BroadBandWidth Solutions is based out of San Diego, California, and has been a partner with us since August 2010. The owner, Mark Meadows, tells us how he is succeeding after attending FreedomVoice University training and with the help of a stellar dedicated team at FreedomVoice.
Tell us about your opportunity.
Align General Insurance Agency is a long-term customer of mine that was rapidly expanding their business. They are an insurance company in a call center environment that focuses on high-risk insurers. Whether it is auto liability or health, they go after it. They have three groups taking inbound calls via their Claims Department: personal, auto, and Spanish-speaking.
They had a six year-old Shoretel system that they had maxed out, so they had no choice but to either look at another premise-based PBX or consider a hosted solution. That’s how the opportunity evolved, as we began having meetings to discuss the differences and outline which would better accommodate their custom needs.
What set FreedomVoice apart from an on-premise solution?
A lot of things! First, it was the ability of a FreedomVoice system to scale up and tie in all their remote offices. They have seven different locations, with San Diego as their biggest. From there they have satellites all over the country. They really liked the idea of bringing together all of their employees on one system. The “Adds, Moves, and Changes” environment can be very costly with an on-premise solution.
That flexibility, along with the ease of use of the FreedomVoice platform, plus great pricing, features, functionality, the WebLink portal, and the ability to record calls made choosing FreedomVoice a very easy decision for them.
How does this benefit the customer?
That is a good question. It’s not surprising that a few of the internal employees have given some pushback, a natural human reaction whenever there is change involved. The biggest benefit has been empowering the IT guys they have to manage the system entirely. They can easily add new employees at any office or even a new office. The client also knows they have fixed costs, no spike in phone bills, and can manage everything through WebLink. Any user can log in to the system from anywhere, and that ease of remoting in is a big plus in their eyes!
Tell us more about your company …
How many employees do you have? Just me. I work out of my home.
How long have you been in business? Since 2003, though I’ve been in telecom since 1993 having worked for small and big companies in the past. I wanted to take my knowledge and apply it myself to get the residual.
What other services do you sell? Circuits, XO, integrated arrangements with 30+ carriers that I customize for each. I don’t sell hardware. FreedomVoice is my go-to for hosted solutions.
Is there anything else you would like to include?
I have to be honest with you, FreedomVoice has it really figured out. Bob Harrison is awesome, and continues to be awesome as my Regional Channel Manager. My dedicated FreedomVoice team, Team Yankee, has been awesome. Once this opportunity sold, there was quite a bit of teamwork to configure. I can’t imagine any better team than Lucas Stearns and Travis Mathis. I have good chemistry and continuity with these guys, and they are true experts on the backend. Oh, and I have the Bria App on my iPhone and I love it! It works well in a Wi-Fi environment and gives you all the features that you would get with the Polycom 550.
You have already attended FreedomVoice University. How did this benefit your company?
FreedomVoice University plus repetition has been huge. I continue to learn the system, build confidence, and am getting out there and becoming more independent. FreedomVoice University is also about meeting the people, and I was really impressed with everyone I met. All of you are good people, starting at CEO with Eric, and that puts a warm and fuzzy in your stomach. You are doing the right thing. I continue to build confidence in you guys as a vendor. There are always hiccups with technology, but with the training and your dedicated support services, I feel comfortable now to go out there with any type of customer.
