When people hear “motorcycle,” chances are, they’ll think of a Harley.
But which bike was featured in The Great Escape?
And in the iconic Jurassic World?
What does Bob Dylan ride?
And what motorcycle was Evel Knievel riding when he did his infamous jump at Caesars Palace?
Well, actually, none of these were Harleys.
The biggest British obsession in America since the Beatles
Now, Triumph is a British brand, but its bikes have been ripping through American roads since the 1990s when it launched Triumph Motorcycles America Ltd. to manufacture and sell these iconic bikes through 160 dealers across the US.
With such epic growth happening, Triumph—or more specifically, its Operations Manager Brandon Keller—decided that it was time to upgrade its team’s communications system.
It was perfect timing, since the company was hiring a lot of people at once too. Not only did they need a better voice system than their old PBX, they also wanted a tool that would be flexible enough to offer more advanced communication features for people who needed it—while being capable of just acting as a simple phone if someone didn’t need all the extras.
And he got useful tips along the way too! “The RingCentral team actually showed us ways we could improve our efficiency and collaboration that we didn’t even know about.”
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Doubling engagement rates by… texting?
People are becoming more and more comfortable with businesses sending them texts, whether it’s to confirm an appointment or even to market to them.
Triumph noticed this trend and knew there was an opportunity to do something similar with motorcycle lovers.
“One big selling point that led us to RingCentral was your Business SMS texting capability,” said Brandon. And for good reason: the team sends text messages to prospects, and with RingCentral, they could do that right from their computers. Convenient, hey?
“Turns out we actually underestimated the value of this feature,” said Brandon.
When we started using the RingCentral SMS tool to text consumers, we doubled our engagement rates over what they’d been when our reps were making phone calls.
And that’s not the only perk of using business texting. Now, Triumph’s reps can text as many as 10 prospects at the same time. Before, they could only speak to one person at a time on a call.
(We’re particularly stoked about this one since so many tools out there talk about how they make businesses more “productive” and “efficient” without any details.)
“In terms of boosting engagement and our bottom line, the SMS texting feature has absolutely been a game changer for us,” says Brandon.
Saving 30% by trying something new
Business texting aside, Triumph was actually saving money with RingCentral in a whole variety of ways.
For one, they didn’t have to support their aging PBX phone system anymore. They were also able to slim down the number of tools being used, like a video online meeting app, since they could have video meetings with RingCentral.
Video conferencing is super important because Triumph has 160 dealers all across the US. “We can host a live training session—say, to tell our dealers about the details of a new bike—and RingCentral lets us record that entire video and show it on-demand to our other dealers. This is another game changer because it frees our people up from having to host that same training session over and over for every dealer.”
The team can share their screens with each other while on video calls too:
And that’s not all. “This system is also benefiting us in ways that we didn’t anticipate when we rolled it out,” said Brian. “For example, we set up our call center staff on RingCentral, and the service was great for helping us more easily rotate people in and out based on their shifts.”
Key plot point here: Triumph’s call center was running 24/7.
And while that sounds very nice and convenient (for customers), running anything 24 hours a day, seven days a week can create a serious strain on resources.
Using RingCentral, Triumph discovered a better way to do this. “We started using the Live Reports to learn more about how our calls were being handled,” said Brandon. Soon, he realized that they didn’t have to keep the call center running 24/7.
Almost nobody was calling after midnight or on Sundays, so that insight allowed us to adjust schedules in ways that made more business sense. Right there, RingCentral helped us save money without sacrificing our customer experience.
Okay, okay. All these benefits sound great and all, but what does that actually translate to?
“We’re now seeing a 30% savings over our old system, which is real money,” said Brandon.
Helping our customers save money? That makes our team very happy.
🤯 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 communications with clients or customers, and each other.
Originally published Mar 01, 2020, updated Feb 24, 2022