The Challenge: No formal communications solution in place
Prior to adopting 8x8, The Facilities Group was not using a formal communications system because the company had just started. Employees all had cell phones, and the company hired a third-party answering service to take general incoming calls. However, the manual process of taking a message and finding the right person to give it to was challenging and slow. Sometimes, the caller didn’t receive a call back for several days.
Then, the pandemic hit, and the new company needed to support a remote workforce on both mobile devices and laptops. The fledgling company adopted 8x8 to bypass the complexities and headaches of an on-premises system and take advantage of the simplicity and ease of a fully managed cloud solution. “My technicians wanted to get hands-on with the nuts and bolts of the system,” recalls Gene Tsimmerman, IT Manager at the Facilities Group, “but with 8x8, there was no technical work needed. We could easily pick and choose the features we needed. So, we had to go with 8x8.”
The Solution: Modern, integrated communications
Despite the tumult and host of unknowns caused by the pandemic, the implementation of 8x8 Work went smoothly. The IT team had to onboard all of the various subsidiary companies to 8x8 in order to get everyone on a shared system. “I love the 8x8 onboarding experience,” says Tsimmerman, “It’s really simple, streamlined, and quick. I can get a user up and running in just a few minutes.” When questions became more complex, 8x8’s account representative stepped in and became a liaison for questions and troubleshooting, helping everyone to be on the same page.
The Results: Ready for rapid growth
Moving to 8x8 has given The Facilities Group all the advantages of a modern cloud communications solution. The system is easy for new users to onboard and learn, and easy for IT to manage. No time-consuming and expensive maintenance is needed as 8x8 takes care of keeping the platform updated, secure, and rich with features that benefit customers with a distributed organization like The Facilities Group. The IT team plans to explore more features in the future, such as CRM integration, as their tech stack evolves.
The Facilities Group is continuing to grow, and when a new subsidiary joins, IT can easily onboard the new organization. “All we have to do is get on the phone with the subsidiary and implementation specialists, and I’m like a referee making sure that questions are being understood correctly. It couldn’t be simpler,” says Tsimmerman. When asked if he would recommend 8x8 to other startups, he sums it up in one word: “Absolutely.”
