Timothy Jacquet knows all about business success. As the host of the daily CORE Business radio show, he provides advice to business owners across the country. Tim is also a businessman himself – and one experience he had as Apple Capital Group’s vice president of business development demonstrates how having the right tools in place can make all the difference when the unexpected happens.
The time was Labor Day weekend 2008. The place was Houston, where Apple Capital – a commercial equipment finance company – had just opened an office. But the timing couldn’t have been worse, as Hurricane Ike was bearing down on the city.
Fortunately, none of Apple Capital’s employees were harmed when the hurricane made landfall. But the building in which the company was leasing space got torn apart.
If that wasn’t enough, Houston lost power for over a month. And when repair crews did arrive on the scene to clean up the city, they focused on its high-value assets – its refineries and essential businesses – instead of office buildings like Apple Capital’s.
Houston, Tex. on a sunny day.
Between the power losses and the destruction its office suffered, Apple Capital had no choice but to relocate its operations. Tim and his fellow executives scrambled to line up hotel rooms and equip employees with mobile technology. But the only reason relocation was an option at all, Tim notes, is that Apple Capital was relying on RingCentral.
“Immediately after the storm hit, we were able to divert calls to our other offices,” he says. “It was simple; we just reassigned numbers in RingCentral’s system settings.”
As it happened, Apple Capital’s Houston-based employees were stuck in hotels for a month and a half. Because RingCentral works so seamlessly, however, none of the firm’s customers were any the wiser.
“Our sales reps were up and working in Candlewood Suites,” Tim laughs. “No one even noticed.”
Several months after Hurricane Ike pummeled the Gulf Coast, Apple Capital opted to relocate its Houston division permanently to Dallas. There haven’t been any huge storms since Ike, Tim reports – but his reps continue to enjoy RingCentral’s mobility tools.
“They love the RingCentral app,” Tim says of the reps. “They can sit in a coffee shop and make calls over Wi-Fi. That winds up saving money for us, too.”
Apple Capital’s experience after Hurricane Ike turned Tim into a huge RingCentral fan. Whether there’s a crisis afoot or it’s business as usual, he says, “for a mobile business like ours, RingCentral is great.”
Featured image courtesy of Flickr user Mike Renlund.
Originally published Jul 29, 2013, updated Sep 01, 2021
