Case Studies

Small business consultant finds a terrific small business phone system

Lon Orenstein finds RingCentral Online to be “an order of magnitude” better than the competition.

Lon Orenstein has been doing general technology consulting since 1990.  In 1991, he saw the utility of ACT database software, took a class and became “the first guy in the first class to pass the test,” he says. “I’ve called myself the first ACT certified consultant all these years.” 

In 2001, Lon started pinpointtools.  The concept was to have “pinpoint” focus on vertical markets and provide software tools specific to each vertical that would work to enhance ACT.  “We develop products for realtors, mortgage, financial advisors and others,” he says.   Lon recently moved away from ACT! to Microsoft Business Contact Manager 2007 with the same model.

Lon has had a lot of experience with various telephony providers in the course of growing his business and advising his clients on voice solutions.  He left Southwestern Bell in 1997 and went on a journey through multiple providers of VoIP, auto attendants and call processing.  He ended up with a cumbersome combination.  “I had a hybrid system with an auto-attendant from One Box, and Skype for outbound and I had another person using an ‘all-you-can-dial’ provider, so it was a real mish mash,” he says. 

As a small business consultant who preaches ease, cost control and efficiency, he knew that his telephony setup was not tenable.  “I found RingCentral, and, having used a lot of the old ones, I could see that RingCentral was much, much better than the others” he says.  “It’s got a good mix of telecommunication services.  The system is terrific.”

pinpointtools uses five extensions. One is a support line with a recorded message and voicemail box that automatically emails the voice message to multiple people.  The other extensions are for employees who work out of their homes.  “I work out of a 500 square foot office near downtown Dallas, and its usually just me that’s here,” he says.  All are connected seamlessly by RingCentral as if they were in the same office.

“The RingCentral feature that I think is the best is the rules-based answering controls where you can set up different rules for different people and different numbers and direct their call paths,” he says.  “For example, if my wife calls our main number, she can come directly to me without having to go through all the prompts.  There are other systems that let you set up times of day but it is universal: they apply to any caller who calls.  I haven’t seen anything else like this where you can route the call by person.”

“One of the hallmarks of the small business person is that they are never off work,” Lon explains.  “It’s their business and they run it.  They must be able to answer the phone when they need to and the rest of the time be confident that the call is going to get processed correctly. With RingCentral’s answering rules, you can do all of that.”

“I think RingCentral’s technology is an order of magnitude better than any other service,” Lon concludes.  “RingCentral has a lead on any other service that I’ve seen out there for a small business person to handle his communication.”