AlphaStaff Group, Inc.

AlphaStaff Group, Inc. is a human resource outsourcing company offering flexible employer solutions that control costs, address key compliance issues, and provide legal liability protection. Through FlexSource, a complete portfolio of products and services, or via co-employment, AlphaStaff focuses on HR and technology integration, with payroll, benefit, tax, accounting, and risk management services for mid-market companies. AlphaStaff has two locations serving its 38,000+ human resource customers, including its headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale and an office in Atlanta.

“Before ShoreTel, employees handed out business cards with two or three telephone numbers on them. Now, with ShoreTel, they only have to give people one number. We’ve improved productivity and time efficiency, as well as customer service.”
- Jack Rahner, Director of IT Operations, AlphaStaff.

In 2005, AlphaStaff had seen growth of 33 percent over four years and had outgrown its office in Boca Raton, Florida. With an outdated Panasonic PBX-based system, the company lacked sufficient disaster recovery and remote capabilities, and it could not link its system to its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. AlphaStaff’s top priority was a new phone system that would provide a disaster recovery plan to ensure business continuity in case of disaster, such as a hurricane. Since AlphaStaff provides payroll services for many of its customers, more than 38,000 of them, they could not afford to have a system down when people are waiting for paychecks.

“We did major architectural design evaluations of both Cisco and ShoreTel, and we were very impressed with the distributed architecture of ShoreTel - something Cisco did not offer. ShoreTel’s distributed architecture provides us with disaster recovery capabilities, which was a key requirement for us.”
- Jack Rahner, Director of IT Operations, AlphaStaff.

With the help of its reseller partner, ShoreTel provided AlphaStaff with two ShoreTel 120 and two ShoreTel 60 Voice Switches, as well as over 150 ShoreTel IP Phones. The disaster recovery features of the ShoreTel system now allows the company to run its Ft. Lauderdale-based business and continue to service 38,000 people without losing a step during a disaster, such as Hurricane Wilma.  Benefits include:

• AlphaStaff saves thousands in toll charges every month because remote workers’ calls are distributed through AlphaStaff's office locations, which provide much better long distance rates.
• The disaster recovery capabilities of ShoreTel ensure AlphaStaff remains up and running to serve its 38,000 customers even during a natural disaster or regional power outage.
• The system, which looks and behaves like a single, unified platform, scales with plug-and-play simplicity, enabling employees to communicate quickly and easily with co-workers regardless of their location.
• ShoreTel System Software automatically keeps records of all the calls, allowing the company to produce reports, analyze traffic, and effectively manage the use of the system.

“Everybody loves the ShoreTel system, including the CEO and Chairman. The fact that we're saving so much money and I'm assured of disaster recovery also helps me sleep much better at night.”
- Jack Rahner, Director of IT Operations, AlphaStaff.