PepsiAmericas Deploys Unified Communications

A PepsiAmericas distribution center in New Orleans has just finished replacing its aging Centigram voicemail system with the CallXpress unified communications solution from Applied Voice & Speech Technologies (AVST).

CallXpress offers not only standard voicemail and call transfer capabilities, but also provides PepsiAmericas with a variety of advanced call processing features, such as a multilevel automated attendant that provides more options to callers to help them get to the right extension. Instead of getting routed to a general line, callers are quickly transferred to the right person for their specific requests. Another feature of the CallXpress solution is a separation between night and day attendant; the night message directs callers to an emergency hotline and the day message directs them to the appropriate customer service representative.

With around-the-clock operations that serve grocery and convenience stores, hotels, restaurants, fast food chains and other accounts in the greater New Orleans area, the distribution center receives a lot of inbound calls. When its aging system crashed and could not be repaired, it soon learned that it could ill afford to be without a phone system for any length of time.

PepsiAmericas' IT department chose the AVST solution because it minimized the training pain for employees and offered significant time savings for the system administrator. "The entire process, from purchase to operational, took only ten days," says Kevin Mobley, warehouse manager of PepsiAmericas' New Orleans distribution center. "The most impressive part was that CallXpress installed seamlessly and our employees were able to use it right away."

The system could also integrate into PepsiAmericas' existing Nortel PBX and emulate the old Centigram system so that the company would not have to invest time and money to retrain its workforce.  "CallXpress mirrored our old Centigram telephone user interface perfectly," Mobley adds. "The whole transition to our new CallXpress system went smoothly and system administration is so much easier; new mailboxes can be added in a matter of minutes vs. hours."

In the near future, PepsiAmericas plans to roll out unified messaging features offered by CallXpress. Many Pepsi employees travel extensively on . By integrating voice messages into Microsoft Outlook, this feature will help them to stay connected while on the road.

"Pepsi is a great example of a company transitioning its legacy systems to more modern technology," explains Denny Michael, vice president of marketing at AVST, "and they will be able to rest additional technologies on top of our system, whether it's [Voice over Internet Protocols] or any other voice applications."