Pittsburgh Steelers huddle with XMedius for unified communications

PITTSBURGH — Dagostino Electronic Services, Inc. worked with XMedius to provide the Pittsburgh Steelers a unified communications solution to enhance mobility and improve productivity.

DES Vice President Chuck Roberts said, “The NFL franchise sought a next-generation unified communications solution that could be deployed into its existing IT landscape. XMedius is an industry leader in interoperability with proven solutions that we knew would meet the Steelers’ stringent requirements.”

A Long-Standing History 

Founded in 1933, the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers organization is the oldest in the American Football Conference. The team has six Super Bowl championships, more than any other NFL franchise.

Currently, the Steelers team occupies three locations across Pittsburgh: Heinz Field; the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Sports Performance Complex; and a third office, which is the organization's merchandise/e-commerce center on Western Avenue on Pittsburgh's North Side. 

Built in 2001, Heinz Field on the North Shore of Pittsburgh is not only home to Steelers games but also to the team's marketing, corporate sponsorship, and stadium operations staff. The UPMC practice facility in Pittsburgh's Southside neighborhood is considered the team's headquarters and houses football operations, coaches, trainers, owner offices, IT staff, public relations and equipment personnel. Finally, the merchandise/e-commerce center contains the team store and operations for e-commerce sales orders. 

With three separate locations all conducting critical franchise operations concurrently, the Steelers needed a reliable, feature-rich unified communications solution that could streamline communications, connect calls and facilitate mobility for staff and executive leadership no matter where they were on the road. 

Running with the Times 

The Steelers had an antiquated call processing solution with an outdated Avaya/Nortel CallPilot voicemail system. It was time for an upgrade. Steelers Director of Information Technology, Scott Phelps, selected Alcatel-Lucent as the PBX solution and he wanted a state-of-the-art automated attendant, along with unified messaging, voicemail and mobile applications to match. 

To help identify the best offering, Phelps called in Pittsburgh-based Dagostino Electronic Services, a preferred technology provider and trusted XMedius reseller. Dagostino knew exactly what the team needed. XMedius's CX-E was the perfect solution to match the tone and reputation of the franchise, and it delivered the right mobile feature set to accommodate busy Steelers executives across multiple locations. 

Going the Distance with Atom®

When Phelps selected CX-E, he was quickly introduced to Atom, XMedius' next-generation personal assistant. With Atom, Steelers staffers were gifted with a new level of mobility while on the road.

 

"Atom enables us to live in a hands-free, speech-driven communications world," Phelps explained. "The ability to simply speak commands to make calls, appointments, and check my messages just makes my life easier." 

For busy team executives with hectic travel schedules, Atom's mobility features have improved their efficiency levels. Atom lets them see and access voicemails, and respond to them appropriately. Additionally, Atom's location-based services mean executives can be reached on their optimal devices via one phone number, whether in the office or traveling. Phelps recalled a recent conversation with one executive who raved about Atom, "This is life changing. It's exactly what I needed." 

But it's not just about the Steelers staff. When Phelps sought a new unified communications platform, he set out to address the needs of the Steelers fans and others who call into the team for sales and support. CX-E's automated attendant manages the Steeler high call volumes, especially at peak time in the season. Reliability was critical and a customizable automated attendant that could route calls efficiently to all three Steelers' locations was a must. CX-E exceeded all expectations. 

CX-E Changes the Game 

The Steelers are still becoming acquainted with all the CX-E capabilities. "As we dig into the system, we discover features we didn't even know we needed until we started using them," Phelps said. "Atom's been a game changer. It has a host of mobile capabilities that our executives now can't be without. Leveraging CX-E's mobility has really allowed us to connect on the fly. Looking back at the system we had before, it was a different world. We can already do so much more with CX-E, and there's still more to come." 

Industry's Most Interoperable UC Platform 

Ideal for Enterprises Around the World

 CX-E is the industry's most interoperable UC platform on the market. The extensive interoperability of the CX-E platform was developed specifically to support organizations seeking to deploy UC in a rapidly evolving IT landscape — telephony, email and/or databases — on-premise, in a private or the public cloud and/or a hybrid configuration. By deploying XMedius's CX-E UC platform as part of an overall UC solution portfolio, organizations can avoid single vendor lock-in, achieve high availability objectives and centralize UC infrastructure into a data center/private cloud configuration. CX-E delivers best-of-breed UC applications including: unified messaging, personal assistant, speech, mobile client, voicemail, automated attendant, IVR, call center, fax and other business process applications.