How Disney’s preferred resale timeshare broker reduced its phone bill—by half

In its two-decade history, Fidelity Resales has become one of the most trusted agencies representing buyers and sellers in the secondary market for timeshare properties. 

The company has built such a strong reputation for trustworthiness and professionalism, in fact, that Fidelity Resales is the Preferred Broker of both Wyndham and Disney Vacation Club. You probably recognize those names; they’re two of the most highly regarded resort developers in the entire world.

As you can imagine, with a seal of approval from world-class brands like Disney and Wyndham, Fidelity has experienced a steady increase in demand for its services. 

Recently, inquiries from new clients interested in buying and selling timeshare properties grew so much that Fidelity’s old phone system was getting pushed way beyond its limits.

It was time to go shopping.

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So, what does one of the biggest timeshare brokers in the world need in a phone system?

When they set out to upgrade their communications infrastructure, Fidelity Resales had a long wishlist that included these must-have requirements:

• The phone system needed to have sophisticated features, but be user-friendly enough when it came to basic functions like menu options and recording greetings.
• For regulatory reasons, the phone system needed to be able to automatically log and record calls and store that data securely in the cloud.
• An integration with Salesforce! The main goal was to make the sales and customer service teams more efficient—while also providing a good experience for callers (many of whom are prospective customers).

And after doing some research, they found a solution that checked all the boxes. 

Fidelity’s new (and much improved) cloud phone solution 

As Marketing VP Ryan Pittman explains, the Fidelity Resales senior team had another objective in mind for their new communications system.

“We also wanted to give our staff more mobility, to allow them to respond to clients or connect with each other even when they weren’t in the office.” 

With RingCentral, Fidelity found a system that let employees take and make office calls anywhere, using a RingCentral app on their laptops or smartphones. Not only that they could flip a call from their computers to their phones (and vice versa) without interrupting the conversation, just by hitting a button in the app:

And for even more flexibility, they could easily turn a phone call into a video call too (just in case someone wanted to share their screen or have a face-to-face chat):

“Setting up the system was so intuitive that I was able to do most of it on my own”

What also appealed to Fidelity about RingCentral’s all-in-one cloud solution was that it wasn’t going to require a lot of time or outside resources to roll out or manage.

“Setting up the system was so intuitive that I was able to do most of it on my own, with just a little help from the RingCentral Implementation team,” Ryan says.

In fact, in very little time, Fidelity’s entire staff was up and running on their new cloud communications platform—placing business calls to clients through the RingCentral app on their computers and mobile devices, using the team messaging solution for real-time chats, and even using RingCentral’s built-in video conferencing for face-to-face meetings.

And they did all of that in a single app:

As Ryan explains: “It’s great to have all of these communication tools… phone, SMS, chat, fax, video… in one app that our whole company is using. Reaching each other is easier than ever, and we’re not spending any time switching between apps.”

For example, not only could a real estate agent start a video or phone call in RingCentral’s app, they could even create tasks for the team in a team messaging thread:

Oh, and remember the Salesforce integration that the team wanted? RingCentral had that already built into the platform too. Now, the Fidelity team can dial prospects and customers and call them straight from their Salesforce dashboard:

Bonus: Ready for the lockdowns

Although they had no idea at the time, Fidelity Resales was positioning itself well for COVID-19 by migrating to RingCentral. The lockdown orders went into effect quickly, but by that time the staff already had a full suite of communications tools they could use on their devices at home to continue operations as usual during the quarantine period. 

Ryan attributes this smooth transition in large part to the company’s decision to switch to RingCentral. 

“Our previous phone system wouldn’t have been able to support us nearly as well in becoming 100% remote in those early days of the lockdowns,” he says. “Without RingCentral, I’m not sure how we would’ve handled it.”

🕹️ Get a hands-on look at RingCentral’s real-estate-friendly features by booking a product tour:

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Or, check out the full Fidelity Resales customer story.

Originally published Oct 22, 2020, updated Jun 24, 2024