EliteXPO Cargo Systems

Zultys Unified Communications and Collaboration Solution Delivers Huge Productivity Boost to National Cargo Company

“The Zultys system, including MXmeeting, was very easy to install and does everything we need it to do at a very affordable price. Since installing Zultys, our costs have dropped by over 90%. The systems’ capability has changed the way we look at a communication system. Employee morale and customer satisfaction have increased tremendously. Our logistic tool impacted on-time delivery by 2% and was installed and operational in less than 4 days. Thank you Zultys and MXmeeting!”

Heidi Maschmann

VP Information Systems/Inventory
ELITeXPO

Profile

South Elgin, IL headquarters and seven local and regional offices
Nationwide operations and clients, shipping both domestic and international
High demand for field training, troubleshooting and on-site support
Connectivity required between remote workers and field workers
24×7 Call Center operations
Must support both PC and Mac workstations and laptops

The Customer

Since 1987, ELITeXPO Cargo Systems Inc. has provided specialized tradeshow logistics and transportation for exhibit firms, companies and organizations. ELITeXPO has earned its reputation as the premier provider of critical transportation to market shaping materials, from highly specialized equipment serving the medical industry to highly prized Russian antelope. The firm is based in South Elgin, Illinois and services thousands of customers across North America. Rapid communication and effective collaboration is critical not only to get materials to their destination, but also to do it in a way that grows customer satisfaction and overall market share.

The Challenge

ELITeXPO’s rapid growth and expansion into offering exhibit products and services led to a constant demand to quickly train employees on new back-end business systems and other new products and services. As expansion picked up, it was also critical that ELITeXPO was able to provide clients with visual demonstrations of new exhibit product lines. The company realized it needed a new phone system that could:

Integrate geographically dispersed employees into a single, unified team;
Rapidly train staff across multiple sites and address customer needs nationwide, while cutting back on rising travel demands and costs; and
Boost call center effectiveness and operations for better customer service in a highly competitive market.

“We had a number of operational needs that weren’t being met by our aging Inter-Tel system, not to mention that as we grew we faced increasing demand for staff training and tools to address customer logistics and communications needs,” said Heidi Maschmann, VP Information Systems/Inventory at ELITeXPO. “The tradeshow industry has a unique set of expectations. Not only does it require a service model that is 24x7x365, our customers demand to know where their highly valued tradeshow equipment is at any point in time, often on very tight schedules. We have to be highly responsive and stay on top of new processes, tools and customer needs. For us, training is not a one-time event; we’re all about a continuous learning cycle.”

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According to Maschmann, “We deployed MXmeeting and with minimal training we had a web conference engine that not only had webinar, interactive, remote support and remote access modes, it also had a free 150-port hosted conference bridge and allows for one-way video. The entire Zultys solution combined with MXmeeting has changed the way we look at a communication system forever. Our on-site tradeshow staff can actually make and receive calls on our network as if they were in the office at their desk. Now we can know employee presence, instant message (IM), use interactive web conference for visual and network up to 128 sites together as well.”

The Solution

Following an evaluation of multiple vendors, the company decided it didn’t need just another phone system. ELITeXPO required a Unified Communications (UC) solution to met all of its telephony, communications, collaboration and distance learning needs.

ELITeXPO worked with its reseller to deploy the Zultys solution. The company migrated from a legacy Inter-Tel system and installed an MX250 IP Phone System in its South Elgin, IL headquarters office. An MX30 was also installed in a satellite office and using the MXconnect™ feature employees at seven additional local offices were seamlessly connected into its overall corporate Zultys solution. The system serves over 40 core employees and more than 130 additional suppliers and talent on both PC and Mac computers. The company also purchased an M200 MXmeeting system with licenses for 4 rooms and 20 users for interactive remote training and collaboration capability.

Following a quick and easy installation process, the MXmeeting capability quickly became a popular tool with company officials pleased to eliminate usage fees.

“When we rolled out the new training tool, we anticipated user issues as people came up to speed,” she said. “We didn’t experience any of that since the interface was so intuitive. Our employees love it! They can see whoever’s presenting. They can receive the presentation directly as a file share or as a physical file. They can choose to chat with the presenter as they go along or at the end of the presentation. We also value and regularly use the remote support option to troubleshoot issues as well.”

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The Impact

The Zultys system allowed ELITeXPO to implement a full end-to-end UC system that connected the headquarters location with all remote offices and staff into a single network solution. Collaboration and remote learning tools provided via MXmeeting have been invaluable.

Not only did ELITeXPO’s costs drop by over 90%, they also increased employee morale Customers have also benefitted from the new technology. Installed and operational in less than 4 days, the Zultys-enhanced logistic tool has impacted on-time delivery by 2%.

“Our business has experienced a dramatic reduction in travel and training costs and a huge boost in productivity and responsiveness,” Maschmann explained. “Up until the deployment of MXmeeting, all training was completed at our headquarters with all of the associated costs and downtime resulting from physical employee travel. The operational costs as well as the overhead for training rollout has been reduced from an original estimate of $50K to less than $4K. This is due to the decision to purchase and implement the Zultys integrated solution including MXmeeting that cost less than $2K. In addition, we can now avoid the sales impact of having team members taken out of the field for training.”

Productivity at the company has also significantly improved. Tools like presence and IM let employees know when someone is available and how to reach them more easily. MXmeeting has allowed the entire team to communicate more effectively with fewer chances for error. The tools webcam feature allows the company to see the trainer in action and they can engage customers more closely through the virtual whiteboard. Employees can even draw exhibit designs and layout details and schedules together.

Offices were linked together in a seamless UC system by using MXnetwork and MXconnect to weave the South Elgin, IL (USA) headquarters, a  satellite office and seven regional offices into a single highly survivable corporate network.