The Challenge: Bringing together a disconnected workforce
Struers’ North American division is located near Cleveland, Ohio. About 40 employees are based out of this office, and another 40 are scattered across the U.S. and Canada. Business communications for the group had relied on a 25-year-old NEC Elite system that was so archaic that it could not even transfer a call coming in to the main number to an employee outside the office.
“If someone called our main office and wanted to speak to our sales rep in California,” explained Mark Griffith, IT Manager at Struers, “our receptionist would have to give the caller a different phone number to call. Of course, no business ever wants to hang up without meeting the customer’s needs because you can’t guarantee that they’ll call back. It was not a good experience for our customers, or our employees.”
Griffith was tasked with evaluating modern solutions that could solve this primary issue. He asked contacts in his network for recommendations which led him to discovering 8x8. Griffith liked the idea of moving away from a traditional phone system to a more flexible unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution.
Not only did 8x8 offer a richer feature set than other vendors, but the company’s standing as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS gave him even more confidence in the solution. “As a customer, Gartner’s recognition of a particular vendor really means something.”
The Solution: A new toolbox for improving communications
Once Struers had made a decision, implementation of 8x8 Work and 8x8 Contact Center was straightforward. “The process could not have been any smoother,” recalled Griffith, “thanks to great assistance from our support reps at 8x8. We’d never set up a contact center and we didn’t know how things would flow. But our reps listened to our needs and helped us through all the setup.” 8x8’s support team even referred Griffith to a trusted voice talent agency that helped them record the call scripts for their auto attendant.
The timing of the migration was perfect—right before the pandemic hit. “I can’t tell you how much that saved our company,” says Griffith. “In one week, I had to go from supporting most people in the office to supporting everyone at their homes. That was a daunting task, but with 8x8, your phone follows you.”
Post migration, Struers is set up to create a great call experience. “We’ve implemented much of the basics, like ring groups,” says Griffith. “And 8x8’s quality management tools have been really helpful, particularly during agent training.”
Griffith himself does regular company-wide “Tech Talks” on special topics. “What’s cool is that our employees asked for an 8x8 segment,” he says. “So, in every talk, I’ll go over some extra 8x8 features that people may not know about.” After a recent introduction to sending SMS texts from 8x8, service agents loved the ability to send customers a photo of a replacement part via SMS, an easy communication that’s both instant and won’t get stuck in a spam folder.
The Benefits: Greater collaboration with far less effort
For Struers North America, the biggest benefit of moving to 8x8 has been the platform’s ability to unify its workforce. “8x8 has really brought us all together in a way that we’ve never had before. And it’s given us a new set of tools to collaborate with each other and our customers. It’s a huge advancement for our company.” In addition, all of those communication tools are unified on one platform, which makes things easier for Griffith when questions arise.
Another major benefit has been a better call experience for Struers’ customers. Now, they can connect to a sales or service agent quickly without any extra effort. Similarly, staff can connect with each other without having to manage a rolodex of phone numbers, and they can do so via text and video as well.
8x8’s analytics tools and reporting helps Griffith provide Struers employees with answers and insights, which was impossible with the old system. He quips, “I like to tell my vendors that ‘I love to work with vendors that make me look good.’ And 8x8 has definitely done that. It’s been a real win-win.”
