Helping Local Businesses Take On Coronavirus

Upon founding ReadyCLT, Turner contacted Daniel Pentecost and CLT Geek, an NGLCC Certified LGBTBE, Nextiva partner, and trusted IT expert within the community. Pentecost quickly set up a website and adopted Nextiva for its business communications needs.

“We went with Nextiva because I had used the platform extensively before — including in my own office. I knew it could take us from zero to 100 within 24 hours.” Pentecost explained. “I trusted it would perform on Wi-Fi and could immediately power the seven phone extensions we needed for the team to start tangibly assisting small businesses. We installed the NextivaONE App on their laptops and phones. Then we set them loose.”

Seemingly overnight, while other local efforts struggled to get off the ground, ReadyCLT was able to start serving the roughly 35,000 small businesses in North Carolina’s metropolitan hub.

Using Nextiva, the ReadyCLT “guides” began proactive outreach to local women- and minority-owned businesses. They helped business owners secure financial assistance, launched digital advertising campaigns to drive awareness amid the pandemic, and provided PPE (masks, face shields, and hand sanitizer). These efforts contributed to the local business community’s success so they could remain operational with health regulations.

“We’ve spoken to over 8,000 businesses, successfully directed 170 small business grants, and provided 165,000 pieces of PPE to the city,” says Turner. Approximately 70% of the business owners they speak with daily are minority-owned businesses, and nearly 60% of the local Charlotte businesses with whom they engaged had less than two weeks of operating funds available.

Our usage of Nextiva is a testament to the trustworthiness of the platform.

Daniel Pentecost

Founder of Clt Geek

Turner estimates ReadyCLT interacts with 100 businesses per day using Nextiva’s virtual phone system. Turner credits the company’s industry-leading uptime, reliability, and usability as key benefits of adopting the platform.

“What we’ve been able to accomplish using Nextiva’s platform is amazing,” says Turner. “We’ve experienced zero issues with Nextiva whatsoever. That’s been a major benefit for us — given the high volume of calls we’re on every day and the magnitude of those calls for the business owners we are helping.”

Pentecost credits Nextiva with his rapid launch of ReadyCLT, which he took live operationally, via a new website, logo, marketing package, and phone service, over the span of 24 hours. He has kept running seamlessly throughout the pandemic. As Turner describes it, CLT Geek succeeded in “building the plane while we were flying it.”

“Our usage of Nextiva, while seemingly simple, is powerful and a testament to the trustworthiness of the platform,” says Pentecost. “The core desire of ReadyCLT was to answer every call coming into the center. We couldn’t risk missing calls or sending them to voicemail. This was in stark contrast to the hours-long hold times businesses faced when calling government offices. We knew we could do better.”

The implementation was simple and scalable.

Pentecost configured Nextiva to use call groups to distribute calls to the team regardless of their physical location. All the staff needed to do was install the NextivaONE App on their laptops or mobile phones. Due to the cloud-based phone system, there wasn’t a need for desk phones.

“This lean, iterative deployment is the kind of project CLT Geek loves but with which most other voice providers fall short. Nextiva helped us exceed client expectations.”