Binswanger Glass is one of the nation’s largest installers of glass and glass-related products in the commercial, automotive, and residential industries. As a leading glass retailer, the company also sells framed mirrors, shower enclosures, and replacement glass to the general public. Binswanger has more than 800 employees across 66 locations in 14 states.
Before switching to RingCentral, Binswanger had separate phone systems for each location and used multiple service providers. This arrangement presented billing challenges and made even simple tasks difficult. Employees couldn’t even set up a desk phone without scheduling an external technician to install the appropriate cabling and hardware. With an IT team of only four people supporting the entire Binswanger organization, administration and management of the phone systems became increasingly unsustainable.
Rob Parsons, Binswanger’s Director of Information Technology and his team are a very hands-on IT group who like to do things themselves. They chose RingCentral because they needed a phone system that offered better features and a more efficient solution for their network architecture.
RingCentral Office includes useful features that help Binswanger’s employees and customers connect and collaborate. With the previous phone system, locations could only be reached via direct numbers. Some locations didn’t even have caller ID, because the phone systems were so old. Now, customers can call the company’s main phone number and use extensions to reach other locations—and employees can reach each other using extension dialing. RingCentral also provides support for Parsons and his IT team when needed.
Binswanger’s IT staff is limited, and they can’t afford to wait around for vendors to provide answers when they need help. Between their account manager and the support team, RingCentral has always been extremely responsive to all of Binswanger’s needs and issues.
Binswanger Glass is also moving toward integration of its RingCentral service with Microsoft 365. Through trials, Binswanger Glass has been able to immediately recognize the benefits for staff in increasing productivity. Tying Microsoft 365 and RingCentral together has made the two applications better. The integration provides a speed dialer with click to-call from phone numbers in email or contact lists, the company can use a single directory including phone extensions, and screen pops with incoming calls provide the employees with valuable information.
RingCentral’s comprehensive communications solution made it possible for Binswanger Glass to eliminate unnecessary hardware and services. Thanks to RingCentral’s integrated fax capability, 100 of the fax machines and analog lines at Binswanger were removed. The IT team can now provide system administration remotely, and employees can manage their own settings. Thus, service visits from external technicians are no longer needed—even when IT has to set up locations.
Now that they have RingCentral, setting up a new location is easy. In the past, Binswanger has had deadlines as short as two weeks, and they needed a service carrier to come out for the installation. With RingCentral, they can get a new location up and running on their own in less than a week. With network and phone costs savings combined, Binswanger has already saved half a million dollars annually.
Originally published Nov 18, 2015, updated Sep 18, 2021
