The Client
Rapidly growing family-run concrete company specializing in on-site mixing for private residences. What started as one guy in one truck pouring concrete has grown into a team with 10+ trucks.
The Problem
For years, the company has been a small, family-run business. Work calls were all handled on a single cell phone that was the company number. Nicknamed the “The Blue Phone” after its neon blue case, the phone stayed with the owner at the office during the day and went home with the owner after hours (just in case). This worked great for a small company with only a few employees, but as the company grew, The Blue Phone just wouldn’t stop ringing. As you were on the phone with one customer, another call would come in. You could never catch up on voicemails because the phone would interrupt you with a call mid-message.
To help with the increased workload, the owner hired a receptionist to help answer the phone and schedule deliveries. However, in doing so, it uncovered yet another issue. The owner of the company knew his customer base; he knew what they liked to order and, for many of them, knew their specific rates & preferences. For the brand-new receptionist, it was taking her double, if not triple, the amount of time to answer and book concrete pours because she didn't know their rates and preferences. She had to search inside the FileMaker database for all this information, which was just slowing the company down in a new way.
For this growing company, and just about for any company, having the phone ringing off the hook is an amazing problem. However, it is just that, a problem.
The company had outgrown The Blue Phone and needed a new solution. One that would allow multiple people to receive and make phone calls at a time, one that would make it easy for any employee to see key information about who is calling, and most importantly, one that would keep the same business phone number their customers were familiar with.
The Solution
To give the company the most flexibility while transitioning from a single work cell phone to an enterprise-ready solution, we turned to Twilio. Twilio Studio allowed us to create an adaptable phone tree (such as the image below) that would ring multiple phones at once, with logic blocks that would perform different actions based on settings in their FileMaker database and the time of day.
During normal business hours, the call comes into the office, rings the two new desk phones, and seamlessly pulls up the client's information in FileMaker. Now, anyone can answer the phone and instantly book concrete pours. Should everyone in the office miss an incoming call during business hours, Twilio routes that call the good ole Blue Phone, ensuring every call is answered! Having this automation, with redundant backups, gave the owner more confidence to grow - BIGGER!
After hours, the calls would go straight to voicemail with a custom message letting users know when the office would open the next day. These voicemails are then stored within FileMaker and linked to the customer. Making the callback easy and convenient! Having all of the automation and fine-tuned details built directly inside their FileMaker database has allowed the owner to focus on the business and not manage their phone system.
In Conclusion
With Twilio and FileMaker working together, this business can grow without countless training hours and user frustration. Reducing the amount of time to find critical information and automating their phone system to FileMaker has allowed them to handle a larger number of calls with the same staff.
Twilio’s custom phone solutions can help prevent missed calls, maintain consistency, and breathe new life into your business. Click here to download our Twilio Demo App. To see how to get your own custom phone solution, contact us today.