The Customer
Eagle Tele-Services is a full-service call center providing continuous after-hours roadside service to the commercial trucking industry. Eagle’s call center supports several independent tire dealers, as well as the U.S. commercial tire network, Michelin Americas Truck Tires and Yokohama Commercial Tire throughout North America. For more than ten years, their call center, located in Powhatan, Virginia, 30 miles west of Richmond, has been at the heart of operations.
Eagle Tele-Services is a full-service call center providing continuous after-hours roadside service to the commercial trucking industry. Eagle’s call center supports several independent tire dealers, as well as the U.S. commercial tire network, Michelin Americas Truck Tires and Yokohama Commercial Tire throughout North America. For more than ten years, their call center, located in Powhatan, Virginia, 30 miles west of Richmond, has been at the heart of operations.
Business Challenges
Eagle Tele-Services had outgrown its legacy phone system, which was stable but simply too limited to handle its call volume. According to Eagle’s IT manager, Coleman Austin, they were satisfied with the decade-old system and initially considered a simple upgrade with the same provider, but found that it would be too expensive. “I knew about open source technology and had an idea of what Asterisk could do,” Austin explains. “When we saw that [our current provider] was going to cost a quarter of a million dollars, it was far beyond our budget, so we had to look for an alternative.” Asterisk is an open-source telecommunications framework that allows programmers to create communication applications such as IP PBX systems, VoIP gateways and conference servers. Sponsored and maintained by Sangoma, Asterisk is also the engine powering their all-in-one commercial phone system, Switchvox. “At first, I was concerned about getting an Asterisk system because I thought it was better suited to technicians or programmers, and I was worried it would have too steep a learning curve. That’s when I discovered Switchvox.”
Solutions From Sangoma
Powered by Asterisk, Switchvox gives users the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of open source without requiring any technical knowledge of Asterisk. The Eagle team saw how easy it was to use through a Switchvox demonstration and webinar training. Austin says the system was so easy to use that extensive training was unnecessary, and they were able to get started immediately. Setting up and installing Switchvox was straightforward. Equipped for VoIP, they had to make a few workarounds to integrate the existing Cisco infrastructure. They replaced some PoE switches and modified the customizable configuration to suit Eagle’s management structure. Eagle also uses a mix of phones, including some Sangoma IP phones. The system also integrates easily with the phones they already own.
Powered by Asterisk, Switchvox gives users the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of open source without requiring any technical knowledge of Asterisk. The Eagle team saw how easy it was to use through a Switchvox demonstration and webinar training. Austin says the system was so easy to use that extensive training was unnecessary, and they were able to get started immediately. Setting up and installing Switchvox was straightforward. Equipped for VoIP, they had to make a few workarounds to integrate the existing Cisco infrastructure. They replaced some PoE switches and modified the customizable configuration to suit Eagle’s management structure. Eagle also uses a mix of phones, including some Sangoma IP phones. The system also integrates easily with the phones they already own.
The Results
The Switchvox system gives Eagle a full menu of features, including advanced IVR capabilities, detailed reporting, mobility and voicemail/email integration, so they can send emails directly from the system. It also provides an intuitive Switchboard interface and call recording for training purposes. Austin says their favorite feature is the built-in queues, which are essential for properly distributing calls in a large, busy call center. “The way the call center is set up, we have representatives who work only with, for example, Michelin customers or only with Yokohama customers, but some representatives are skilled at working with multiple customers. With the way the queues are configured, if all the Michelin representatives are on the phone, that call can be automatically routed to a Yokohama queue, but only to those who also know Michelin. It’s a complex system with many rules, but we can easily and quickly program these queues to do everything we need.”
The Switchvox system gives Eagle a full menu of features, including advanced IVR capabilities, detailed reporting, mobility and voicemail/email integration, so they can send emails directly from the system. It also provides an intuitive Switchboard interface and call recording for training purposes. Austin says their favorite feature is the built-in queues, which are essential for properly distributing calls in a large, busy call center. “The way the call center is set up, we have representatives who work only with, for example, Michelin customers or only with Yokohama customers, but some representatives are skilled at working with multiple customers. With the way the queues are configured, if all the Michelin representatives are on the phone, that call can be automatically routed to a Yokohama queue, but only to those who also know Michelin. It’s a complex system with many rules, but we can easily and quickly program these queues to do everything we need.”