Customer Success Stories

"We operate much more as a close-knit unit since we installed the Star2Star system."

George Harmon, Controller

-- Billhorn Converters, a multi-location Star2Star customer

QUALITY

When Gerry Ball needed to add a call recording feature to his company's existing phone system, he called his telecom dealer and asked for a quote. Ball is VP of Sales for two related companies, Select Care Benefits Network and Medigap 360, both located in Austin TX. The companies operate two call centers on opposite sides of town.

The larger of the two call centers was using an aging analog PBX with about 100 users. The smaller call center had 30 agents using a hosted VoIP solution. But Ball wasn't satisfied with the call quality or the reliability of the hosted solution. To complicate matters, both businesses were growing rapidly, and a facilities move was inevitable.

When Ball received the quote, he couldn't believe his eyes: $70,000 to add call recording to an essentially obsolete PBX system. That quote was the impetus he needed to begin his search for a better solution.

Ball evaluated several VoIP products, but none offered the combination of call quality, reliability and disaster failover that he needed. Finally, he met with representatives from The Comtel Group, a Star2Star dealer based in Costa Mesa, California.

Comtel's analysts looked at Select Care's business needs and performed an audit on their existing telephone and Internet connection costs. Comtel recommended installing the Star2Star system with the StarCenter call center option at both business locations, using Star2Star's line pooling feature to share trunks across both locations. StarCenter allows system administrators to create sophisticated call queues to manage large number of incoming calls, and includes call recording as a standard feature.

Switching to Star2Star offered several major benefits over the alternatives:

• Since Select Care opted to lease their Star2Star system, their out-of-pocket costs were $0.
• Overall telecom expenditures dropped from $14,700 per month to around $6,000 per month with Star2Star, a savings of over $8,000 per month - including the lease payment on the Star2Star system.
• Both locations have a unified dial plan, with inter-office direct dialing. There is no charge for inter-office calling.
• Key employees never miss a call, thanks to Star2Star's innovative Find-Me / Follow-Me call routing.
• The unified Star2Star system provides unlimited conference calling and voice mail (with email and SMS notification) to all users at both locations.
• The entire system can be administered from any web browser, anywhere.
• Star2Star's excellent disaster recovery options provide business continuity in the event of a power or Internet outage, equipment failure, or other disaster.

POWER

As the new owner of a small chain of Murphy Bed stores, one of the first tasks for Pat Doyle was to make the operations more efficient and cost effective.

A major deliverable in meeting this goal was to streamline office communications. Pat turned to Star2Star for a phone system that would accomplish this while also saving him money, and increase reliability by using a high speed Internet connection to eliminate his local and long distance phone companies.

Specifically, Pat had 3 stores and one warehouse which only had one phone. This setup made it quite difficult for the staff to communicate between locations. After spending just a few minutes per extension in the Star2Star Setup Wizard, Pat was able to create a virtual phone system. Now, not only would communications be much easier for his staff but customer relations would be greatly improved. With the Star2Star System a call can be answered by another store when the sales people are unavailable to pick up the phone. Pat's warehouse doesn't even need a phone system of its own because it is a remote extension to the main store. With Star2Star Pat's staff can now transfer calls from store to store via local extensions. When customers reach a rep's voicemail they can dial 0 to speak to a predetermined "operator" or 1 to be transferred to any number the rep programmed (cell, home, branch office, etc). The automated attendant picks up after-hours and allows people to still reach individuals or get driving directions. The system even comes with a free professional voice-over recording of the main menu greeting and an after hours greeting.

"The Star2Star complete end-to-end phone system has powerful features that help us do business better. From the easy installation process that just took a few hours to the actual daily usage of the phone system, we have found that Star2Star consistently delivers on their promise to provide next generation capabilities and reliable connections at unprecedented savings."

Pat Doyle, CEO and Owner

-- The More Space Place

RELIABILITY

"Until we discovered Star2Star we couldn't find a service provider that offered personalized 24-hour monitoring of our business phone system. Within a few months of using the Star2Star Phone System lightning struck our building and we got to see firsthand that Star2Star can deliver on what they promise. The monitoring response team arrived quickly and the disaster recovery plan activated without a hitch so we still had a working phone system.

Our failover plan was to reroute inbound calls through the fax line by forwarding our number and have the phone system automatically reroute outbound calls. On the other side, my traditional carrier for Internet access took days to restore my Internet connection. A business communication system is obviously a crucial factor to any company and with Star2Star we are completely confident that our phone system will be working even when disaster strikes."

M. Jane DiGirolomo, Regional Manager

-- Mango Bay Management, LLC

SAVINGS

Billhorn Converters has been manufacturing, processing, and distributing paper products since 1990. Over the years, the company has grown and expanded into six locations in three states. Unfortunately, their communications costs were growing faster than the business.

Billhorn's existing phone system didn't have voice mail or multi-party conferencing, so the company purchased those services on a pay-as-you-go basis. Each of the company's six locations had its own phone lines and numbers, but there was no easy way to transfer calls from one office to another.

More importantly, calls between business locations were placed as ordinary 10-digit toll calls. This had the dual side effects of increasing telephone costs while discouraging inter-office communications. Incoming calls to each location came to the receptionist's desk, so after hours calls went unanswered.

After consulting with their local Star2Star Dealer, Billhorn management decided to replace their existing phone systems with Star2Star. The effect on Billhorn's business operations was immediate and far-reaching:

• Inter-office calls – which had previously been dialed as long-distance calls – are now free calls. Every extension in Billhorn's facilities is just five digits away from any other. Billhorn employees can call each other as often and for as long as they like without regard to cost.
• Telephone conferences – previously a pay-as-you-go service – are now widely used, improving communications and increasing collaboration.
• Key employees are reachable any time using Star2Star's find me / follow me call routing - even if they are out of the office and on their cell phones.
• Incoming calls at any location can be transferred to any extension, so customers don't have to hang up and dial a different number.
  After-hours calls are automatically sent to a ring group that rings at the other Billhorn locations. Incoming calls to the main office (in the Eastern time zone) can be answered by a receptionist in Louisiana or Washington state up to three hours after the close of business on the East coast.
• All employees now have access to state of the art, unlimited voice mail with the option to send new voicemails to their e-mail inboxes.

Despite the huge improvement in their telephone service, Billhorn is saving over $700 per month in telephone charges.

"We can answer incoming calls across all three time zones with no additional personnel, and our customers really like being able to reach us almost any time."

George Harmon, Controller

Billhorn Converters