RingCentral customer Lakeview Professional Services Inc. provides human resource management, accounting, consulting and safety services for residential construction companies.
Based in Corona, Calif., family-owned Lakeview has 130 office staffers in six different locations and hundreds of remote construction employees spread across California, Nevada and Arizona.
Prior to using RingCentral, Lakeview used a Nortel PBX system that dated back to the 1990s. This system became difficult to maintain, requiring an external technician for all servicing. Understandably, this became expensive and inconvenient.
The voicemail system Lakeview had in place also presented a challenge: It relied on a hard drive which had to be replaced over time. And MCK units needed to be used to convert phone signals to IP traffic to get the company’s calls out to remote sites. These expensive components cost $1,500 a month and became outdated and eventually useless.
Lakeview vice president Jerry Crowther decided to switch to RingCentral Office after seeing the cloud-based system first-hand at a business owned by a friend.
“I was somewhat tenuous about taking the leap and getting a new system, but everything worked out,” Crowther says. “I consider myself a tech junkie, so it seemed like a logical progression to get off of this old PBX system and start doing IT telephony.”
The decision to switch to RingCentral was made, and it was an easy transition – despite Lakeview’s far-flung employees and offices.
“Once we transferred the numbers over to RingCentral, we just shut off the old PBX system and everyone was using their new RingCentral phones,” Crowther tells us. “There was a bit of a learning curve, but everyone is happy with it now.”
‘Building’ a Better Phone System
Now that all six of Lakeview’s offices are connected on one phone system, communication has become faster and easier. RingCentral Office’s auto-receptionist feature (coupled with every employee having a direct line) has led to employees and customers spending less time waiting and more time talking to whomever they are trying to reach.
Along with a number of useful features, RingCentral has shown Lakeview the financial benefits of switching to a low-maintenance cloud phone system. “With RingCentral we are saving $2,300 a month, and with our old PBX system we were paying more than that for our line access alone,” says Crowther. “More importantly, we now have a reliable phone system thanks to RingCentral.”
Want to see how much you could save by switching to RingCentral Office? Visit our plans and pricing page for more information!
Featured photo courtesy of pnwra via photopin cc.
Originally published Mar 12, 2014, updated Apr 18, 2021
