Carlton Scale, a company that distributes and services all types of industrial scales, offers multiple office locations, with headquarters in Greensboro, N.C. However, the management began to notice that the company's telephone systems across the offices were out of balance; even more was that the seven branches in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Maryland each had a different phone system. Some offices had voicemail for employees but others did not. Each location had different equipment for voice compression to allow employees to call other offices through extensions.

 

According to Angie Leraas, who handles IT and accounting at Carlton Scale, this equipment was old, outdated and difficult to maintain since it required calls to multiple service technicians for repairs or replacements.

When Chris Trevey, Carlton Scale's new president, joined in June 2007, he wanted the entire company on the same system. Therefore, Carlton Scale reached out to Hayes & Associates Inc. based in Rural Hall, N.C., which had provided network services to the company for the past several years.

Jim Hayes, president of Hayes & Associates, decided it was time to review the current state-of-the-industry for the next generation of VoIP telephone systems. Jim installed his first VoIP system back in August of 1994 and has been staying on top of this rapidly changing technology ever since. He had been looking for a new VoIP telephone system for a few months when he came across the Allworx system line. Following an Allworx product demonstration, Jim and his team were positive they had found their choice of VoIP telephone systems going forward. He also found that with the Allworx system it was now incredibly easy to configure remote phones and to seamlessly integrate the telephone system with the existing network, and the bottom line was the outstanding quality of each and every call made with the system. Not only did Jim order an Allworx system on the spot, he also signed up to become an Allworx reseller that same day.

Hayes & Associates' Allworx system enabled Carlton Scale to take the system for a trial run. Jim Hayes connected one of the branch offices to his office's Allworx system to give the company the opportunity to try it out. Based on the positive trial experience, Carlton Scale decided to install Allworx in November 2007, and the installation happened quickly thereafter.

"The entire process was completed in about 90 days," says Jim Hayes. "Allworx systems were installed in five of the company's offices by the end of December, and the other three offices were connected in early 2008."

Carlton Scale currently employs an Allworx 24x system at its Greensboro corporate headquarters, and Allworx 6x systems at the branch locations. In total, Carlton Scale has 86 Allworx 9112 office phones.

The company is currently benefiting from several features and capabilities of the Allworx system. Most importantly, every employee now has voicemail and three-digit, desktop-to-desktop dialing across the company. This has improved productivity because staff members can reach other employees easily and can leave detailed voice messages without having to take the time to write everything down.

In addition, a "soft phone" is used when employees travel, which loads on a personal computer, enabling them to make local phone calls directly through the phone system.

"The Allworx system is very user-friendly, and it is a really wonderful system," says Leraas. "I suggest that anyone go and try it. It has so many functionalities, and it is so easy to set up conference calls."

The Allworx-PAETEC Combination
What makes the Carlton Scale installation particularly unique is that the technologically advanced solution doesn't end with the phone system. Hayes & Associates -- working with PAETEC Regional Director Marc Hurlbut -- also sold Carlton Scale on moving its managed network to PAETEC's MPLS Network.

When it is completely installed, the PAETEC MPLS Network will provide Carlton Scale employees with secure access to the company's data from virtually anywhere. PAETEC's Private-IP services utilize a world-class IP backbone, which reduces overhead and increases network performance.

According to Hurlbut, the PAETEC solution will be vital to Carlton Scale because it will enable the company to prioritize its voice traffic across the network -- making sure that the Allworx boxes "talk to each other" over the network.

"At the end of the day, Carlton Scale made its decision largely because of the work and expertise of Jim Hayes," says Hurlbut. "Our price and the solution also were key factors. The application we are providing is unique compared to competitive offerings because it includes a managed firewall and the Internet in the center of the network." Hayes & Associates' solution for Carlton Scale will represent one of the largest Allworx-PAETEC applications since PAETEC acquired Allworx in the fall of 2007.

 

SCORECARD

 

End User:
Carlton Scale

Solution Provider:
Hayes & Associates

Vendor:
Allworx

Solution:
One complete telephone system across multiple locations.