Setting up New Locations Now Requires Less Than An Hour All that changed when UFC GYM eliminated its individual hardware PBXs, and unified its U.S. locations on the 8x8 telephony platform. According to Goodman, setting up new locations now takes much less time and effort. “Before, there were a million steps,” he says. “We had to order equipment, wait for it to arrive, work with the carrier and configure devices. The whole process took days, or even weeks. With 8x8, we just order new phone numbers and plug in the phones when they arrive. We can literally have a new location up and running within the hour.” Moving to the Cloud Means No More Maintenance—and No More Lost Sleep These days, Goodman spends a lot less time troubleshooting phone system problems I was concerned we as well. Back in the day, he often dealt with call quality issues, software updates, and equipment maintenance. wouldn’t have control over Not anymore. the phone system if we moved it to the cloud. But “Our 8x8 phone system is fully hosted, so there’s no software to update or hardware 8x8 provides all the to fix,” he says. “Issues are very rare, and when they do arise, 8x8 takes care of them. Before, a simple thing like a Windows update could throw our whole phone system management tools we out of whack, and we’d have to spend hours troubleshooting it. Now that everything’s need... we have the control in the cloud, we don’t have to worry about a PC blue-screening.” we need, and 8x8 takes Goodman admits he was previously committed to hands-on system management and care of the rest.” reluctant to embrace cloud-based hosting. —Greg Goodman “I was concerned we wouldn’t have control over the phone system if we moved it to IT Director the cloud,” he explains. “But 8x8 provides all the management tools we need—and UFC GYM we can access the system from any web browser. It’s really a win-win: we have the control we need, and 8x8 takes care of the rest. I don’t lose sleep anymore worrying about our phones going down.” Extension Dialing Streamlines Employee-to-Employee Calls With the nationwide expansion of the UFC brand, connecting the company’s geographically dispersed locations has been another key benefit of 8x8 cloud communications. Employees now dial extensions to reach colleagues at any facility. They can also call directly, whereas previously calls had to go through the front desk. Goodman particularly likes the fact that call recipients can immediately see who is calling them. “Before you could see which location was calling, but you didn’t know who the actual caller was,” he explains. “Now our employees know when I’m calling and vice versa. Plus, not having to go through the front desk saves a lot of time, and time is definitely money in our business.” Ring Groups Ensure Live Answering at the Front Desk At UFC GYM locations, outside calls are answered live by front desk staff. To make that process efficient for both employees and callers, the company uses 8x8 ring groups. When a call comes in, anyone in the ring group can answer it. This gives staff much- needed flexibility when the front desk is busy, and reduces wait times for callers. 2 CASE STUDY