COMPANY OVERVIEW
In 1991, Dave and Kay Hindman quit their jobs and formed World Radio Telecommunications (WRT) “by the Grace of God and His Word.” After 25 years of committed vision, purpose and a loyal staff, WRT now serves the comprehensive telecommunications needs of businesses throughout the region, along with providing security services through a second company called Tri-State Security, which is included under the Hindman Family Companies umbrella. After a long search for a cloud solution’s partner they could trust, WRT joined the NEC Channel Partner Program in 2021 believing the stability of NEC and innovation on the product side was the perfect fit.
THE CHALLENGE
With the growing importance of enabling remote and hybrid workers, WRT recognized that adding a cloud communications solution to their business tech portfolio was going to be essential to their success. They faced an added challenge, with their customer base being located primarily in rural Ohio, where broadband internet service is available, but not entirely reliable. Their selected vendor would need to help ensure seamless and reliable access to voice services and business applications, regardless of internet stability in the service area.
Before becoming an NEC Channel Partner, WRT had partnered with several other cloud solution providers that had not measured up in terms of their product offerings and service level. Drew Hindman, the Sales Manager at WRT explains, “The most recent vendor was purchased by another company and experienced a management turnover that was extremely disruptive to supporting our sales efforts. When we started looking again, we were resolved to find a partner that was well-established – one that could provide the support our customers expected and would definitely be around in 10 years. We had already spent too much time changing vendors, only to discover that their products were inadequate and poorly-supported.”
It is now easy for us to get our customers set up quickly and effectively. And updates occur automatically, so our customers are always working with the latest version of the software, without any intervention from us or NEC. This is so refreshing after our previous experiences with other vendors.
DREW HINDMAN
SALES MANAGER WRT
SOLUTION
WRT had bid against NEC in the past. So, they knew that NEC was well-regarded in the space and highly competitive on price and features. “NEC is truly a ‘one-stop shop’ for advanced cloud communications technology as well as on-premises phone systems,” Drew describes. He shares how after making the decision to engage with NEC, Channel Partner paperwork was in his inbox within 48 hours.
He continues, “Our partnership with the NEC UNIVERGE BLUE team has been an exceptional experience from the outset. We have received nothing but first-class service, from onboarding until today. Unlike other vendors we’ve worked with in the past, service is not just something NEC provides at the end of the month for last minute sales. UNIVERGE BLUE’s tech support, system engineering, and sales are always there to provide a quick response, details, and a solution.”
While they continue to offer and service on-premises phone systems, including NEC’s, WRT is focused on migrating their customer base away from on-premises to the UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT platform. UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT provides their customers with a powerful, next-generation Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution, integrating voice, video, chat, file sharing, and contact center applications into a single, easy-to-use interface, while UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE can add next-level, full-featured Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) capabilities. These solutions empower hybrid or mobile workforces with access to voice and a fully-integrated suite of tools that are available anywhere, anytime, and on virtually any device.
“The ability to provide seamless employee access and customer experiences is important to doing business today. UNIVERGE BLUE cloud technology enables any size business, even small businesses, to truly operate like a fine-tuned, global enterprise – at an incredibly low cost,” describes Drew.
When asked what CONNECT features his customers appreciate most, he immediately mentioned the flexibility of being able to name hunt groups. “They can tell who is calling in and which area of business is being asked about,” he explains. Given that internet outages occur regularly in the area, WRT also finds that their customers love that UNIVERGE BLUE allows them to seamlessly transition from desktop to mobile without missing a beat with a customer or internal call. “Regardless of internet connectivity, simply having full mobile access to voice and app functionality has been a huge selling point for us,” Drew said. He also mentions just how easy UNIVERGE BLUE cloud solutions have been for his customers to install, maintain, and learn.
RESULTS
“With UNIVERGE BLUE cloud solutions, we are now able to compete for some very large accounts. It has been great for business,” shares Drew. WRT is also seeing adoption and expansion with their existing customer base, due to the ease of deployment, scalability, mobility, and robust feature set of UNIVERGE BLUE.
Drew shares, “The Superintendent of one of our local school districts recently requested the addition of 35 seats to their CONNECT deployment by a specific date. All of the workers involved were remote. They needed to ensure the proper routing of calls related to children’s mental health. They now have hunt groups answering calls for 4 additional businesses. With UNIVERGE BLUE support, we helped them double the size of their original deployment and hit their goal,
with absolutely no delays.”
Because they can trust in the quality and easy implementation of NEC UNIVERGE BLUE cloud solutions, WRT is confidently and successfully migrating their customer base to the UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT platform, while adding many new customers at the same time. WRT has found an evergreen path and is cultivating a strong future for both their customers and their company, with the help of NEC’s communications solutions and their Channel Partner Program.
