I-10 Toyota Revs-Up Communications with Vertical Wave IP

I-10 Toyota

Customer Pain Points

I-10 Toyota is a prominent automotive dealership in Southern California with two facilities: a primary location that handles new car sales and a second site, just yards away, for used cars. Like many dealerships, I-10 Toyota found itself at a crossroads in how to handle a changing business environment. Recent substantial growth necessitated a major renovation of its main facility and the addition of more than 40 employees.

Not a bad problem to have, but the dealership still relied on an old PSTN communications network that had many shortcomings, including unreliable voicemail and messaging services which resulted in numerous missed messages and the loss of potential sales.

The Wave IP solution has delivered. It allows us to capture more business, enhance our customer service, and function as a more efficient operation.

Tim King, Director of IT, I-10 Toyota

The two sites utilized a legacy DSS/BLF system with no ability for administrators to view the availability of the system’s 90 users and no call routing capabilities. Sales staff and other employees found it cumbersome to access the system when moving between the dealership’s two buildings or across its sizable lots, often affecting customer service. To monitor the quality of its customer service, the company contracted with a costly outside vendor to record and monitor calls for a monthly fee.

“It was obvious we needed a fresh communications solution,” said Timothy King, director of information technology at I-10 Toyota. “The right technology would not only solve our issues, but could deliver much more productivity than we received from our old platform.” Yet, while realizing the need to upgrade, King was obligated to salvage as much of its existing communications infrastructure as possible to fit within a tight budget due to the ongoing renovation project.

Solution

King researched various solutions, including those from Vertical Communications® and ShoreTel. Only Vertical offered an exclusive suite of applications embedded directly in its communications platform that are designed to help improve the unique business processes of an auto dealership. In addition to the Wave IP’s standard features, the Wave IP Automotive Bundle includes Call Classifier software that integrates with industry CRM systems such as DealerSocket, Reynolds Contact Management and Higher Gear to provide intelligent call handling and routing based on real-time customer data. The Campaign Tracker application lets dealerships create and analyze the results of marketing campaigns in real-time; and the automated Appointment Reminder application helps ensure service bays remained full and profitable. Under Vertical’s singular licensing payment model, I-10 Toyota could deploy these new tools over time. In addition, with the Wave IP system, the dealership could leverage its legacy Vodavi handsets, allowing it to preserve a significant hardware investment.

King was sold.

Vertical enlisted long-time Authorized Partner Fusion Communications to assist with the system’s deployment and installation. Fusion connected both dealership locations through Wave IP’s WaveNet application, allowing employees to seamlessly communicate and view call-handling processes at each facility while streamlining system administration.

“Vertical’s system is a very straightforward system to deploy, configure and manage, and it offered a far greater level of performance than other solutions I-10 Toyota looked at,” noted Steve Musé, Fusion’s chief executive officer. “It was also nearly half the price of some of the other systems they evaluated.”

Results

According to Musé, I-10 Toyota made a very wise choice in investing in the Wave IP. Its Call Recording feature alone has enabled the dealership to cancel its Who’s Calling third-party call measurement service, saving close to $2,400 per month, while giving the dealership direct visibility into its customer service performance.

“We love the Wave IP’s ViewPoint user interface,” said King. “It is extremely intuitive, so our staff can change and update features to meet their own needs. And now, we have a view of everyone on the system. We know who’s available to receive a call at any given time. The ability to connect an incoming caller with an appropriate department or employee enables us to enhance customer satisfaction, which is of utmost importance to the dealership. And the ViewPoint Mobile application extends those capabilities and features to our staff’s personal mobile devices.

“Wave IP offered a superior range of productivity-boosting features at a reasonable price,” continued King. “We were able to retain much of our current equipment, so the staff didn’t have to learn a new set of procedures to work the phones. Wave IP was a clear winner, in value, in capability, and in familiarity. More than that, Vertical’s Automotive Bundle sets itself apart by offering real tools that are perfect for our business. No other solution we examined could deliver these capabilities so cost-effectively.”