ELSA LLC Modernizes a 30-Year-Old Phone Infrastructure with Sangoma

The Customer

Located in Elwood, Indiana, ELSA, LLC, along with its Japanese parent company Sakamoto, specializes in manufacturing and assembling fuel tanks, exhaust systems, and structural components for OEM customers and applications.

Business Challenges

When ELSA acquired its digital telephone system in 1998, it was based on technology designed in 1986 to last 30 years. As voicemail technology became commonplace, they added a Voice Mail System component to improve communication. However, as they approached the end of their system’s 30-year lifespan, 1980s technology, no matter how sophisticated it was at the time, could just as well have been a relic of the Dark Ages. Bob Bakehorn, head of ELSA’s information systems group, says the system was decisively inefficient and cost the company a lot of money. “There were very few technicians still available to repair it, and when we finally found someone who knew our telecom equipment, it cost $700 every time they walked through the door,” Bakehorn explains. The legacy system also had few features. “We had added the Voice Mail component. But it had become obsolete, and you had to listen to every recorded voicemail message to get to the current message. We didn’t have caller ID, and that was very important. If you walked down the hall to the bathroom or to consult a colleague, when you returned to your desk, people would say, ‘You had a call while you were away,’ but you had no way of knowing who it was if they didn’t leave a message.” That was very frustrating,” says Bakehorn. To make matters worse, routine administrative tasks were extremely difficult. “Connecting the phones was a nightmare because you had to trace the wiring back to the patch panel, which was often tangled and mislabeled,” he explains.

The search for a new communication system was a long process for Bakehorn. «We needed a replacement system that we could administer internally, but with no budget and no idea what a new system would cost, I asked for recommendations and did a lot of research on the Internet.» Even before beginning the selection process, Bakehorn knew that infrastructure upgrades would be needed. ELSA had a data network, but because of the amount of existing traffic, they were advised not to add voice without upgrading the fiber. To obtain the best call quality, it was worth investing more in the fiber network. «We had a lot of cabling to do, and several cabling companies that submitted bids also sold business phone systems. They asked to demonstrate their product. So, with all the recommendations and a follow-up call from the Switchvox reseller, Pinnacle Voice & Data, I reviewed eight or nine presentations and demonstrations,» Bakehorn explains. «Some of the systems proposed were not large enough to handle the 125 to 150 phones we needed. One of them was sufficient in terms of capacity, but had monthly licensing fees per phone that, over a 10-year period, were $110,000 higher than Switchvox.»

Sangoma Solutions

To ease the transition from an outdated phone system to Switchvox, Pinnacle was able to bring ELSA’s new phones online before switching over the entire system. Although employees could only call internally, leave voicemails, and could not call externally or receive external calls until the final step, this was a practical way to teach employees how to use the new system. On the old system, ELSA had rotating operators who answered the phone. They also operated on a second and third shift, so they had to set the phones to night mode after working hours. It was practically impossible to call and get an answer at that time. Moreover, as a production facility, it was often difficult for the receptionist to locate people to take calls. «We immediately saw that we could get the job done faster using the Switchvox IVR,» says Bakehorn. «Now the phones are configured to automatically distribute calls to the right department, and if the caller needs the receptionist, they just press zero to reach the receptionist queue. Outside working hours, department supervisors can answer calls.»

Affordability was one of ELSA’s key requirements, and it had to cover more than the phone system—it also had to include the phones. As a production, molding, and assembly workshop, ELSA needed IP phones that included high-end executive headsets; on the factory floor and elsewhere in the plant, they wanted an affordable alternative for the phones. “You don’t want a $400 phone on the factory floor where it is often exposed to a harsh environment and can easily break or get wet,” explains Bakehorn. Switchvox’s flexibility and affordability allowed them to purchase a mix of IP phones to meet all the company’s needs without exceeding the budget.

Results

Of all the features in the new Switchvox system, Bakehorn says they value caller ID, visual voicemail, and the company’s IVR most. From an administrative perspective, call reporting is also an excellent tool. “If a call to the main system was lost, hung up, or never answered, we had to determine whether it was worth a technician call costing more than 700 $,” explains Bakehorn. “If someone says that’s happening today, we can check the call logs and find that call.” The company recently received a similar complaint, and Bakehorn’s team was quickly able to verify that the individual’s mobile phone was dropping the call, not ELSA. Normally, the company would have had to pay a lot out of pocket for that service call (even though its phone system was not causing the problem). With easy access to call logs and the reliability of an updated system, the company can relax, with fewer headaches and the added benefit of lower maintenance costs. Bakehorn says: “When you look at the cost savings, it’s things like these that add to the overall savings with Switchvox.”