For years, the financial services reps at Steve Rice & Associates have been earning a reputation for outstanding client service.
What makes that extra remarkable is that until recently, the firm wasn’t even operating with up-to-date IT communication tools.
“We used handsets, landlines, and paper to communicate with clients and each other,” says Xander Rice, a partner with the firm.
In other words, Steve Rice & Associates was developing its reputation for stellar service excellence—and growing its practice almost entirely through referrals—even with technology that made it more difficult to be accessible and responsive to clients.
Which was in itself amazing, but as problems kept mounting with its on-premise phone system, Xander and his team knew they had to start looking for something better.
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An old phone system with more liabilities than assets
Although the firm’s small team was making do with the phone service they had, Xander knew they needed more if they were going to maintain their reputation as a client-centric firm.
The legacy system, for example, didn’t offer a call routing option that would allow one employee to receive a client’s call if their colleague wasn’t able to answer.
Not only that, with Xander and his partner frequently on the road visiting clients and prospects, they needed to be able to receive and make business calls from different devices like their laptops, tablets, and cell phones.
They couldn’t do that with their original phone service—the only way anyone could make or take a call using their business number was to be at their desk.
With RingCentral, though, not only could they take calls from their personal phones while showing their business numbers (and shielding their personal cell phone numbers), the team could also “flip” their meetings from one device to another without interrupting the conversation.
Which means that if someone was on a call on their cell phone and wanted to switch to their laptop so that they could share their screen, all they had to do was open up the app and hit a button 👇:
Even more frustrating, the phone system itself wasn’t user-friendly at all. That meant making even minor administrative changes, like updating the contact directory, required help from outside experts. They had to pay for an expensive IT consulting service to come in, just to manage and troubleshoot the system.
How one tool can completely change your client service…
When they switched to RingCentral, Xander and his team solved a ton of issues that the team was facing—and created several additional benefits (for their clients!) as well.
The most immediate change Xander saw was the firm’s newfound mobility. “I really appreciated that I could take business calls from my car,” he says.
The team also appreciated the fact that they could now, finally, set and update call routing instructions as often as they wanted—all through a user-friendly portal, and all with just a few clicks. This was good for the team, and their clients too.
“If a client calls in, and my office manager can’t get it, then it can ring to me, or someone else, or two people, or go to voicemail. The flexibility we have is terrific.”
Here’s another creative way the firm is using its new cloud phone system to improve the client experience: by integrating RingCentral with their CRM system.
The team at Steve Rice & Associates uses Redtail CRM and RingCentral together to automate workflows, make their calls more efficient, and improve the quality of their customer interactions.
“I love the fact that anytime a client calls, it automatically pulls up their account info and I can see it all, including my own notes about the client, before I pick up.”
In Redtail CRM’s dashboard, Steve Rice & Associates’ team can not only dial their customers and prospects through RingCentral, they can also see who a contact was referred by, the dollar amount associated with a potential deal, and more.
“RingCentral has actually lowered our overall telecom costs by almost 60% a year.”
Finally, as if all of that weren’t enough good news, Steve Rice & Associates is also saving—substantially—on its telecom costs since switching to RingCentral.
“We’re getting a world-class phone system—with big-business features we never had before, and outstanding customer service and support—and at the same time RingCentral has actually lowered our overall telecom costs by almost 60% a year.”
Where were all these savings coming from? Well, first, they were able to cut telecom costs by eliminating the individual landlines the business was paying for. “They were even charging us for a couple of extra numbers just for on-hold lines,” explains Xander. “Switching to RingCentral let us get rid of those as well.”
The other thing was IT support. Like many businesses, Steve Rice & Associates was paying every time someone had to come in and fix something in their old phone system.
“And that’s not even taking into account the hundreds of dollars we had to pay for every support call that resulted in a tech having to come out and fix a problem,” says Xander.
We always love seeing small businesses punch above their weight using the right tools, and we’re glad to have Steve Rice & Associates on board!
🤯 You could save up to $400 an hour in IT costs.
Explore the RingCentral Advantage for small businesses:
💰 You can also use this calculator to see roughly how much your business could save by using RingCentral to support your team’s communication with each other—and clients.
Check out the full case study.
Originally published Aug 06, 2020, updated Aug 05, 2024
