How Integration Works used Nextiva to Solve Its Business Communications Needs

The Integration Works views Nextiva as a critical component of their IT stack and one of the foremost technologies they use themselves and deploy in their clients.

“Our target market is the 10 to 200 employee space,” explained Integration Works CEO Leigh Older. “And when we started back in the mid nineties, our goal was to take enterprise IT solutions and bring them to small businesses, and also provide those kinds of services to nonprofits because we saw nonprofits as an underserved market space that needed the same types of solutions that a for-profit business would have.”

Our goal was to take enterprise IT solutions and bring them to small businesses.

Leigh Older,

Ceo At Integration Works

According to Older, Integration Works sensed a need in the nonprofit world due to the constraints that many such organizations face. For example, non-profits often must rely on volunteers, donated computers and haphazard solutions that can place their data at risk.

“Our idea,” said Older, “would be that we work with commercial businesses, but at the same time structure our company in such a way that we can serve nonprofits in an underwriting kind of way and make the solutions more affordable, but just as good.”

As an IT partner for their clientele, Integration Works works to source and set up the best possible technology infrastructure for the business they serve, modifying the solutions they deploy to meet the unique needs of each individual business. “Our goal is to become the best of class provider to help our clients pick those best technologies and get the best bang for the buck, and have those technologies not be in their way,” says CTO James Carter.

One area of coverage that Integration Works handles is the business communications space, where Nextiva has been their trusted vendor of choice since 2014. “Nextiva was the fourth VoIP partner that we went with, having started back in 2005,” says Carter. “Once I started using the product and getting to know Nextiva from a customer point of view, I was sold. The support and the quality of the product sold itself.”

According to Older, stability and reliability were the key components that made Integration Works believers in Nextiva, after having been burned by previous cloud communications platforms. “What Nextiva seemed to promise us at the time was truly a stable cloud-based platform that would help us integrate into our clients so that we wouldn’t have to worry a whole lot about the phones being a key concern. So that’s why we went with Nextiva.”

Once I started using the product and getting to know Nextiva from a customer point of view, I was sold. The support and the quality of the product sold itself.

James Carter

CTO at Integration works

After 7 years as a customer and a channel partner, the verdict is in on whether Nextiva could deliver the elusive stable, reliable cloud-based communications platform Integration Works so desperately sought. “My favorite thing about Nextiva is its reliability.” Said Carter. “We’ve had zero outages within Nextiva. it’s been phenomenally reliable and that I think sells it for most of our clients. You want a solution that’s affordable, but also reliable.”

In addition to reliability and stability, Nextiva also supplies Integration Works with the flexible cloud communications solution they need to outfit a client list that covers a vast spectrum of industries and sizes.

“Nextiva is also a very flexible solution,” said Carter. “It’s very easy to customize and to craft the right solution for the customers that we deal with. And our customers are all over the place. They’re small to medium sized businesses, but some are non-profits, some are in construction, some are in finance, some are in healthcare, so they all have varying needs. But Nextiva is able to meet each of those needs in a way that really narrows down and focuses on what that customer needs.”

After five attempts with previous cloud phone systems, Integration Works finally found the first cloud communications platform that delivered everything they needed to deploy a world-class business communications across their entire customer base. That platform was Nextiva.

When asked about Nextiva’s functionality, Older and Carter called out the versatility of the platform as a critical benefit to their customers. From integrations to devices to call center deployment, Nextiva has shown its robustness in solving a plethora of use cases for Integration Works customers.

“Nextiva has helped us tremendously over the past 24 months,” explained Older. “One of the things that was amazing about Nextiva was the immediate scalability of it. The fact that Nextiva makes it so easy and quick to pivot and expand and contract – whatever you need to do. It can scale up, it can scale down, but more importantly, it can kind of go in every direction. When the pandemic hit, we now had a new reliance on phones extending into people’s homes and onto their mobile devices. And that happened very rapidly, right? In a one week timeframe, most of our customers moved from a very stable desk phone office environment to being disparate and all over the place. And we’ve learned that that can work as long as the technology works.”

Nextiva is a very flexible solution. It’s easy to customize and to craft the right solution for the customers that we deal with. And our customers are all over the place.

James Carter

CTO at Integration works

According to Older, Nextiva’s ability to support users with its mobile app for laptops, computers, and cell phones made it dead simple for Integration Works customers to swiftly go remote, without any disruption to their business communications. “In the case of Nextiva, what was great is our customers could now deploy an app to their mobile phone, or use voicemail-to-text technology, things like that, and they’re able to be very productive from their home.” Older said. “And it really was not a difficult deployment. It was just really an extension of what was already there. And our customers realized, ‘hey, we can use this technology and overnight have the same workforce in all these different end points, places, and states, that we had just under one roof.”

In addition to the remote functionality, Older and Carter also highlight Nextiva’s call center capabilities as an often-used feature beloved by their clients. “The Integration Works helped develop a solution for one of our clients who needed 30 call centers that were overlapping, meaning they had several people belonging to the same call centers,” said Carter. “Nextiva was able to take the programming from their existing phone system, bring it into Nextiva during the migration, and flawlessly bridge the gap from the time that they were using their system to bringing in the Nextiva solution. And the customer was ecstatic because they didn’t think we could do it.”

According to Older and Carter, Nextiva’s ability to handle a whole host of use cases and service needs across a broad array of industries and technology infrastructures is what sets the company apart from other cloud communications solutions. Beyond the technology itself, Integration Works calls out Nextiva’s onboarding and support teams as a huge resource for the company and a standout part of their Nextiva experience.

“At the Integration Works, we’re actually fairly well versed in the Nextiva backend,” explained Carter. “We use it ourselves and all of our clients have it. As a result, we’re pretty much experts at it. However, even with that level of expertise, the project management support that we get from the onboarding team at Nextiva makes it pretty much a hands-off process. We just tell them the number of seats. They interview the client to get their call routing and it just happens. We’re there just to make sure that the hardware gets plugged in where it needs to get plugged in and that the customer’s happy.”

We helped develop a solution for one of our clients who needed 30 call centers that were overlapping. Nextiva was able to take the programming from their existing phone system, bring it into Nextiva during the migration, and flawlessly bridge the gap from the time that they were using their system to bringing in the Nextiva solution. And the customer was ecstatic because they didn’t think we could do it.

James Carter

CTO at Integration works

Older echoes Carter in explaining that Nextiva’s team has done what no other cloud communications vendor could do – earn the total trust of the Integration Works team. “The trust factor for us now – being a partner since 2014 – is very high. We can go and talk to any size business and sell the solution with confidence. And if they say, oh, we have special needs – whether it be interfacing with Salesforce or making five phones ring at the same time or using complex rules or creating a call center management whether it be a tiny call center of a few people or very complex multi-site environment – Nextiva can do all that. And the cost to do so is very affordable.” Older said.

One final selling point of Nextiva that Older and Carter both raved about was Nextiva’s support. The trademarked Nextiva “Amazing Service” has held true for the team at Integration Works.

“What I like most about Nextiva is their support,” said Carter. “It’s always a one-call close. When you call in for support, the person on the other line – if they can’t fix it – they’ll find the person who can fix it and stay with you through the entire call.”

In fact, Nextiva support has been so good for Integration Works that it has become the benchmark for their own customer service team internally. “I believe that Nextiva really sets a high bar (with support),” said Carter. “Nextiva support is so good in my eyes, that it’s aspirational for us. One that we look up to and say, ‘we want to be like Nextiva when our customers call us.’”

From solutions capabilities to the human relationships they have forged, Integration Works has finally found their cloud communications vendor of choice with Nextiva. Both as a customer and as a partner, the company looks forward to many years ahead working hand-in-hand with Nextiva as we continue to grow.