SandyNet Success Story
SandyNet overcame interoperability issues, found reliable support and platform visibility with Alianza
Before Alianza, SandyNet faced constant device interoperability issues
INDUSTRY
Brownfield Voice, Greenfield Fiber, Municipal Internet Service Provider
USE CASES
Fiber Expansion, Softswitch Replacement
PRODUCTS
Alianza’s Business Cloud Communications, Home Phone, SIP Trunking, and Virtual Fax
Company
SandyNet, owned by the City of Sandy in Oregon, started offering internet services in 2003. Their extensive fiber-optic network passes 100% of all homes within city limits, and over 74% of all residents utilize their network to connect to the internet. They currently have 438 voice subscribers and 3,200 broadband subscribers.
Key Challenges
SandyNet faced continuous lack of visibility into their voice platform and interoperability issues with their Calix devices. Despite countless trouble tickets, their previous provider was unable to find a solution. For SandyNet, their previous voice provider web interface was not user friendly, often taking more than 5 minutes to load, and gaining access to call detail records (CDRs) required a support ticket and a SandyNet engineer to dig through logs to produce reports, resulting in a negative experience for both employees and customers.
With their previous voice provider, voice seemed to be a necessary evil rather than a profit center for their business.
Goals & Requirements
From the beginning, SandyNet bought into the idea that offering bundled services — selling wireless and voice along with fiber internet — automatically translated to accelerated profits because that’s what the market demanded, which turned out to be entirely false.
SandyNet couldn’t market and sell voice to their maximum potential, because they were required to physically go to customer locations to provision devices. Additionally, as a company that prides itself on their customer support, they received non-existent support from their previous provider. They often spent hours trying to figure out customer issues on their own, and customers eventually got tired of waiting. Without a reliable voice provider, they could “barely break even.”
SandyNet sought to increase their revenue, provide a seamless experience for their customers, and increase their footprint. They needed a voice and unified communications (UC) provider that would help them confidently expand their solutions suite to a new customer base. They were looking for a solution that would help them meet the following goals:
Lower cost to increase revenue margins
Improve technical support resolution timeframes, and platform reliability
Interoperability with existing Calix devices
Ability to offer services to customers with multiple locations, even outside their footprint
Boost monetization of their fiber network by bundling products
User friendly web interface with simplified customer management and platform visibility
Why Alianza Works for SandyNet
From the beginning, Alianza proved to be a trusted supportive partner. Prior to SandyNet becoming a customer, Alianza set up a demo account that helped SandyNet see the increased operational simplicity, performance, interoperability, and ease of use before they committed. In addition, Alianza had already leveraged their Calix partnership to certify a number of Calix devices, which enabled SandyNet to get started without any unnecessary provisioning steps.
Alianza’s Platform Certified devices, which are fully vetted to provide the best functionality with our cloud communications platform, ultimately enabled SandyNet to overcome interoperability issues with their existing Calix devices and changed how they thought about their voice offering. Alianza’s service provider-built model reduced SandyNet’s operational expenses by about 70% and increased their voice profits.
Now SandyNet can reach new customers by offering cost effective bundles to businesses with locations both within and outside their local footprint. “We can literally hand them a phone and have them plug it in, and it just connects back to the internet and self-provisions. It reduces the number of truck rolls and provisioning issues we had, which allows us to expand outside of the city,” said Gregory Brewster, General Manager at SandyNet.
SandyNet's Solution Suite
A robust, anywhere communications solution that offers improved call quality, and enables SandyNet to reach customers beyond their footprint.
A rich voice offering that enables SandyNet to increase profitability and target traditional landline customers with both internet and phone service.
Enables SandyNet to offer enhanced features and easily connect customers that have existing IP PBX infrastructure without abandoning their devices.
The Alianza Difference
By switching to Alianza, SandyNet soon realized that cloud voice can be a profitable growth promoter rather than an unpleasant necessity. Alianza resolved the Calix interoperability issues and offered SandyNet more visibility into the platform than they had before, which allowed them to resolve customer issues on their own.
Alianza’s seamless support both before and after becoming a customer helped restore SandyNet’s confidence in voice as a service. “If we ever run into an issue that we can’t solve, we just loop our Customer Success Manager, and he takes care of it for us. The difference between Alianza and our previous provider is like night and day,” said Gregory Brewster, General Manager at SandyNet.
Substantial Savings
In addition to reducing customer churn and making voice a profit center for their business, SandyNet’s operational costs decreased by about 70% due to Alianza’s lower rates and better service, allowing them to invest more in their community.
Superior Interoperability
“With our previous provider, certain star codes and functions never worked. With Alianza, it just worked; we didn’t have any other provisioning or configuration. Alianza was [Calix] certified, and everything worked out of the box.”
Platform Visibility
Alianza‘s robust administrative portal provides centralized management, loads quickly, and offers enhanced visibility into the customer’s services and call detail records which are generated in detailed reports.
Increased Footprint
With Business Cloud Communications, SandyNet can plug in the phone, connect to the internet, and provision without the need for a truck roll to manually setup or replace equipment. “It’s been a game changer for us. Now we can actually serve customers outside of our existing network.”
Platform Transparency
“The level of transparency that [Alianza] has compared to other providers is absolutely amazing. We know what [Alianza] is doing to resolve an issue, and we can tell our customers. It just shows accountability, improvement, and innovation.”
Simple Robust Interface
“Alianza’s web interface actually works and doesn’t take five minutes to load. When on a call with customers, we don’t have to wait to give them answers. This creates a pleasant customer experience.”
Operational Efficiency
“One of the issues we had with our previous voice provider was that they had a different login for every service and program that they had. Alianza did a really good job at getting it all underneath one platform and one interface, and it’s been great.”
Innovation
“We are not huge innovators, but the fact that we can offer services such as Business Text Messaging, that small businesses have never heard about, is huge. Small innovations like this help our customers grow, and that is really important for us.”
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