Case Studies

Gracious Home

Click here to download this study.

CONSULTEDGE UPGRADES...FOR A COMPANY THAT UNDERSTANDS UPGRADES.

BACKGROUND

Gracious Home’s legion of devoted fans believe its modest beginning as a small city hardware store founded by a pair of Cuban brothers who proved that no matter what you sell, you should sell it with style. Their respect and attentiveness toward customers was a boon to their local reputation. Loyalty ensued: expansion followed.

More than four decades later, Gracious Home has grown into a luxury home-decor retailer with multiple locations throughout Manhattan. The company’s success is due in part to its passion for bringing world-wide treasures not only to the discerning customers of the big apple, but to the style-conscious public-at-large through its intuitive website. Today, just as in the beginning, Gracious Home’s commitment to providing an exemplary customer experience remains an inherent part of their culture.

COMPANY NEEDS

As Gracious Home began planning for the October 2008 launch of its flagship store in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, Chief Information Officer Jim Linsalata re-examined their voice and data system. He decided that a unified communications platform which could interface the corporate back-end with the retail front-end would certainly be a worthwhile investment for the flexibility, usability, and functionality they needed.

Already, Gracious Home had for several years been using the Avaya Definity system of servers and switches in their corporate offices. But Jim knew their organization could benefit from a technological upgrade. Having become acquainted with Consultedge during the replacement of legacy routers with Juniper J4350’s in all six of their locations, Jim was already familiar with, and pleased by, the company’s level of service and professionalism. So, when it came time to choose a partner to handle their converged voice and data solution, Gracious Home entrusted the project to Consultedge.

THE PROCESS

Of all the many features that appealed to Gracious Home, the most enticing was the scalability of the Avaya Communication Manager system. Though Jim’s team clearly recognized the value of a fully-unified system, they also knew the switch over needed to happen in increments.

The Consultedge representatives leading the project worked with Jim and his team for months, demonstrating various features and functionality, and also introducing Jim to other customers already using a similar configuration. Knowing that Gracious Home was required to comply with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) – a multi-faceted security protocol imposed on retailers in an effort to protect customer account information - Consultedge proactively brought in equipment suppliers who met all necessary standards.

Throughout the due diligence process, Consultedge gained many insights about the specific needs of Gracious Home. For example, as a luxury goods retailer, the company did not want to disrupt a top-notch customer experience with persistent overhead paging. Nor did they want calls to managers to be routinely dumped into voicemail. And, they were finding that malfunctioning switchboard consoles were costly to replace. The Consultedge team made note of these details and was sure to address each of them.
THE SOLUTION

After nearly nine months of working with the Gracious Home team to develop the ideal enterprise solution, Consultedge proposed a phased rollout of various levels of functionality.

Within the flagship location and a second location that opened around the block six months later, sales and warehouse employees now log into the system and take a wireless handset for the day. The handsets work in both places. From a data and telephony perspective, the two locations are treated as one with a dedicated fiber link and shared switching. No longer do employees need to use headsets, walkie-talkies, or overhead paging. And, their improved accessibility reduced the reliance on voicemail. As for the expensive call-routing console, the switchboard is now a PC-based smart console: if the computer ever malfunctions the operator can simply switch to a backup PC.

Additionally, Consultedge designed, installed, and continues to manage Gracious Home’s entire local area network with HP switches, wireless access points, and Juniper routers. Through an assessment of the carrier side, Consultedge suggested the replacement of all Gracious Home’s PRIs, which helped to significantly reduce their telecom costs.

GOING FORWARD

Jim and his team are very pleased with the way Consultedge tackled their voice and data challenges. Throughout 2010, they will continue to work with Consultedge to upgrade legacy equipment at remote locations. Eventually, all of the stores will be using one unified VoIP system. Everyone on the Gracious Home staff is looking forward to full integration, as it will solidify their phone extensions regardless of their physical location – an obvious perk for employees who frequently rotate between stores.

Overall, the project has been a huge success as the first phase in a multi year enterprise-wide rollout,” said Jim Linsalata, CIO of Gracious Home. “Partnering with Consultedge has helped Gracious Home keep up with voice and data advances in a way that is scalable, affordable and appropriate for our business.”

• Avaya Communication Manager 5.0
• Avaya S8300 media servers
• Avaya G450 gateways
• Avaya Merlin Magix systems
• Juniper routers n HP switches
• Wireless access points
• Consultedge maintenance