Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. Telecommunication Systems Division

Selling the largest volume of Toyota cars and trucks in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky for more than 14 consecutive years, Cincinnati-based Kings Toyota prides itself on providing the ultimate in customer service. With the largest indoor Toyota showroom in the nation, Kings Toyota provides its customers a car-shopping experience with the comfort of warmth in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. With 150 vehicles in the showroom, there are a lot of choices, plus 750 more vehicles that can be brought inside upon request. Customers can even take delivery of their clean, new gassed-up cars in Kings Toyota’s indoor delivery area.

When Kings Toyota added its new five-acre indoor showroom and kept its original location across the street for its used car dealership, it wanted to increase the mobility and capabilities of its voice communication system. For the right solution, Kings Toyota turned to Authorized Toshiba Dealer Digital & Analog Design, also of Cincinnati, which has been its Toshiba dealer for more than 20 years.

Don Walter, vice president at Digital & Analog Design, recommended that Kings Toyota migrate from their older Toshiba system to a new Toshiba Strata CIX business communication system to save costs over a completely new system. He also recommended adding SpectraLink’s NetLink e340 Wireless Telephones for maximum mobility across the locations.

“After 20 years with our Toshiba systems, we were absolutely sold on Toshiba’s reliability and durability, so migrating made good business sense,” said Gerry Carmichael, vice president and general manager of Kings Toyota. “Digital & Analog Design helped show us how we could migrate to Toshiba’s CIX platform and add NetLink Wireless Telephones to deliver mobility at a reasonable cost.”.

Among Carmichael’s goals were to connect all of its facilities together as if they were on a single system. He wanted direct extension dialing for desk and mobile telephones, one switchboard for all calls, and complete mobility for his sales and service employees. The mobile telephones had to work across the new car showroom, used car showroom, car lots, customer parking lots, service center and the back office. The goal was to have virtually every call answered by a live person, with minimal use of voice mail.

Installed by Digital & Analog Design, Kings Toyota’s new Toshiba Strata CIX670 is a 192-port system with an 8-port Stratagy IES 16 voice processing solution at the main showroom. It is connected via StrataNet to a 40-port Strata CIX100 system in the used car showroom. The system uses 64 SpectraLink NetLink Wireless Telephones that work across all facilities via 16 Wi-fi access points installed across 10 acres. In addition, 80 of the original Toshiba digital desk telephones are being used for non-mobile employees.

The Toshiba CIX uses digital, IP and wireless technologies over an IP infrastructure using Power over Ethernet switches, wireless access points and lasers. “Being able to mix-and-match IP and digital telephones on Toshiba’s IP-based system provides a flexible, affordable solution that meets Kings Toyota’s specific needs,” Walter explained. “Taking advantage of Toshiba’s legendary migration path, we were able to migrate the digital telephones as well as 10 station cards and an 8-port CO card.”

With their NetLink Wireless Telephones, Kings Toyota’s salespeople now have complete mobility to make and receive telephone calls no matter where they are at the dealership’s facilities. Having the mobile telephones allows them to call for any of the dealership’s 900 on-site cars to be brought to the showroom, have new cars cleaned and gassed up for delivery to the new owner, and respond to incoming customer calls.

Because all of the NetLink Wireless Telephones are extensions on the main system, incoming calls through the switchboard can easily be transferred to the right salesperson, or callers can call the extensions on the wireless telephones directly. Keeping everything on a single system enables Kings Toyota to better manage and track call flow as well as provide a consistent brand image to callers. Prior to the SpectraLink system, the salespeople were using a mix of desk telephones, which mostly went to voicemail, and their own personal cell phones, which led to confusion and an inability to transfer calls.

SpectraLink’s wireless telephone docking stations and chargers are situated on conference tables around the show floor, so salespeople never have to leave their customers even when they need to charge their NetLink Wireless Telephones. Battery Packs recharge within 90 minutes, and a fully charged Battery Pack provides up to four hours of talk time and 80 hours of standby time.

With the mobile handsets, Kings Toyota’s salespeople can take and make calls no matter where they are, eliminating the need to walk away from a customer in order to call for a specific vehicle to be brought into the showroom.

Carmichael said, “Our salespeople are at least 25 percent more efficient with the SpectraLink wireless telephones. Their desks are literally in their hands, and being mobile in the showroom is priceless.”

As well, Kings Toyota’s service advisers, who are often in the service bay and not at a desk, are now able to use their NetLink Wireless Telephones for calls with service customers. This has helped them eliminate voice mail tag, save time and improve customer service.

Kings Toyota saved more than $21,000 by being able to keep and re-use much of its original equipment, including 80 digital telephones, 10 station cards and an 8-port CO card. In fact, since the Strata CIX IP system could be enabled for digital endpoints, the dealership was able to re-use the majority of its original Toshiba digital telephones for its non-mobile employees.

“One of the things that sold us on Toshiba yet again was the reliability and durability of the equipment,” said Carmichael. “Even with heavy use, they’re like our Toyota cars and trucks–absolutely dependable. Also, after using Toshiba phones for 20 years, all our employees wanted to stay with Toshiba.”

Digital & Analog Design helped exceed Kings Toyota’s goals with the Toshiba and SpectraLink solution. In addition to providing improved mobility and communication, the system also delivered annual cost savings of $48,000 by going to Laser technology instead of T3 lines, after a first-year laser installation cost of $17,000. Laser gives Kings Toyota twice the bandwidth of T3 at a much lower cost. With more than 10,000 incoming calls each month, having a powerful pipeline helps ensure every customer call gets through to the right person. Kings Toyota also saved $21,000 by being able to re-use equipment from its original Toshiba system, resulting in savings of nearly $70,000 annually.

Carmichael said, “With Toshiba, SpectraLink and Digital & Analog Design, we have a communication system that gives us great mileage, reliability and durability, exactly what we give our customers with Toyota cars and trucks.”

Back to Top