Sunwarrior Gains Flexibility, Ease of Use with RingCentral

Sunwarrior is an international nutrition supplement supplier for large chains such as Whole Foods, The Vitamin Shoppe and Health Smart. The company created a protein-based supplement that is organic, dairy-, soy-, genetically modified organism- and allergen-free. While the company provided the market with a popular niche product, they were losing business because of their out-of-date ShoreTel PBX system.

The company went down a conventional path with regard to its phone system, paying thousands of dollars upfront for hardware. But as expensive as it was, the system crashed half a dozen times in the year that Sunwarrior had it.

“The technician would have to come back and upgrade it, turn things on and turn things off. It seemed like it happened all the time,” notes Bill Fowler, the company’s chief sales officer.

Because there were so many phone calls coming in for orders and not enough lines, customers were constantly getting re-directed to a voicemail line, which had to be checked separately. “Needless to say,” Bill points out, “this wasn’t the best customer experience.”

Between having to rely on a technician for every system tweak and all the potential business that was being lost from missed and unanswered calls, Sunwarrior knew there had to be a better solution.

“A marketing promotion from RingCentral couldn’t have come at a better time,” remarks Glen, Sunwarrior’s IT manager. Immediately after installing RingCentral’s cloud-based solution, Sunwarrior was able to optimize communication throughout its office and enable its employees to have more control over their workspace.

“I no longer get requests to do simple things like record a voicemail, or help an employee move desks. They easily unplug their phone and plug it wherever there is an internet connection,” Glen explains.

Tasks that once took up several hours a week now take Glen a minimal amount of time. And Sunwarrior can rapidly scale on an on-demand basis by easily adding new users. RingCentral is also much more cost-effective than the firm’s old on-prem PBX, as RingCentral didn’t require an initial capital outlay and costs roughly $400 less per month.

With all these benefits combined, there’s no turning back, sales exec Bill says happily. “We have been so pleased with RingCentral,” he notes, “it’s hard to remember what it was like with our old system.”

Originally published Jun 10, 2013, updated Aug 22, 2021