The Customer
Clark’s Nutrition & Natural Foods Market aims to provide individuals with nutritional knowledge and practical actions across its four locations in California, including Riverside, Rancho Mirage, Loma Linda, and Chino. In addition to its full-service supermarkets, Clark’s publishes a variety of health-focused newsletters, videos, and recipes, among other resources.
Clark’s Nutrition & Natural Foods Market aims to provide individuals with nutritional knowledge and practical actions across its four locations in California, including Riverside, Rancho Mirage, Loma Linda, and Chino. In addition to its full-service supermarkets, Clark’s publishes a variety of health-focused newsletters, videos, and recipes, among other resources.
Business Challenges
Palmer then focused on mobility. Initially, since only a few store employees and consultants traveled between locations, he did not think a mobile app was essential. But suddenly, this mobile concept opened up possibilities that had not been considered before, such as greater flexibility for employees and greater convenience for customers. One crucial point for a phone system solution was that Clark’s did not want to have to rely on external support for the system. Having a system they could manage entirely in-house was a priority. “It was not only costly but also time-consuming to use an external service for something as simple as a menu change or a new extension,” explains Palmer. Internally, staff wanted to be able to reach a manager at any store, at any time, whether they were on the sales floor or in their office. “In retail, it is difficult to know everyone’s schedules because they change often, so for convenience, we wanted to be able to reach the manager or assistant manager on duty whenever we called,” says Palmer. Finally, the CEO wanted protection against any potential cause of a power outage.
Sangoma Solutions
Clark’s Nutrition & Natural Foods Market acquired a Switchvox appliance with a mix of high-definition IP phones for its administrative offices and store floors. They collaborated with NetGain to design and build an internal MPLS network with survivability — the ability to maintain uninterrupted service regardless of the scale, magnitude, or duration of a failure. They also purchased a cold spare that would provide immediate backup to cover the transition period after any failure, in the event of a complete power outage. Their versatile Switchvox system, with advanced UC functionality, serves as a central hub from the headquarters in Riverside. The system supports users across all four locations.
Clark’s Nutrition & Natural Foods Market acquired a Switchvox appliance with a mix of high-definition IP phones for its administrative offices and store floors. They collaborated with NetGain to design and build an internal MPLS network with survivability — the ability to maintain uninterrupted service regardless of the scale, magnitude, or duration of a failure. They also purchased a cold spare that would provide immediate backup to cover the transition period after any failure, in the event of a complete power outage. Their versatile Switchvox system, with advanced UC functionality, serves as a central hub from the headquarters in Riverside. The system supports users across all four locations.
The Results
Currently, Switchvox connects the four stores to the Riverside hub. Customers are directed to any store or department in the chain through an easy-to-program IVR. Staff are also seeing an immediate impact from the mobility features of the Switchvox solution. “We now have more than fifty extensions using the mobile app on iPhones on the sales floor. Every sales associate now has their own extension; so if a customer comes in and speaks with someone, then has more questions later, they can call that extension directly instead of starting over with someone new,” explains Palmer, laughing as he recalls the extremes of moving from an old analog system to VoIP. “What we had was a simple, complete analog phone system with its DOS punch-down server. It may be hard to believe, but we were so concerned about the system overheating and crashing that we actually removed the CPU door on one of the servers and placed a desk fan in front of it to keep it cool!”
Currently, Switchvox connects the four stores to the Riverside hub. Customers are directed to any store or department in the chain through an easy-to-program IVR. Staff are also seeing an immediate impact from the mobility features of the Switchvox solution. “We now have more than fifty extensions using the mobile app on iPhones on the sales floor. Every sales associate now has their own extension; so if a customer comes in and speaks with someone, then has more questions later, they can call that extension directly instead of starting over with someone new,” explains Palmer, laughing as he recalls the extremes of moving from an old analog system to VoIP. “What we had was a simple, complete analog phone system with its DOS punch-down server. It may be hard to believe, but we were so concerned about the system overheating and crashing that we actually removed the CPU door on one of the servers and placed a desk fan in front of it to keep it cool!”
He says they considered several Switchvox competitors while analyzing their needs. “There is no doubt that Switchvox’s price points were much better, but when we were able to simply check off all the features offered by Switchvox against our list of priorities, we had no doubt that Switchvox was the best choice,” says Palmer.