O’Brien Automotive Team Puts Trust in Sangoma For Their Business Communications
The Customer
O’Brien Automotive Team founder, Joseph D. O’Brien Jr., has been selling cars and trucks for more than 45 years. Currently O’Brien Automotive Team dealerships are located in four cities and three states, including IL, FL and KY. They employ nearly 500 people, providing sales, service and leasing of 12 different automotive brands of cars, trucks, vans and SUVs in state-of-the-art facilities.
Business Challenges
O’Brien had been using decades old traditional phone systems for quite some time, but eventually replaced them with Asterisk-based systems to take full advantage of the open source software. This software provided some of the necessary upgrades to their phone system that they needed to stay competitive. These phone systems were serving them well, as they were supported by a third-party company who was responsible for all the maintenance and upkeep. However, after some time, this third-party company went out of business and O’Brien was left with a decision to possibly replace all Asterisk-based systems with a proprietary solution which could be supported.
Solutions from Sangoma
O’Brien found Sangoma Technologies, a company who supports Asterisk-based PBXs, specifically one called FreePBX. FreePBX was adopted quickly, which provided O’Brien with the customization they needed, and FreePBX was fully supported by Sangoma. Shortly after, they were introduced to Sangoma’s commercial PBX, called PBXact. PBXact offered built-in productivity modules and was easier to use than FreePBX. And because it was also based on Asterisk, it was an easy choice for O’Brien. In weighing the benefits of moving from an open source solution, to a compatible business solution it made sense for O’Brien to upgrade to PBXact, and so they did. “We found PBXact to be a better solution than FreePBX because it comes with a lot of features and it’s easier to support. It is also the best value we saw compared to some of the other solutions we looked at.” O’Brien adopted Sangoma’s SIP trunking service, called SIPStation, which is built-into every PBXact phone system and automatically configures itself at a click of a button. “We like SIPStation because we don’t need to maintain or keep an eye on it. It’s one less thing to worry about in our busy schedules”
The Results
O’Brien now uses PBXact phone systems across all their locations. An IAX (Inter-Asterisk eXhange) connection between their offices is used to eliminate the need of leased lines, saving money. They use Interactive Voice Recording (IVR) extensively to route inbound customer calls to the appropriate parties, as well as Call Parking to announce waiting customers. “One of the biggest challenges is routing calls to the correct party based on time of day. For example, In the morning the service dept is in, but not the sales dept. Late in the day the service dept is out, but sales dept is in. So, it’s very important that the phone system is able to route calls to the correct individuals or ring groups, so that customer calls are getting answered.” PBXact can do this very easily. O’Brien also chose to deploy Sangoma IP phones for all their staff members since they are IP phones designed specifically for PBXact. Shortly, Sangoma will be releasing a mobile client which will help businesses improve their productivity and customer service by always being accessible whether in or out of the office. O’Brien said, “We are excited and look forward to adding mobility via the Zulu client into our solution in the near future.”