To all of the RingCentral customers who entered our National Small Business Week Contest, thank you! You really inspired us with your descriptions of the innovative ways you use RingCentral communications and collaboration tools.
In fact, if you saw our judges reviewing your video submissions, you might have thought we were watching the newest superhero movie. We cheered. We high-fived. And we had passionate debates about which company described the most creative strategy for connecting remote workers or making team collaboration more fun.
Our contest award entrants reminded us yet again that small-business entrepreneurs are still the clever, scrappy innovators that move the entire US economy.
But among the scores of terrific submissions we received, a few stood out as particularly ingenious and inspirational. Here are our five contest winners.
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Honorable Mentions
Cash Practice Systems
Recipient of our “Trusted Partner Award”
Cash Practice Systems makes patient-retention and cash-collection software for doctors. As Chief Operations Officer Holly Jensen points out in her video submission, they’ve been using RingCentral for more than a decade. Why? Because RingCentral cloud-based tools “Help us in running our entire company. Not just delivering exceptional customer service, but keeping everybody engaged… I just can’t imagine running this business without RingCentral.”
Bravo Builders, LLC
Recipient of our “Moving to the Cloud Award”
Bravo Builders is a New York City construction company specializing in apartment high-rises. As IT Manager Neil Singh explains in his video, the company operates a BYOD environment where many employees in the field use their own smartphones to communicate. Thanks to the RingCentral app, they can add their RingCentral number to their personal phones to place or take business calls and even to get the occasional fax, which they still receive. As Neil puts it, “We can eliminate the cost of a having second phone and cellular line for business.”
MovingLabor.com
Recipient of our “Staying Connected Award”
Another 10-year RingCentral customer, MovingLabor.com is an online marketplace for moving-related labor services, such as rearranging furniture in a home or loading a truck for a move. Although this is a national company, serving thousands of customers, MovingLabor.com does it all with just eight employees scattered all over the country and even internationally. As VP of Operations Kayla Fitzgerald tells us in her video, “I must oversee the Tampa headquarters, the Denver regional office, and then the four remote staff, which seemed a bit overwhelming to me… until I realized that RingCentral gave me all the resources I need.”
Nu-Hope Laboratories
Recipient of our “A Day in the Life Award”
Nu-Hope Laboratories is a longtime manufacturer of ostomy products and other medical devices. As Director of Administration Tonya Bray shows us in her video, the busy staff at Nu-Hope labs uses RingCentral phone and team-messaging solutions to stay connected, get work done from anywhere, and have lots of fun as a team! And as much fun as you’ll see them having in this video, they’re also quick to point out that “We never lose a single second of productivity, thanks to RingCentral.”
Grand Prize Winner
Crop Quest
Recipient of our “Work as One Award”
The top prize for the RingCentral National Small Business Week Contest goes to Crop Quest, a crop consulting and agricultural product management company. The list of innovative uses this tech-driven agricultural business has found for RingCentral is truly impressive.
They use the cloud phone system to keep their nearly 100 employees connected, even though they’re spread across seven different states, and many spend their days in the field. They also use the business phone system to keep their employees accessible to customers and vendors no matter where those employees are because they can always use their RingCentral business numbers on any device. The team uses RingCentral Meetings™ to hold video conferences with staff across the country. This is really important for keeping everyone feeling like a team considering that, as Communications Coordinator Tracy Smith puts it, “Since we are so spread out, and we’re not all in one location, it’s not so feasible to bring everybody together all the time.”
The company also uses the RingCentral screen share feature to do online training for their staff. They’ve even started producing a company podcast—The Turnrow Podcast—and they use RingCentral to record the video and audio content.
Well done, Crop Quest team! We hope the creative uses you keep finding for RingCentral will serve as inspiration for small businesses everywhere.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to all of our National Small Business Week honorees, and thank you again to all RingCentral customers who submitted videos.
Keep innovating and Happy National Small Business Week!
Originally published May 14, 2019, updated Dec 30, 2022
