For more than 40 years, Local Government Corporation (LGC) has been the go-to technology solution partner for Tennessee-based municipal entities.
Today, LGC provides a full suite of services—including software, computer hardware, network administration, cybersecurity, even web design—to more than 1,500 government entities throughout Tennessee. In fact, the not-for-profit corporation is the state’s largest dedicated technology provider to local governments.
And while a lower telecom bill was a huge win, teaming up with RingCentral ushered in a whole pack of perks LGC hadn’t expected.
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A better phone system—without a premium price tag
Kevin Kizer, Corporate Services Supervisor for LGC, explains that as the organization grew, it became increasingly difficult to support employees’ telephony needs with the company’s legacy phone infrastructure.
“We had T1s, POTS lines, phones on everyone’s desks, and an on-prem system that was several years old.” The aging system, Kevin adds, created frequent IT challenges: “The administrative backend was so complicated that I was really the only person on my IT team—meaning the only person in the company—who could deal with any issues or make even simple updates.”
As LGC neared the end of its support agreement for the system, Kevin researched cloud phone solutions—and found RingCentral the best fit. But because LGC is a not-for-profit and extremely cost-conscious, he needed to demonstrate to his executive staff that switching to RingCentral would not create significant additional costs for the company. A side-by-side comparison of expenses helped him make the case.
“With our old system, we were spending about $4,500 a month for connectivity and long-distance phone time. Switching to RingCentral cut that bill by more than half—saving us over $2,500 a month. When I presented those numbers to our management team, they gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up to move forward.”
Reliable phone service, no matter the weather
Another major factor in LGC’s decision to move to a cloud-based phone solution, Kevin explains, was the need for disaster recovery and business continuity in the event of an outage at the company’s headquarters. As Kevin notes, this had been a longtime concern for several reasons.
First, he points out, “We get all our bandwidth via a single pole outside our main building, and there are semi-trucks speeding by all day. If someone took out that pole, and we lost internet, we’d also lose all phone service.”
A second DR concern, Kevin adds: “We get serious weather here, such as snowstorms, which is another reason we could temporarily lose access to our offices.”
And while that had been highly disruptive to LGC’s phone service before RingCentral—because employees needed to be at their desks to take customer calls—it’s no longer an issue. “We just had major snow last week, which kept everyone from coming in,” Kevin says. “But because we have RingCentral on everybody’s laptop and the mobile app on their cell phones, it wasn’t a problem at all. Everyone was able to keep working and taking calls from home.”
“What I appreciated most was how patient and thorough the team was. They took time to listen to us… and stayed in contact to make sure everything was working smoothly. That’s a great partner.”
Improved workflows and the customer experience
Kevin points out that being able to make and take business calls anywhere, from either their computers or mobile phones, has helped LGC’s staff improve their productivity and responsiveness to customers.
He also notes that having RingCentral in place pre-COVID helped the company make the sudden transition to remote work so much more smoothly and effectively than if they had still been operating on the legacy phone system.
“The lockdowns could have created serious telephony challenges for us, and that was a time when our customers really needed our help, because they were dealing with their own technology challenges during the shutdown. Thankfully, we already had RingCentral, so everyone just had to grab their laptops, fire open the softphone app at home, and take customer calls from there.”
A smooth rollout of new software (yes, it’s possible)
Finally, Kevin adds, he and his team felt vindicated in their decision to partner with RingCentral during the early days of the implementation. That’s because the company’s Professional Services team made what he’d assumed would be a stressful IT migration smooth and painless.
“RingCentral’s Professional Services team was terrific. They helped us through all the technical details, like porting numbers and getting things configured properly, which was great. But what I appreciated most was how patient and thorough the team was. They took time to listen to us, help us customize the system the way we wanted, and stayed in contact to make sure everything was working smoothly. That’s a great partner.”
Originally published Feb 24, 2022, updated Jul 22, 2024
