The Background
PrimePay is a nationally recognized company with more than 30 offices located across the United States. Payroll processing and tax handling are currently performed in localized Operations Centers, servicing thousands of businesses and generating millions of payroll checks each year. PrimePay offers payroll and related business services in all 50 States.
The Challenge
Each of PrimePay’s primary Operating Centers had their own phone system handled by the branch managers. Considering the large number of systems and multiple providers involved, PrimePay had both a scalability issue and a cost issue. “Staffing for several offices posed a problem when bad weather or unforeseen circumstances arose,” said Steve Schermerhorn, IT Infrastructure Manager.
The Solution
A branch manager coordinating an office move approached Schemerhorn for input on the new local system. Schemerhorn began researching vendors in the area regarding options for a unified IP telephony system and ultimately chose Nortec. Among the solutions Nortec recommended, Mitel rose high on the list, above Cisco or Avaya. The pricing was more competitive and there was a better system interface. In addition to that, PrimePay had also been considering bulking up call center activities with enterprise capacities. “We had been considering a system like Mitel for some time,” said Schermerhorn.
PrimePay knew it needed outside assistance with the implementation. Nortec provided the expertise PrimePay needed and moved quickly to convert the first office, and continued to transition each office as the leases ended. Currently, 80% of PrimePay’s employees are on the phone system and the migration is ongoing. Now, instead of managing every line separately, the company buys bulk minutes on one plan for every office. PrimePay also took advantage of Nortec’s support, whose guidance and consulting made the phone system transition very smooth. Not only are Nortec technicians experts, but performed training at each individual PrimePay location.
The Benefits
Nortec’s implementation of Mitel has allowed PrimePay to integrate the smaller offices into call center teams that provide better daily customer support as well as redundancy when one of the offices has a weather event or technical issue; calls can be forwarded and picked up in a timely manner. Employees can now work from more than one location – they are no longer location-specific, so coverage is more comprehensive. That ability offers constant company presence for PrimePay to its customers and that is exactly what PrimePay strives for.