When a law firm in Worcester, Mass., decided to switch phone systems for a fairly simple reason -- it ended up saving a little money along the way.

Seder & Chandler LLP focuses on business and corporate law, bankruptcy, commercial banking, employment, taxation, probate and family law, trusts and estate planning, and real estate. For the nearly 90-year-old law firm that prides itself on delivering prompt, efficient and quality service to its clients, it was important to have a telephone system that met its communications needs.

One specific request that was made by J. Robert Seder, one of the firm's partners, was an upgraded speaker phone system. To do this, the law firm then sought the advice of Barry Communications, located not far from Seder & Chandler's Worcester headquarters. The IT provider, not only identified a solution to address the request for an updated speaker phone; it also suggested that the firm could gain greater control over its phone system and save some money in the process.

Barry Communications therefore recommended Allworx Corp., an East Rochester, N.Y.-based developer of phone & network systems for SMBs. After Barry conducted a survey of Seder & Chandler's needs and demonstrated Allworx's capabilities, it took only about a month for the firm to decide to move forward with the Allworx application.

"We relied heavily on Barry Communications' recommendation, and didn't even consider any other phone suppliers," Seder says. "Barry showed us how the Allworx system could meet our needs."

Barry Communications installed the Allworx 24x system and 35 Allworx 9112 office phones in the firm's main office, along with a Covad VOA T1 line for voice communications. In Seder & Chandler's satellite office, which opened last spring in Westborough, Mass., about 15 miles from the main office -- Barry installed seven Allworx 9112 phones, two 9102 phones and two Covad VOA DSL lines for voice and data communications. The law firm's Allworx solution also features Bandwidth.com's SIP trunking service for outbound calls and direct inward dialing (DID).

Since installing the Allworx system, Seder & Chandler is not only saving money, the firm now knows exactly what it is paying in phone charges.

"With Allworx, we are currently paying slightly less than we were paying with our previous phone system -- in the neighborhood of 3 to 4 percent lower. We expect that gap to widen and that Allworx will prove even more economically beneficial over time," Seder says.

"The Allworx solution allowed us to lock into a fixed monthly cost, so there's no more guessing month to month about our phone bill," Seder adds.

While the impetus for switching phone systems was speaker-phone quality, Seder quickly came to appreciate other features and benefits of the Allworx solution, such as caller I.D. and the greater control offered by the system through Allworx's Call Assistant. This feature is deployed in both firm offices and allows users to monitor the status of every line in the system and to dispatch calls by answering, transferring, parking or sending to voicemail.

Users can view all call activity across the system, including call queues, parked calls, monitors, as well as their personal call history. With the feature, Seder can instantly see who is calling in and who is calling out -- even if one of his calls comes through the main switchboard. When retrieving a voicemail message, Seder can also find out the time the message was left.

In addition, since the firm, like most others, relies on hourly billing, Seder and the rest of the firm's employees like that the system can also keep track of the length of a phone call -- a big plus when it comes to keeping time records for client billing purposes.