877.M5HELP3Brooklyn Brewery Switches to M5 After In-House Phone System is Destroyed
The Challenge:
Founded in the late 1980s, Brooklyn Brewery is New York’s leading craft brewery. A 70,000-square-foot complex in Williamsburg, Brooklyn houses the company’s corporate office, working brewery, warehouse, company store, and 300-seat event space. The Brewery experienced many problems over the years with its Verizon phone service, including poor sound quality, static, and dropped calls during heavy rain and snow storms. When the phone lines in the corporate office went dead one afternoon, Brooklyn Brewery’s General Manager, Eric Ottaway, assumed it was a routine Verizon error. But as the office filled with smoke, employees realized something more serious triggered the outage. An electrical shortage caused their outmoded, premises-based phone system to catch fire and shut down phone service for the entire complex. Watching the phone system go up in flames, Ottaway acted quickly to keep operations intact.
The Solution:
With the fire department on its way, Ottaway’s first strategic move was calling M5. Brooklyn Brewery encountered M5 a year earlier while anticipating a move to a new location. Ottaway met with other IP phone system providers during that time, but M5 provided the best fit for his organization in terms of cost, functionality, and service quality. However, when Brooklyn Brewery postponed its move, Ottaway delayed plans for replacing his existing phone system. His current disaster presented another opportunity to upgrade the phone system to a solution that would better serve the company’s needs. After assessing the situation, M5 devised an emergency plan for restoring Brooklyn Brewery’s phone service. Within one week, employees were up and running on a provisional solution. A few weeks later, Brooklyn Brewery went fully live on M5 with a dedicated T1 circuit and backup DSL.
The Results:
By switching to M5, Brooklyn Brewery reaped positive results from a potential tragedy. Customizable configurations allow the company to efficiently manage call flow. Ottaway also gets added piece of mind with M5’s Embedded Continuity that provides built-in back ups and emergency planning for re-routing calls so orders always get through to a sales agent. M5’s Active Service Management supplants that piece of mind with proactive notifications of maintenance or connectivity anomalies before any problems occur letting Ottaway focus on his passion – brewing great beer. Brooklyn Brewery proudly shipped over 800,000 cases of beer last year and attributes its ability to provide great customer service to the reliability of M5’s service.
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