The Best Multi-Line Phone System for Design Retail Industry

Business Telephone System for Design Within Reach – Case Study

This case study from Mitel featured Design Within Reach – find out how the company finally solved the problem of their communication system and focuses on expanding and adding more store locations with the help of a multi-line phone system for small businesses.

Company Profile:

Understanding Design Retail with Design Within Reach

“Home Comes First” – that’s one primary philosophy for Design Within Reach. They strongly believe in creating pieces that move and stay with you for a lifetime. The company sells home furnishings that are beautiful, exceptionally crafted, and built-to-last.

Their well-designed furnishings are functional and solve problems. Their history goes way back to 1998 when Rob Forbes came up with an idea for Design Within Reach. He was trying to furnish his apartment with simple classics he came to appreciate while living in London.

Rob Forbes discovered the works by designers such as Eameses and Le Corbusier, which he also understood were out of reach for anyone. The founder thought of a better way, and with his small team, he bought twenty containers of inventory, followed by mailing a catalog while waiting for the phone to ring. Soon enough, the general public responded immediately.

Fast forward to today, Design Within Reach now has 44 retail stores in the USA alone. The company has partnered with unique, sought-after brands from Alessi to Woven. Their website also offers a comprehensive range of categories from entryway accessories, storage accessories, outdoor furniture, dining tables to miscellaneous accessories. Whether you are looking for eco-friendly or family-friendly furnishings, Design Within Reach got it.

The Struggle of Connecting Different Retail Locations

Design Within Reach has been weighed down by costly and difficult to maintain communication systems. Since the company has been adding twenty new locations a year, Design Within Reach a cost-saving alternative that can meet their function requirements: centrally managed, simple to maintain, and easy to deploy.

At that time, they could feel their old supplier Nortel Gear becoming expensive and obsolete. It was also challenging to deploy whenever they open a new retail shop.

“We wanted a system built on today’s technology. Most of today’s IT professionals don’t understand legacy gear but can maintain IP telephone system with relative ease.”

These were the words of Joe Martins, Director of Information Services for the company. And so, the search began. They needed to find the best multi-line phone system suitable for their design retail business, deploy and migrate to IP telephone at the soonest.

The company wanted to centrally manage all telephone communications so the existing help desk team can support the customers whenever, wherever. They knew that centralizing voicemail was crucial because it means the company can save more money.

Introducing Mitel Business Phone System

With 45 years in the industry of connecting and collaborating with businesses and trusted by 70 million business users in over a hundred countries, the Mitel business phone system needs no introduction. But if in case you are wondering how it can help your business thrive, read on!

Mitel’s history and legacy say a lot about a business. It means Mitel is here for the long haul – they have been tried and tested. The main core embedded into Mitel’s DNA is innovation, as it should be. This allowed the company to ensure that they meet the expectations of businesses they have been serving for a long time now and potential growing businesses they are yet to serve.

Looking at what makes Mitel different, have a look at these figures:

• 7 million cloud users worldwide
• 1 market leader in total cloud seats worldwide
• 1 in private cloud worldwide
• 1 in UC market share for Europe
• Over $1.3B in revenue
• 5-time Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for UC
• Frost & Sullivan 2017 Growth Excellence Leader in UC in North America
• Over 1,600 patents & applications

Looking at their performance in the last decade, there continues to be a significant gap in their growth against Mitel’s competitors. Most experts would choose Mitel whenever there is a need for Unified Communications and Collaborations (UCC), which is why Mitel gets recognized for it year after year.

• Ranked Best Value for UCAAS & Hosted PBX by Eastern Management Group (2020)
• Mitel ranks highest in growth for hosted IP telephony and UCaaS by the Frost & Sullivan Radar
• Mitel ranks no. 1 in total cloud seats for the seventh consecutive year by Synergy Research
• Newsweek has awarded MiCloud Connect as one of the best business tools of 2019 for its reliability, security, continuous innovation, and customer satisfaction
• Forrester named Mitel a leader in Wave Report for midsize contact centers

Mitel Business Phone Systems

Mitel has a comprehensive range of phone systems that can cater to businesses of all sizes and sophistication levels for business phone systems.

• MiCloud Connect
• Mitel Business Analytics
• MiCloud Flex
• Mitel Clearspan

Their Business VOIP Phone System, MiCloud Connect, offers an all-in-one solution. Because MiCloud Connect is built on Google Cloud, it is, therefore, backed by Google Cloud, making it reliable and secure. A business can also choose to connect MiCloud to Microsoft Teams that guarantees to increase productivity and efficiency.

Phone System Integration with Third-party applications

Mitel has made integration with third-party applications easily, such as Salesforce or Skype for Business. MiCloud can also connect plugin for browsers that allows for dialing from browser with just one click.

Another example is Salesforce when connected to MiCloud, which will give the management view of critical business metrics. Or Outlook – do you know that you can control your phone from Outlook with Mitel?

Solving the Business Phone System Problem

Design Within Reach has always avoided VoIP, but now in its maturity. With more and more companies switching into it, the company finally decided to look at it. When they searched for business phone systems from multiple vendors, Design Within Reach immediately ruled out several others that were expensive and too complicated. A complicated system only means they had to keep a third-party technician as well.

The Best Multi-Line Phone System for Small Business

Finally, Design Within Reach Design Retail business landed upon Mitel. And it only took less than a day before the first site was operational, making the retailer delighted with the results. The next step was deploying the Mitel system in 24 other areas that also did not take much time.

Mitel’s multi-line phone system can interface with the Legacy phone system. That means the company could deploy the Mitel multi-line phone system at its own pace without disrupting its business communications. It was one of the advantages that made Designs Within Reach switched immediately with Mitel. Most importantly, Mitel can also integrate with the Nortel legacy system, passing voicemail back and forth and transfer calls.

Design Within Reach made us of the Mitel ShoreGear voice switches that support 40 IP phones or eight analog ports in each location. Meanwhile, at the corporate headquarters, ShoreGear T1 was implemented to support over a hundred Mitel IP phones.

The staff uses the Mitel Personal Call Manager to access voicemails easily and to set up conference calls. Its integration with Microsoft Outlook made the company’s operation very efficient.

Another game-changer was the Mitel softphone that numerous employees use to place calls while they are on the road. All they need are laptops and handhelds with them.

Joe Martins also added how Mitel’s mobility had revolutionized the design retail company. Nowadays, they can give up their physical IP phones and take their extensions anywhere. Our clients swore with Mitel’s power to bring a business with countless store locations to the next level. Because Designs Within Reach finally solved the problem of their communication system, the management can now focus on expanding and adding more store locations.

Mitel has been our partner for years, and it never ceases to impress and amaze our clients. Having the best business phone system suitable for your business is crucial in any growing business.

Key Takeaways

Benefits in Switching to Mitel Business Phone System

In summary, the design retail company was more than impressed with Mitel’s results.

• Mitel’s solution offers functionality that is not available in the company’s previous phone system. An example is how Design Within Reach can now create greetings customized for each store to inform customers on sales and promotions.
• Mitel costs less than half the price. These savings pay off considering the company’s aggressive plans in expanding and opening up new studio locations.
• Design Within Reach no longer miss calls. Traveling area managers can quickly sign into a phone while they are in another office, and all of their phone calls will follow them to whichever extension they may be. That way, managers no longer miss phone calls even while they are on the road.
• Four-Digit Dialing is made simple among different store locations. It saves the company money and time and also improves communications between individual stores and corporate headquarters.
• Mitel’s ease of deployment was really surprising for Designs Within Reach. Without any outside consulting help, the company managed to deploy itself right after the first site was up and running.

Are you struggling in finding the right multi-line phone system for you? Call Flow Solutions can help you navigate your phone system through our simplified process. Save your precious time with a single discovery call and learn what’s best for you.  Get in touch with us!