Dessange International, owner of Fantastic Sams and Camille Albane Salon brands, is the latest in a growing number of global companies to cut costs by moving telecommunications to the cloud. After signing on with RingCentral (News - Alert), Dessange is enjoying a noticeable savings, according to Linda Halbruner, senior IT director at Dessange. “With RingCentral we’re spending significantly less each month versus our old on-premise PBX (News - Alert) and we didn’t need to invest tens of thousands of dollars upfront in capital expenses.”
PBX stands for “public branch exchange,” the standard on-premise telephone exchange box that businesses have used for decades. Calls arrive at the business’ physical location and are routed to extensions and voicemails via PBX. It’s a good system, but the mobile and global growth of business demands a more flexible option.
The question of conversion costs has kept many businesses from exploring the option of cloud communications. To change a legacy phone system often requires expensive new equipment and visits from phone company technicians, at a hefty cost. This doesn’t seem to be the trend in the cloud telecom industry.
Cloud communications providers can offer a wealth of services – and savings – for a company’s IT needs. For Dessange, RingCentral brings virtual management to a phone system that can handle the services of multiple brick and mortar stores as well as mobile employees. Management of the phone system is done virtually, usually via software. Halbrunner notes, “I used to waste several hours a week fiddling with the convoluted system, often having to rely on a specialized technician to make simple tweaks such as changing the time or forwarding calls when a receptionist went on vacation. Now, with RingCentral, it only takes me a few minutes to add a new employee or extension to the system no matter where the salon is located. And best of all -- I can do it all remotely from my iPad.”
The cloud offers benefits for end users too. With a custom app the thirty percent of Dessange’s employees who are mobile are now able to make and receive calls though their business number using their personal cell phones.
The great hope of tech advancement has always been that it will make our lives easier and less expensive. Cloud telecom solutions like RingCentral seem to be helping us along in the right direction.
Edited by Rich Steeves