Applied Engineering Management
This federal systems integrator improved its own IT operations and client experience with RingCentral
Industry
IT Services and consulting
Hq
Herndon, VA
Year founded
1986
Employees
275
Industry
IT Services and consulting
Hq
Herndon, VA
Year founded
1986
Employees
275
We’ve got a major office presence on both US coasts, employees in 26 states, and clients just about everywhere. Having a cloud telephony solution like RingCentral means that no matter how much we grow, or how widely distributed our teams are, we can always stay connected, productive, and responsive to clients.
Yong Oh
Associate Director
9
call queues, each staffed with different experts, all managed in RingCentral
100%
ability to meet call-center SLAs since implementing RingCentral
1
day to transition the staff to remote work, with no disruption to operations
The IT company trusted to manage the government’s most sensitive systems
If you think all IT service companies are essentially the same, you’ve never heard of AEM Corporation.
More than 25% of the company’s employees have National Security Clearance. AEM’s team includes more PhDs in Computer Science, Engineering, and other technical fields than nearly any comparable organization in the country. And unlike most IT firms, AEM has been operating—and growing—consistently for more than 30 years.
These stats help explain why institutions with the most complex IT needs and the most sensitive data to protect—from the US Military to the State Department to Fortune 500 firms—turn to AEM as their trusted technology partner.
An on-prem phone system stretched beyond its limits
AEM has been on a steady growth path for more than three decades, taking on newer and larger projects for federal agencies and corporations. Yong Oh, AEM’s Associate Director for Information Technology, points out that a number of years ago, the team realized that its legacy phone infrastructure was an increasing risk to the company’s continued growth and service delivery.
“We have such diverse service offerings, including expert IT and data help desks staffed to support high-visibility projects with tens of thousands of users,” Yong explains. “As we began to need more call queues to direct clients to the right people, we found our on-prem system could no longer support us.”
Another shortcoming of AEM’s previous telephony system, Yong recalls, was a lack of mobility. “We obviously didn’t know back then about COVID, but we were aware that our phone infrastructure limited our ability to continue operations if we had to leave the office. We were also hiring people all over the country, and our phone system made connecting them with the rest of the organization more of a challenge than it should’ve been.”
Using RingCentral to streamline operations
As Yong explains, rolling out RingCentral’s cloud-based telephony solution to all AEM employees has led to numerous operational improvements.
“One great thing about RingCentral is how intuitive the admin portal is,” he says. “We can set up our call queues online, update the details anytime, and add people to a queue with just a few clicks. And because we were able to include a lot of useful information in the auto-attendant recording, callers often get what they need without speaking to anyone. That gives our support members more time for the complex calls.”
As call volume picks up, we can easily onboard new staff as support agents—and it doesn’t matter where they’re located. They just add the RingCentral softphone to their laptop and log in to a call queue from anywhere. That lets us make sure year-round that our clients have their calls answered quickly every time.
Yong Oh
Associate Director
Meeting and exceeding SLAs
Serving clients with mission-critical IT needs—institutions ranging from the Defense Department to large insurance organizations—AEM has always held itself to extremely high standards when it comes to accessibility and responsiveness. And as Yong notes, RingCentral has helped the company meet and surpass its promised level of service more than ever.
“One of the main drivers pushing us to upgrade our telephony infrastructure was the fact that, on some contracts, our legacy system was threatening our ability to meet our SLAs for answering calls live and picking up within a certain number of rings. But since we’ve moved to RingCentral, we’ve only improved those numbers. And keep in mind, our call volume has increased in the years since we implemented RingCentral.”
An invaluable technology solution during COVID
Finally, Yong explains, the RingCentral migration proved again to be a smart decision when the lockdowns forced AEM to send nearly all of its workforce home. “Because we had RingCentral, AEM was able to become a remote company almost overnight—and not miss a beat. With the softphone capability, everyone’s laptop essentially became a phone, and our entire staff was able to keep taking calls and serving our clients throughout the pandemic.”
From both a client service and business development standpoint, AEM thrived during the lockdowns. A big reason for this was our ability to use cloud-based tools such as RingCentral to keep our call center and sales operations up and running just as smoothly as if everyone were still in an office.
Yong Oh
Associate Director
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