SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 30, 2013 -- Thrive
Senior Living, operator of a growing network of senior-living communities
in Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Texas, differentiates itself by emphasizing
innovation to improve the lives of residents. To help make this happen, it relies
on strong relationships with technology partners Tazergy, Inc., a consulting firm, and 8x8 Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT), whose hosted VoIP and
Unified Communications (UC) services provide the organization with customizable,
feature-rich communications within its 11 senior living communities.
Unlike many senior housing
communities that are behind the technological curve, Thrive has built an IT
infrastructure designed to support current operational requirements as well as those
emerging from an increasingly social, tech-savvy generation. A key component of
this infrastructure is the 8x8 hosted
PBX communications network it has deployed across its entire organization,
enabling it to dramatically improve the quality, breadth and reliability of its
internal communications while significantly reducing the cost.
“8x8 is a
great example of leading-edge business
VoIP technology,” says Thrive President Tod Petty. “With 8x8’s services,
staff at corporate headquarters, building sites and community offices can
benefit from state of the art communications technologies using both wired and
mobile devices. And, because the
services are cloud-based rather than premises-based, users can access the full
array of capabilities wherever they have an Internet connection.”
Although Thrive had already been using VoIP phone
service from another provider, an analysis of that system’s capabilities
revealed it lacked the functionality needed to connect the company’s
multi-state offices and was, at the same time, costly to deploy and maintain. At
Tazergy’s recommendation, Thrive installed 8x8 Virtual Office Pro at its
corporate headquarters in Atlanta, and 8x8 Virtual Office at its community
offices. Right away, Petty and his team noticed improved functionality.
“Thrive came to realize, as many companies do, that all
VoIP services are not alike,” said Tazergy President and CEO Matt Haywood. “When
making the transition to VoIP, it’s important to conduct a thorough assessment
of your business needs along with a careful review of the providers you are
considering before making a decision. Even though Thrive still had a one-year
contract in place with its previous provider, it was our recommendation that
they implement the 8x8 service immediately to secure the features and
functionality they needed now.”
Hosted PBX and UC unite multi-state offices, even
construction trailers
Easy extension dialing and corporate directories for
each community are more than just a convenience for Thrive employees. Petty
says they have also helped with team building throughout the company.
“Our users don’t have to dial 8 or 9 to place an
outside call; they can just dial a 4-digit extension. The system displays all
incoming calls, so there’s never a missed call, and it’s easy to call the
person back without having to look up their number. Email notification of
voicemail messages means that users never miss a message either.”
8x8 Virtual Meeting web conferencing is another
popular feature at Thrive. Employees at Thrive’s Atlanta headquarters can
schedule web meetings from their browser or directly from Outlook using 8x8’s free
downloadable plugin.
Value of virtual numbers
In addition to providing advanced VoIP features, 8x8 has significantly reduced
Thrive’s telephony costs and streamlined the sales cycle for its communities.
Whenever Thrive begins a new development, the company opens a temporary sales
office inside a trailer, and starts the pre-sales process by distributing
fliers and displaying billboards with a unique telephone number dedicated to
those leads.
In the past, the company had to purchase and install
expensive premises-based phone systems to hook up actual analog lines for its
temporary offices. Then Thrive had to wait for a phone company to assign new
phone numbers.
With 8x8, the wait — and expense — are over. Now,
when Thrive opens a new temporary sales office, 8x8 can immediately assign a
new virtual
number for sales leads. Other than an Internet connection, no other
equipment needs to be installed. The virtual number appears on the company’s
pre-sales literature and billboards.
Initially, calls go to a dedicated voicemail box,
where leads are captured for later follow up. When the active sales cycle kicks
off, the number is reassigned to a ring group for live answering by a Thrive
representative.
Substantial cost savings
Haywood estimates
that 8x8 phone services save Thrive $10,000 to $15,000 per community in reduced
telephony expenses.
“We used to spend about $5-7K just for the phone
system for each temporary sales trailer, and then much more to get the
community’s phone system up and running,” Haywood says. “With 8x8 hosted VoIP, there
is no complex on-site PBX equipment, or the extensive labor, installation and ongoing
support fees that comes with it. We can even move the phones from the temporary
trailer to the new community once it’s ready. It’s been a huge savings.”
Petty and Haywood say they’re both fans of 8x8’s simplified
approach to system changes, which Tazergy manages as part of its IT consulting
services.
“In the past it was difficult to make changes to the
phone system,” recalls Petty. “I’d have to call my IT consultant, and sometimes
that call would take a couple of hours. With 8x8, all I have to do is send Matt
one email, and the change is done that day.”
8x8 CEO Bryan Martin said: “Thrive Senior Living is a
perfect example of the value customers can derive from doing business with
us. It’s a multi-location business with facilities
in four states and people using a range of wired and mobile devices on a single
communications network. The management
and staff at Thrive found that our hosted Virtual Office solutions deliver
greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness versus competing offers.”
About 8x8, Inc.
8x8, Inc.
(NASDAQ: EGHT) empowers business conversations for more than 30,000 small and
medium-sized businesses with cloud communications services that include hosted
PBX telephony, unified communications, call
center software and video conferencing solutions. The company has been
delivering business communications services since 2004 and has garnered a
reputation for technical excellence and outstanding reliability. In 2012, 8x8
was named
a market “leader” in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as
a Service (UCaaS) in North America and was recognized as the No. 1
Provider of Hosted IP Telephony by Frost & Sullivan. For additional
information, visit www.8x8.com, or connect
with 8x8 on Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter.
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