How An SMB Decides On VoIP
Here’s how the decision to go with VoIP for a small family-owned business looks from the ground up, concentrating on what’s important to that crucial SMB market:
A family owned business launched in 1938, Pacific Lumber is one of the four companies owned by the Morse family. The family has eight locations including lumber yards, truss plants, door and mill work manufacturing and sales offices. Their 300 employees cater to large and small home builders in Oregon and Washington.
About three years ago, after opening a new lumber yard in Bend, Oregon, the costs to operate and maintain their legacy phone system soon escalated beyond what they could tolerate. Though the telephone equipment was all paid for and worked as advertised, even small changes were complex, expensive and time-consuming.
Lesson: Without an extensive in-house IT department, SMBs love products that are anything but complex, expensive or time-consuming. And yes, they're out there.
Alan Churchill, Director of MIS at Pacific Lumber, began looking at possible system replacements. He hoped that moving to an IP (Internet Protocol) telephony product could save money. Key to the project was the need to connect all locations on a single IP network. “We wanted one person answering the phone for all yards at Pacific,” said Churchill. “Plus we needed a system that was cost-effective and easy to manage. We were looking for a phone system that we could simply plug into our existing WAN.”
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Posted to VoIP News