Supernova Award Category
The Problem
Vivint Solar has grown into one of the world’s largest “smart home” businesses, the most visible component to the average consumer of the burgeoning Internet of Things. With millions of homeowners adopting solar for economic and environmental benefits, we needed a communications system to help connect our scaling, on-the-go workforce, including more than 2,500 door-to-door salespeople in the US and Canada.Our remote sales professionals and technicians are constantly on the road, and need technology support to ensure that even when mobile, they are able to connect, collaborate, and get their jobs done as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, our old telephony solution did not enable this. The system required costly on-premise infrastructure and a full-time, five-person team to manage.
The Solution
To match the innovation of our cloud IoT services, our employees needed an equally innovative tech platform that seamlessly integrates into their “work from anywhere” style; offering constant flexibility and connectivity, while also inspiring collaboration. We needed the right technology to suit our mobile business and reduce unnecessary spend on legacy technology.
Traditional voice technology requires multiple steps to a successful deployment and creates many authentication challenges. Dialpad eliminated these hurdles. In addition to relieving us of traditional telephony IT issues, Dialpad’s pure-cloud communications solution, combining Voice, Messaging, Video, and Meetings, ties directly to Google Apps for Work, so our mobile workforce also benefited from increased productivity. Employees simply download the extension to get started, automatically syncing their calendar, emails, and shared documents right from the Dialpad interface.
The results
The productivity shift for both IT operations and employee end users was immense when we moved to a cloud communications platform. Our employees were up and running with Dialpad in a matter of days, with minimal training from our IT team.
On-the-road technicians and sales teams make up the majority of our 63% remote workforce. Before Dialpad, our traditional PBX infrastructure hindered critical business conversations out in the field. Now, with a pure cloud solution, we can connect workers across any mobile device, at any time—dramatically increasing collaboration. Customer success managers in our Utah HQ can now connect to technicians and operations managers out in the field by texting. These teams can provide real-time support across North America to solve issues and bridge conversations.
Dialpad fits seamlessly into our IT stack. By deploying Dialpad, we’ve enabled our mobile workers to get their jobs done faster and more efficiently. The native integration with Google Apps for Work allows IT to seamlessly connect two mission-critical tools. This simply wasn’t possible with other vendors. Once deployed, employees were able to log in with their Google credentials and view recent emails, shared documents, and upcoming calendar events, right inside the Dialpad app. Dialpad also pulls in data from Salesforce, LinkedIn and other tools, making work easier for users, and admin simple, scalable, and secure for IT.
Metrics
When we moved to a pure-cloud communications platform, we saw significant cost savings. As our business continues to grow rapidly, Dialpad scales seamlessly and does not require the purchase of any new IT infrastructure. With our old legacy telephony system, we also had a team of five people managing and administering it full-time. By deploying Dialpad, we've reduced the headcount dedicated to telephony systems from five admins to one, and reduced the time spent by that one employee managing the platform from 100% to 5% of their day.
Additionally, when we implemented Dialpad, there was no upfront cost or professional services engagement. Every other competitor we looked at required a huge capital expenditure spend upfront. This meant allocating tens-of-thousands of dollars to get the product up and running. With Dialpad, we were able to get our communications network deployed in just a couple of days.
From an end user standpoint, productivity has increased immensely. Our remote salespeople and technicians can now connect instantly back to support teams at our headquarters. Dialpad's ease-of-use and accessibility has decreased the time it takes to resolve account issues, and made it seamless for our salespeople to close deals on-the-go. As a result, we’ve seen a direct increase in productivity and collaboration.
The Technology
Dialpad’s Modern Business Communications Platform spans voice, messaging, and video, while integrating seamlessly with Google Apps for Work, Microsoft Office 365, and social applications LinkedIn and Twitter—for insights around every call and message. The Dialpad conferencing system cuts out the disruptive experience of age-old conferencing, and instead has no PINs and no downloads. Its integration with business apps and social profiles makes for more productive conference calls.
Disruptive Factor
At the forefront of solar technology, we strive for the same level of innovation for our IT stack. We use tech that is cloud-first. Yet, when it came to communications, we were stuck in the old world like the many enterprises that currently spend an average of $8.1 million annually on telephony products and services even though employees demand a new approach.
To give our growing group of remote employees what they needed, we went against the status quo of a typical enterprise and ripped out our telephony backbone, replacing it with Dialpad—a startup technology—that was the most innovative solution we evaluated for our business communication needs. Taking this risk and moving to new technology instead of the industry’s unified communications standard sets us apart from those who claim to be tech leaders. You cannot claim a fully cloud-based business unless you enable a desk phone optional workplace.
Implementation was easy, since Dialpad’s native integration to Google App for Work is seamless over the internet. But as no other communications platform can do this, it forced a company culture shift to fully embrace the power of Dialpad. When employees are not bound to a desk by way of a phone or computer, a behavioral change is required. We empower our teams to work in the style that’s best for them; a freedom that many had to adjust to in their own way before we saw a massive uptick in mobile collaboration across departments.
Shining Moment
A pure cloud platform lets employees access business conversations as they move from meeting-to-meeting or suburb-to-suburb. Our customer success managers need to connect with technicians in the field, but are based in our office HQ. Before Dialpad, it was challenging for them to communicate at a suitable time or maintain close relationships. Now, managers can resolve issues or bridge conversations using group messaging or SMS. It’s created a new kind of business dialogue.