one of its car vending machines. These really are vending machines for cars and need to be seen to be believed. Vending machines are currently located in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, and San Antonio.
Imran Kazi is Carvana’s Director of Technology Services. Soon after joining the company, he noticed a gap in the company’s communications practices. The people who delivered cars to customers’ homes, which Carvana calls External Advocates, were using their personal cell phones to communicate with customers. After a delivery, if a customer had a question about how to register the vehicle or its navigation system, for example, he or she typically called the cell phone of the External Advocate, who wouldn’t necessarily know those answers. “We have internal teams set up to answer those types of questions,” explains Kazi. “I wanted to rework our communications to make sure those calls were directed to the right place.”
Legacy communication system led to slower response times and employee stress
In a highly competitive service industry like glass installation and repair, customer service and reputation often make the difference between a business surviving or shutting its doors. Ed Sieber opened the Charlotte franchise of Glass Doctor in 1987 — and more than three decades later, his business is one of the most successful in the company’s nearly-300-franchise portfolio.
“Our ability to consistently deliver outstanding service, and the reputation we’ve earned as a result, has meant everything to our business,” Sieber says.
But maintaining this high level of service — which earned Glass Doctor of Charlotte a “world-class” Net Promoter Score of 81 — wasn’t easy.
One of the challenges was the company’s limited communications functionality.
“In the service industry, you need real-time answers,” Sieber explains. “You can’t just call one manager with a question and wait for an answer.” Yet that was how the company was forced to conduct much of its day-to-day business, because its communication technology was limited to standard business phone lines.
Then a Glass Doctor franchise in Canada told Sieber what RingCentral could do for his business — and everything changed.
The transition to RingCentral and RingCentral Video proves quick, simple, and painless — even for Sieber’s tech-phobic employees
Sieber already knew about RingCentral because Glass Doctor’s international parent company uses RingCentral to conduct webinars, training sessions, and other meetings with its hundreds of franchise owners across the US and Canada.
“But when my Canadian friend showed me what else we could do with RingCentral, it was really a no-brainer,” Sieber explains. “The phone service itself was robust, the online app was great, and the RingCentral Video collaboration workspace let us communicate in real-time, with the right teams, wherever we were.
Plus, we could do all of this within the same, intuitive platform.”
The fact that RingCentral and RingCentral Video were intuitive meant a lot to Sieber. “Many of my employees aren’t so comfortable with new tech,” he says.
“The last thing you want to do as a small business owner is roll out a new system to improve operations, but instead create a lot of anxiety among your team. With RingCentral, though, everyone was up and running so quickly that I couldn’t believe it.”
Thanks to the app, we can easily hold conference calls or even video chats with our staff wherever they are.
Ed Sieber
Owner and President, Glass Doctor of Charlotte
Sieber and his team find many ways to benefit from RingEX, and RingCentral Video
“We’re finding so many ways to improve our operations with these tools that I could go on all day about them,” says Sieber. “But I’ll describe just a few of my favorite RingCentral features.”
“The phone solution is terrific. We can record calls. We can read our voicemail messages. We can transfer our business numbers to our cell phones, or even take calls on our computers. That means my team and I can be productive anywhere.”
“Thanks to the app, we can easily hold conference calls or even video chats with our staff wherever they are. I can also host meetings with other franchisees, even if they don’t have a RingCentral account. I can even fire up a new meeting, hit the ‘Record’ button, and create training videos for my staff.”
“And I can’t say enough about the RingCentral Video collaboration workspace. Now we finally have real-time team messaging.
When I need a question answered right away, I can just RingCentral Video it out to the right team, or teams — and I know someone will be there to answer. That’s so much better than our old method of calling one person and hoping for a callback soon.”
“We even use RingCentral Video with our customers, to make scheduling easier and to keep them updated. Also, if I need to get on my soapbox and make some new policy change, I can just do it once, over RingCentral Video, and I know everyone has gotten it.”
“And finally, we’re even putting together RingCentral Video sales teams with other franchisees’ businesses. This way, our reps and their reps can share best practices, maintain a single place to find the latest pricing, and even letting each other know which businesses are great to work with and which to avoid.”
“RingCentral is really an enterprise-caliber communication solution for companies with a small-business budget.”
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