The customer is a transportation company servicing the lower 49 states with some routes into Canada and Mexico. The client initially engaged CornerStone to provide additional support and technical expertise in the customer’s complicated data and voice network. Over time, the customer engaged CornerStone for extra support and services.

As our relationship with the customer grew, we were tasked with delivering high availability and diverse circuits to their sites. They maintain a 24x7x365 driver support team and a high-volume recruiting department. Neither department could suffer downtime, so CornerStone focused on its voice redundancy, access, and backbone diversity provided by geographically diverse pops and rate centers. In tandem with ensuring near-perfect uptimes, we’ve consistently renegotiated voice and data services, saving millions.

Starting in the late 2010s, CornerStone has been involved in sourcing various products for the customer, including email security licensing and networking equipment.

The most business-impacting project we’ve been tasked with is vetting and implementing a new phone system and contact center to replace the existing on-prem solutions.

Until the late 2010s, CornerStone’s primary task was identifying, deploying, and supporting high availability public and private data circuits for customers’ locations. We’ve negotiated on the customer’s behalf to deliver high-speed services that require significant construction to their distribution centers, primarily located far from reliable networks. CornerStone would build business cases with the ISPs to cover the multi-hundred thousand dollar buildouts, delivering many circuits at a fraction of the initially proposed installation and construction fees.

CornerStone has also been tasked with supporting the circuits we deliver and working with the customer’s networking team to open and escalate tickets in the event of local outages or cuts. Once a circuit reaches its contract expiration, we proactively research the available options and prices to allow our customers to make an informed decision. CornerStone then runs the installation process with the customer’s networking team, delivering the new circuits while disconnecting the old ones.

Due to the customers’ requirement for a 24-x7 phone system and contact center to best support their drivers and recruiters, carrier voice and toll-free services have always been prioritized when discussing uptime and redundancy. The geographic distribution of their locations resulted in a slue of rate centers and voice providers being chosen, inherently bringing a patchwork of providers into the customer’s environment.

CornerStone was engaged mid-2010’smid-2010 to begin cleaning up and standardizing the customer’s voice services. We could only make significant changes slowly, as the customer’s risk tolerance and rate center limitations at the time prevented a single standardized solution. We did what we could, eliminating hundreds of long-distance, toll-free, SIP, TDM PRI, POTS, and other miscellaneous voice accounts. As of 2024, we could finally consolidate all voice into a single provider.

Over 53 billing accounts with nearly a thousand subaccounts across several carriers were consolidated to a single Tier 1 SIP provider. We ensured full redundancy for the service, with geographic failover designed on the carrier’s backbone. By this time, the customer was running SD-WAN with high-availability internet circuits. Every location was built to deliver voice over the primary circuit, failing to the secondary in the event of quality degradation or outage.

With the 2024 project, we secured over $48,000 per month in savings. Although we saved tens of thousands on previous renegotiations and consolidation projects, this has been our crowning achievement with the customer.

Starting around 2018 or 2019, the customer began working with CornerStone to source a variety of licenses and networking equipment. We were initially engaged to take over negotiations on their email security renewal but have grown into being their primary networking equipment vendor.

We’ve also assisted the customer with vetting additional network security products and deploying solutions like Network Access Control in partnership with the networking manufacturer.

Between carrier installations and networking equipment deployments, the customer has needed assistance with installation and low-voltage runs.

The customer’s distribution sites are typically concrete islands with limited infrastructure. For both internet deliveries and networking deployments, we’ve been engaged to wrangle a variety of subcontractors to meet the customer’s needs. When modernizing the switching and wireless infrastructure, many sites must replace old twinaxial or Cat3 with fiber and Cat6 to allow for gig throughputs. In other instances, we’re dealing with 40+-year-old utility conduits that are filled with sand, residue, and ice, blocking the necessary pull paths. No matter the ask, we’ve successfully installed and improved the customer’s wired infrastructure.

As new equipment is deployed, we’ve also been life-cycling their wireless networks to support massive distribution and truck maintenance facilities. Wireless access points must be placed on 20-40-foot posts on the exteriors of buildings and office spaces. We’ve supported the customer by coordinating lifts, drops, and installations.

Occasionally, the customer is tasked with opening a small 1-4 man office to provide supplementary services to their customers. CornerStone has been engaged to deliver internet and low voltage extensions, working directly with the end users to coordinate access hours, tag and locate available pulls, or run new extensions and conduits.

Although these projects are small, we pride ourselves on reducing busy work for the customer’s networking team. Dealing with end users can be challenging, but constant communication and documentation allow for successful outcomes.

CornerStone was engaged to help the customer vet the available phone and contact center solutions on the market, focusing on a handful of unique requirements. The process began in early 2023, and deployment will be completed in mid-2025. We had to be mindful of the many departments in the organization—although the phone needs were somewhat relaxed, the contact center falls under multiple business leaders’ purviews. Some departments were tasked with driver and roadside assistance, while others focused on payroll and HR. Transportation companies typically see a 50-150% annual turnover of drivers, necessitating a powerhouse of a recruiting team.

The easiest integration requested was to deliver the phone system’s user experience inside Microsoft Teams. Early on, we ruled out working directly with Microsoft due to cost, additional difficulty of custom application integrations, and limitations of tying into a contact center. Even with the customer’s Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft’s phone license and calling plan bundles far exceeded the cost of a UCaaS solution that provides free integrations into Teams. The customer also built a custom application that runs most internal business processes. Although they could tie screen pops and data dips in, it was decided that the UC vendors’ APIs and developer consoles were easier to work with. Lastly, since Microsoft has not developed an in-house contact center, any integration would require tying multiple systems and backend SIP tunnels. We narrowed the options to phone providers that owned and developed their phone systems and contact centers.

The most interesting integration concerns the customer’s custom-built business management application. They have intelligence and triggers designed today to assign contact center agents in real-time based on fleet requirements and agent availability. It was decided to maintain this functionality to provide the smoothest transition for users. Most contact centers aren’t designed to route calls and skills based on third-party decision-making, significantly narrowing down the available options. CornerStone worked directly with solutions architects from the UC/CC providers until we could boil the options down to two players.

Future-proofing the contact center is especially important in the customer’s eyes. Companies rarely want to go through massive operational and process changes, so the decision being made is being scoped for the foreseeable future. We’re ensuring the players involved have shown dedication, consistent development goals, and investments in their tech stacks.

CornerStone will support the customer throughout the rollout, including supporting the customer’s IT team with end-user training, site cutovers, DID and TF ports, and general best practices design work. Acting as an escalation point and project management team, CornerStone will ensure the customer’s transition to the new product is as easy and pain-free as possible.

References are available upon request but may require MNDAs.