Getting your own goldmine

eBusiness Creator Matthew Griffith finds a goldmine in RingCentral.

Matthew Griffith knows a goldmine when he sees it. Matt owns Merlix, a software company that creates and sells e-businesses. “We are the only one that I know that incubates e-businesses for the purpose of being sold,” Matt says.

Matt came to RingCentral because, he says, “We were looking to route calls to people. I’ve got people all over the place. Most are in North Carolina, but I’ve got one in Switzerland and two in the UK. We needed some kind of system that could link us and we could work from home.”

He investigated several companies, but RingCentral’s free trial and easy set up sold him. “I was able to take your system and look at it and play with it for seven days and configure everything,” he says. “You did a very good job of making it idiot-proof. It really is!”

Merlix uses 20 RingCentral extensions. Six are dedicated to the businesses being incubated. The rest are for Merlix departments and employees. RingCentral’s flexible call screening tells them which number has been dialed so all employees know to answer the phone with the proper company and department.

Merlix has nine toll free numbers for seven operating businesses all managed by one RingCentral account. “A toll free number has always accounted for about 20% of sales for an online retail,” he says. “Most people will buy online, but some want that comfort of hearing a human voice. And even though many people have unlimited long distance, people are still more likely to call a toll free number than a long distance number.

“It also adds validity to a company,” he continues. “When you see a telephone number, you may not call it, but you feel comfortable that it’s there. I can show you where we’ve had sites that don’t have a toll free number and they don’t have as much sales as one that does, even if the sales might not come through the number.”

Vanity numbers are also very important to Merlix. “I use vanity numbers because it is real easy for people to remember,” he says. “And I like your system setup because it lets me go in real-time and see what’s available, before I’m actually committed. You know, do I want that number or not? So I like that feature.”

Like most RingCentral customers, once Matt starts on what he likes about RingCentral, he keeps going.
“I like the fact that I can have a sales pitch play while the caller is
waiting to be connected to somebody. So we educate the person on the phone and we have time to get to the phone, because a person is only going to stay on the phone for only so many rings, but if they’re listening to somebody, they’ll stay longer. So that’s an awesome feature.”

He is also delighted with other RingCentral features included with his service: voicemail by email, click-to-call, virtual calling card and RingCentral’s exclusive real-time call manager, Call Controller. “Call controller is awesome because it notifies me of who is calling before I even hear a ring and I can send them to voicemail or I can go ahead and accept the call,” he says.

RingCentral has not only helped make Merlix successful, it has made it more profitable.

“RingCentral is a tremendous cost saver,” Matt declares. “We had an old Avaya PBX system. It’s maybe a $4000 dollar phone system and that’s just for having four or five extensions. And we had to worry about parts going bad and you have to have someone who can program it. A hardware system that could manage multiple businesses with multiple auto-attendants like we have would cost a fortune. We now pay RingCentral about $70 a month. That’s $840 a year. I couldn’t buy a hardware phone system for five years of that cost that does all that RingCentral does. And not only that, but you would need a very high-end telephone system to get all of RingCentral’s features.

“I’m a businessman,” he concludes. “From a business standpoint, RingCentral makes perfect sense. I feel like I’ve found the gold mine.”

Industry

Online retail

Favorite features

Ease of operation

Virtual PBX

Toll free number

Messaging

Call controller

Results

Tremendous cost savings

Virtual office / mobility

“From a business standpoint, RingCentral makes perfect sense. I feel like I’ve found the gold mine.”

“A toll free number has always accounted for about 20% of sales for an online retail. Most people will buy online, but some want that comfort of hearing a human voice. And even though many people have unlimited long distance, people are still more likely to call a toll free number than a long distance number.”