The Challenge

When Avaya purchased Nortel’s enterprise network in 2011, it sent ripples across the telecom industry and had a sizeable impact on customers using the network and its associated handsets.

One of our customers at the time, Lancaster Retina Specialists, had Nortel handsets in place, but needed a new system for the phones after the Avaya acquisition. To save them money, we created a mix-and-match solution that involved putting a module into the Avaya IP Office phone system, so that they could communicate on the new Avaya network. They ended up with a mixture of Avaya and Nortel phones that lasted them for several years.

While that system worked well for them for a while, in late 2017, Lancaster Retina Specialists went through an expansion project which essentially doubled the number of phones they needed. They consulted us, and we weighed the costs of upgrading their premise-based operation or transitioning their phone system to the cloud.

One wish that Lancaster Retina Specialists had was for the new system to provide calling queues, so that people on hold could be put into a virtual line and be dealt with in a timely fashion in the correct order. This type of system would reduce hold times for customers and streamline the scheduling process for the schedulers.

The Solution

While we proposed both solutions to Lancaster Retina Specialists, it became clear that upgrading their existing premise-based system was going to be more costly than switching to the cloud—and significantly so. Not only would they need to refresh their (in some cases) 20-year-old Nortel handsets with brand new Avaya IP phones (at double the cost of the cloud-based units), it also meant additional hardware would be required on site. Providing a calling queue solution, for example, would have required an entire server to be installed and maintained on site. In all, the entire premise-based setup would have cost nearly $15,000, not including the monthly maintenance fee for the hardware.

Switching to the Heritage Voice Cloud Phone System, on the other hand, required no up-front costs and no hardware on site beyond the handset units. In fact, we were able to develop a plan for Lancaster Retina Specialists that forklifted their entire network to the cloud, delivered the calling queue feature they wanted, and provided them with a state-of-the-art, voice-over-IP (VoIP) network that could handle the expansion (and future expansions) with ease. The savings were significant. By switching to the cloud, they only had to lease the phones and pay a reasonable monthly service fee for cloud services.

They didn’t even have to change their phone numbers.

The Results

Lancaster Retina Specialists appreciated the attention to detail we provided them and were thankful for the savings. They were so appreciative, in fact, that they entrusted us with many of their other technology needs, including IT and security.

“We have utilized the services of Chris and Justin at Heritage Communications for several years,” said Lancaster Retina Specialist ophthalmologist Dr. Roy Brod. “They now handle all our office IT needs, telephones system installation and maintenance and employee security badges. They recently installed a state of the art VOIP telephone system in our office suite. The new system is fantastic. Their service is excellent. They are extremely knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with. I would highly recommend them.”