The Customer
Founded in Missouri, St. Louis Foods is a supplier of ancillary food products to commercial restaurants across the Midwest. For decades, it was located in an old building with what employees called “spaghetti wiring” and a 20-year-old digital phone system that lacked even basic features like caller ID and voicemail.
Founded in Missouri, St. Louis Foods is a supplier of ancillary food products to commercial restaurants across the Midwest. For decades, it was located in an old building with what employees called “spaghetti wiring” and a 20-year-old digital phone system that lacked even basic features like caller ID and voicemail.
Business Challenges
After their original phone provider went bankrupt, St. Louis Foods struggled to find anyone familiar with the technology in their old phone system or with legacy spare parts. “It’s impossible to describe exactly how outdated and confusing the old system was,” says Matt Rygelski, a Switchvox reseller at PhoneWire in Fairview Heights, Illinois. “I found myself mostly using spare phones and limited by unreliable labels and a complete tangle of phone wiring that was almost impossible to trace. Cables were taped to broken phones, and the former phone administrator had used correction fluid to label many of them!” All of that changed when the new generation of owners took over the well-established food distributor and relocated the facilities to a newly revitalized area of the neighboring city of Belleville, Illinois. The new location came with a modern office space featuring fiber-optic wiring, new floors, fresh paint, updated office furniture, and upgraded computers. All St. Louis Foods needed was a modern phone system to go with it all. However, they had one unique request. Despite their new location in Illinois, they asked to keep their 314 area code to maintain their historic status as a St. Louis business. “That area code feature was important to us,” says Mike Truran, vice president of St. Louis Foods. “Some brand devaluation comes with moving to another state, and there are many benefits to continuing to be seen as a local St. Louis business. We knew we had to be pragmatic, but it was important to us to keep reflecting that 314 number on incoming and outgoing calls. We were determined to make this work in a positive way.”
Sangoma Solutions
Based on his experience with the company and his understanding of their goals and requirements, Rygelski guided St. Louis Foods through several phone options, including estimating a premises-based VoIP system and considering an upgraded digital phone system. The latter was a relatively inexpensive option but did not adequately address future issues. Ultimately, St. Louis Foods wanted to put an end to makeshift repairs and find an affordable solution to their problems. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” says Truran. “However, my goal was not to spend five figures on a replacement phone system that, ten years from now, when that system is old and we need something more technologically up to date, would force us to pay another five- or six-figure sum for a newer system to achieve our goals.” With this in mind, Rygelski did not hesitate to recommend Switchvox Cloud, the award-winning hosted PBX and complete Unified Communications (UC) solution. “Now that we have Switchvox Cloud, it really makes you reassess the challenges of owning your own phone system,” says Truran. “We owned our old phone system and all the headaches that came with it. We had no technical support. If the phones stopped working, all we could do was call the phone company, and that never got us quick answers.” Switchvox Cloud is also essential for preparing the company for future growth. “They needed a lot of flexibility, and although their new office building gives them room to grow, their phone system did not,” explains Rygelski. “If they wanted to add a phone or move one from one place to another, they had to call a technician to trace all that wiring in the hope of finding an available jack. The old system was full, and they had reached a point where the only way to add more phones was to buy expansion modules or cards.” The time and human resources a company wants to devote to managing an on-site telecom system are also significant. “One phone number, and we manage all their routine support and programming,” says Rygelski. “With Switchvox Cloud, all the control is off-site. In one day, everything is online, and the phones are plugged in and working. Any feature the customer can imagine is configured for them, such as integration with internal software and mobile app settings, setup of the auto attendant, IVR, call trees, and carrier restrictions. Additionally, the client’s server is in the cloud, so they have complete redundancy and emergency backup without needing to invest in and configure an on-site cold standby.” Rygelski concludes.
Based on his experience with the company and his understanding of their goals and requirements, Rygelski guided St. Louis Foods through several phone options, including estimating a premises-based VoIP system and considering an upgraded digital phone system. The latter was a relatively inexpensive option but did not adequately address future issues. Ultimately, St. Louis Foods wanted to put an end to makeshift repairs and find an affordable solution to their problems. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” says Truran. “However, my goal was not to spend five figures on a replacement phone system that, ten years from now, when that system is old and we need something more technologically up to date, would force us to pay another five- or six-figure sum for a newer system to achieve our goals.” With this in mind, Rygelski did not hesitate to recommend Switchvox Cloud, the award-winning hosted PBX and complete Unified Communications (UC) solution. “Now that we have Switchvox Cloud, it really makes you reassess the challenges of owning your own phone system,” says Truran. “We owned our old phone system and all the headaches that came with it. We had no technical support. If the phones stopped working, all we could do was call the phone company, and that never got us quick answers.” Switchvox Cloud is also essential for preparing the company for future growth. “They needed a lot of flexibility, and although their new office building gives them room to grow, their phone system did not,” explains Rygelski. “If they wanted to add a phone or move one from one place to another, they had to call a technician to trace all that wiring in the hope of finding an available jack. The old system was full, and they had reached a point where the only way to add more phones was to buy expansion modules or cards.” The time and human resources a company wants to devote to managing an on-site telecom system are also significant. “One phone number, and we manage all their routine support and programming,” says Rygelski. “With Switchvox Cloud, all the control is off-site. In one day, everything is online, and the phones are plugged in and working. Any feature the customer can imagine is configured for them, such as integration with internal software and mobile app settings, setup of the auto attendant, IVR, call trees, and carrier restrictions. Additionally, the client’s server is in the cloud, so they have complete redundancy and emergency backup without needing to invest in and configure an on-site cold standby.” Rygelski concludes.
The Results
To maintain an outside area code without all the complexities of monthly line costs, PhoneWire set up call forwarding using a Personal Communications Service (PCS). When calls come from St. Louis’s former 314 area code, they are automatically forwarded to Belleville’s new 618 area code. Thanks to this call-forwarding service, callers from St. Louis will never know they are calling the company in Illinois. “Another benefit we really appreciate is the call reporting features,” says Truran. “As a manager, with the old system, I never had any way of knowing who was calling or how many personal and business calls employees were receiving or making. I also couldn’t track or analyze trends, such as which days we received the most phone traffic and what types of calls they were. Having these features helps us analyze our call volume and make better staffing decisions.” Truran also appreciates being able to access his voicemail through his email in the Switchvox mobile app. “Switchvox Cloud lets you take your office with you when you travel, wherever you go,” says Truran. “Of course, saving money can never be overestimated,” Truran continues. “I know for certain that we have saved several hundred dollars a month in equipment and rental fees thanks to our new Switchvox Cloud phone system.”