American Dental, one of the largest private sector dental companies in the US, has overhauled its business phone systems by replacing them with a single state of the art service offered via a host business VoIP provider.
The award-winning practice, which employs 200 staff across the New York area, says its previous voice communication network – a combination of a central exchange at its head office and separate business phone systems at each of its ten surgeries – had become cumbersome, costly, and increasingly difficult to manage.
American Dental said its problems were compounded by a lack of in-house IT expertise at some of its locations, compelling the company to utilise the costly services of contractors and specialist consultants.
Replacing its old systems with a hosted business VoIP (voice over internet protocol) service has, the company says, provided it with several key benefits.
Firstly, according to American Dental’s information technology director, Dara Masi, the phone connections at each of the eleven company locations can now be managed as readily as if they were under one roof. He said:
“When I log into the…administrative website I can literally control every phone in the entire practice. As the IT director for a multi-site business, having that visibility and control is priceless.”
Secondly, the company says that calling from one location to another is now possible simply by dialling the equivalent of an internal extension.
Finally, American Dental’s new business VoIP system can, it says, provide complete mobility for the company’s phone users, enabling them to use their extension to make and receive calls regardless of which office they happen to be in.
This feature, it says, would be of significant assistance should one of the eleven centres need to close for any reason, since it would guarantee continuity of quality customer service when patients call in.
