Today’s guest post is written by Joe Ballarino, President and Co-Founder of Amerivest Realty, a full service real estate brokerage. Amerivest switched to RingCentral service last year to address business challenges and improve business operations. Here Joe shares his thoughts about why he made the switch and its positive effects on Amerivest Realty.
Challenges with Our Old Phone System
Previous to RingCentral, we hosted an on-premise phone system. The system often had technical issues which required costly consultants to repair. More importantly, these issues were often total outages which were not only inconvenient, but also adversely affected our business, potentially causing loss of revenue for the brokerage and our associates.
Additionally, system configuration was always challenging. As real estate professionals, most of our associates work outside of the office, relying on their cell phones to properly conduct business. Our system could forward calls to cell phones, but this was an insufficient and inelegant solution because we had no way to monitor or manage calls from our office.
At Amerivest Realty we pride ourselves on the service we provide to our associates and their customers, and strive for an efficient office and business practices, and we knew the on premise system was woefully inadequate to meet these goals.
Why We Moved to RingCentral
The timing was right to make a decision on a new platform because we were about to open an additional office in a new area code. We wanted a single system to accommodate all offices, but the cost of expanding the on-premise system was exorbitant. As we researched the market, we were impressed with RingCentral’s service offering.
In addition to solving issues with hardware and remote associates, RingCentral also let us combine phone and fax services into a single number. We have less to manage, our associate have less to manage, their customers have simpler communication channels, and we could retire the old fax server.
Are We Happy with RingCentral? Yes!
Our switch to RingCentral reduced our telecommunications costs by almost 30 percent, and RingCentral’s cloud-based phone services have exceeded our expectations.
Our IT expense savings were greater than anticipated because RingCentral is configurable by non-technical people. In fact, RingCentral is so easy to use that I mostly set up the system myself. I needed assistance with number porting, but RingCentral’s support team made that process painless.
We were able to set up over 150 extensions and port 200 phone numbers in just a few weeks. Now adding or removing extensions is simple and handled by our administrative staff.
As Amerivest Realty grows, we trust RingCentral to provide for our telecommunication needs. We have confidence in the system to provide for our needs and control costs. As we expand our business, we feel confident in RingCentral’s service growing with us.