What would you do if your company’s phone systems were cut off without any prior notice? That is what happened to the corporate headquarters for a west-coast media client based in Portland, Oregon. 300 employees were without access to phone lines — meaning they could not provide services for their clients and complete their daily tasks.  

When something as detrimental as phone lines getting disconnected without any notice, it causes big losses for a company: in morale, money, time and more. There is harm to reputation as members and vendors are unable to reach staff. What happens in the event of an emergency, and someone needs to call 911? Being connected is crucial for a company, to communicate with your coworkers and clients. As a consumer myself, there have been times when I was unable to reach a company, leaving me frustrated and not wanting to return my business there. As an employee of a company that relies on communication, when I am unable to reach clients or partners, it causes concern and worry that I am not providing my promised services. Communication is key to any business. How much do you rely on communication to keep your business running? 

Not only did the service provider disconnect lines, but they were lacking in offering services to help with the situation. The service provider also kept this company in the dark, with the lack of notice, the lack of communication, and the lack of executing a proper plan to resolve the issue. This resulted in the client going more than a week without their phone lines. During this time, Access Tech worked tirelessly with our client to get information from the service providers and opted for different strategies to get this company back in communication with their clients. However, with the lack of communication and information from the service provider, the journey to resolution was delayed – causing for further time that the client was without phone lines.  

With an already short IT staff, Access Tech stepped in to make sure our client was given the time and attention they deserve. We helped follow up with the service provider and was there every step of the way, from around the clock to fix it. We have now helped them switch to a more reliable phone system in the cloud. What can we learn from this situation? You do not have to get ready if you are ready. Do not wait for an issue to arise to make the switch to the cloud. Access Tech can help with this process of moving to the cloud-based phone services.