|
In August 2006, Marco upgraded Amcon’s 12 year old phone system at their three locations with an Inter-Tel 5200 Series Voice over IP system. The system includes 23 lines at their main plant in St. Cloud which are fed via a T1 connection from Onvoy and two local lines at their remote locations – the plant in St. Joseph and their showroom on Highway 10 in St. Cloud. The system is transparently networked between all three sites so they all have access to voice mail, caller ID, and unified messaging with faxing via three digit dialing.
Amcon’s new networked voice system from Marco not only improves their day-to-day communications, but also saves them money through a unique program called Marco Managed Voice. The program covers the cost of the new equipment, phone service and support, training, and software upgrades – plus it saves Amcon over $800 per month (over $10,000 per year) from what they were previously paying for their old phone system. And that’s just the hard dollar costs. It doesn’t take into account the soft dollars associated with added features that help their employees communicate more efficiently.
“We were spending too much time and money keeping our old voice system going,” said Jayson. One of the biggest issues Amcon was having with their previous system was downtime. If there was a lightening storm, their phone system could be down for a couple of days. “Before, if our system went down in the middle of the day, we would have to wait until the next day for a service technician to come from St. Paul,” explained Jayson. “If the system needed a part, we had a two to three day waiting period because they needed to get the parts from California. We could call out but we couldn’t transfer any calls. From a service standpoint, working with a local vendor was very appealing to us.”
He added, “Marco has very knowledgeable people and support that helps us improve our technology. Whenever I’ve asked a question, I’ve gotten an answer.” Amcon’s new system includes a backup system to protect them from lightening. Marco’s service plan protects their system seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Marco also helped Amcon implement a Wide Area Network (WAN) by installing new routers which connect their three locations. “Before the upgrade, our network speed at our other locations was very slow. That has greatly improved from what we had before,” said Jayson.
Amcon was pleased with the installation of their new voice and data network. “The installation went excellent,” said Jayson. Marco arranged for the install at all three of Amcon’s locations to be done after their showroom closed at 6:00 p.m. to eliminate downtime. Jayson explained “Marco’s data technicians started by replacing our routers while their voice technicians installed the phone systems. There were Marco people at all of our locations at the same time to get the systems up and running. It all went very smoothly.”
Amcon also looked to Marco to help them organize their voice and data room. Marco installed data racks in their 6’x10’ storage room to house their new voice system and data network. Jayson said, “They basically helped us clean that room up.”
When asked if Amcon Block would recommend Marco, Jayson responded, “Take a good hard look at Marco’s Managed Voice Program because it’s worth the investment. From our perspective, the system works very well!”
|