Highlights:
- Saving money: Since switching to RingCentral, Corrigan Moving Systems is paying $150,000 a year less in telecom expenses.
- Delighting customers: By empowering employees to text using their business numbers—from anywhere—Corrigan has greatly improved its customer experience.
- Improving workflows: Having the RingCentral apps on their laptops and cell phones is helping Corrigan’s staff stay connected and productive from home and the road.
The largest moving company headquartered in Michigan
In its nearly 100-year history, Corrigan Moving Systems has grown from a single-truck moving company—whose founder, Frank Corrigan, actually chauffeured Henry Ford—to one of the largest full-service relocation businesses in North America.
A phone system they needed to relocate ASAP
Prior to RingCentral, Corrigan’s 275 office-based employees—spanning more than a dozen locations in five states—received and placed business calls using an aging, feature-poor phone infrastructure. Neil Nosakowski, Chief Information Officer for Corrigan, explains that the PBX-based system had several shortcomings.
“The moving industry still runs primarily on phone calls, but when our employees left their desks, they couldn’t stay in communication with customers or partners unless they gave out their personal numbers. They also didn’t have the ability to text from their business lines, which a growing number of customers want as a communication option.”
Additionally, Neil notes that maintaining the legacy infrastructure was costing Corrigan far too much for the value it delivered.
“The old system required T1s at every office for data, and PRIs for our voice calls. Those telecom contracts were costing us a fortune, and that’s before you factor in the additional expenses for support, maintenance, and regularly upgrading the physical systems.”
Turning telecom from a liability into an asset
Migrating all of Corrigan’s offices onto the RingCentral unified communications platform, Neil explains, quickly led to numerous operational improvements across the company.
For example, Neil points out that while making even minor adjustments to the old phone system required calls to the vendor, now even non-technical employees can easily customize their business phone settings using the RingCentral online portal.
“I think the self-sufficiency RingCentral gives our staff is the biggest benefit. Employees are going into the app to choose where they route calls, what hours of the day to have their business number ring on their cell phones, and making temporary changes like directing calls to a coworker while they’re away at a doctor’s appointment. Our employees can now customize their workflows more easily than ever, and that’s making them more efficient.”
A second workflow improvement, Neil adds, is the fact that Corrigan employees now have built-in SMS texting capability with their RingCentral apps. That, he points out, is allowing sales and support employees to improve the customer experience.
“Being able to text from their business line, from anywhere, has been a game-changer for our employees and our business. This is a preferred method of communication for a lot of our customers, especially our younger customers, and now we’re able to offer that service to them.”
Adding communication mobility for the first time
Yet another benefit Corrigan is enjoying thanks to RingCentral’s anywhere, any-device cloud platform is the ability for employees to stay accessible to customers and partners even when they’re not in the office—without giving out their personal numbers.
As Neil explains, “Our employees still have desk phones in the office, but now they can easily make and receive their business calls—and texts, too—through RingCentral on their laptops and personal cell phones. If they need to work from home, or they’re on the road for any reason, our employees don’t need to miss a single customer or partner communication.”
More capabilities, less spend
Neil also points out that despite gaining so much in terms of features and flexibility with the company’s new cloud communications solution, the migration to RingCentral has actually lowered Corrigan’s overall telecommunications costs.
“With RingCentral, we have everything we need in one place: mobile and remote-work capabilities, a unified app for phone and texting, and a no-maintenance solution our employees can manage themselves. And even with all those benefits, we’re still saving $150,000 a year.”
Originally published Jan 06, 2023, updated Jan 17, 2023
