FleetPride keeps business rolling across the U.S. with 8x8

The Challenge: The high costs of a legacy PBX

Prior to adopting 8x8, FleetPride was running a distributed Avaya PBX system, which resulted in high costs for operations, equipment, and third-party maintenance. They wanted to move to a modern, hosted solution and asked their trusted, long-time telecom consultancy partner, BP Innovations, Inc., for help with sourcing a new provider.

FleetPride was looking for the sophisticated features of a modern cloud communications solution, but the company also needed it to be flexible enough to accommodate the business’s particular needs and function like a traditional PBX to support its store locations.

BP Innovations presented two leading solutions, 8x8 and RingCentral. After a thorough walkthrough and careful consideration, the team chose 8x8 due to its greater flexibility and functionality and lower costs. “We selected 8x8 over RingCentral due to cost and functionality. 8x8 could better meet all our requirements,” said John Waldron, Senior Manager of IT Infrastructure at FleetPride.

The Solution: A reliable, flexible, easy-to-manage system

FleetPride migrated to 8x8 in 2018, combining the rollout with another project that included a new software-defined local area network (SD-LAN) and new firewalls. The overall project took quite a bit of planning, but their partner team at BP Innovations was heavily involved every step of the way and worked with 8x8 support to design the system.

FleetPride first set up 8x8 in a test location, ran it, and tweaked the configurations until it met the needs of its operations. “Once we got the baseline down,” recalls Waldron, “we rolled it out to 275 stores. It was a huge effort, but very successful in the end.” Now, whenever the company opens or acquires a new store, it’s fast and easy for IT to get it set up and make any special configurations needed.

Today, most of the staff in the administrative offices and store locations are using 8x8 Work, and the service desk, eCommerce, and wholesale divisions are using 8x8 Contact Center to manage customer interactions. 8x8’s Salesforce integration has been particularly helpful to the wholesale team, as it allows them to access 8x8 from within Salesforce so they can view a customer’s sales history during a call.

For FleetPride’s IT team, 8x8’s ease of use has transformed system administration. Waldron says, “Because it’s hosted, we can easily set up sites or make changes in-house. 8x8 makes it really simple.”

But one of Waldron’s favorite outcomes of the switch has been peace of mind. If something happens at one location, like a power outage or network issue, then 8x8 ring groups will send a call to the nearest sister store or office. He says, “One of the best features of 8x8 is that it just automatically keeps our system up everywhere and we don’t miss a customer call.”

The Results: Significant cost savings

After switching to 8x8, FleetPride has realized significant savings. Monthly operational costs have decreased by about 45%, and the team no longer has to buy and maintain system hardware beyond their initial investment in desk phones.

Maintenance costs have also gone down dramatically. Waldron explains, “The easy configuration and management of 8x8 means that we can now make a lot of changes and troubleshoot issues in-house versus having to pay for a third-party service call.”

Overall, FleetPride has been pleased with their 8x8 system and Waldron is happy to pass along the recommendation. “I would certainly recommend 8x8 anytime I’m in conversation with someone about business communications solutions.”