How OnCentive delivers a great client experience with OpenPhone

About OnCentive

Industry:

Financial services

Founded:

1998

HQ:

Alabama

Previous provider:

Nextiva

Every year, the U.S. government sets aside over $150 billion in tax credits and incentives to businesses, but only 2% of eligible small businesses actually take advantage of the credit. That leaves $146 billion sitting in bank accounts, just waiting to be claimed. It’s not that they don’t want or need the money, it’s that businesses don’t know it exists. With over 3,000 tax credits available, it’s impossible for most companies and even tax professionals to keep track of them all. That’s where OnCentive comes in.

"We make sure businesses of all sizes can take advantage of the very complicated tax credits that the government is giving out," says Chris Wright, president of OnCentive, which has helped hundreds of businesses claim over $1.5 billion in tax credits.

OpenPhone integrations used:

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The challenge

Frustrated OnCentive employees were using personal phones 

OnCentive works with businesses over the phone to support them through the tax credit qualification process and then help those businesses to actually claim those credits. Previously, OnCentive used Nextiva for their business phone service. When Chris joined the company in 2021, he immediately identified the communications issues caused by their outdated VoIP phone system.

Nextiva made it possible for OnCentive to give teams working on different credits their own unique phone numbers, but the handoff from sales to operations was still painful. "[Customer communication] wasn’t stored in one central location," says Chris, "and other people can’t see your communications easily."

Those communication challenges led some OnCentive’s employees to continue using their personal phones to conduct business — which introduced further challenges. "We had clients calling people at nine o’clock at night or four o’clock in the morning just to ask us questions," recalls Chris.

"OpenPhone is almost like Slack for phone numbers."

Chris Wright

President at OnCentive

The solution

OpenPhone promised to tame the communication chaos

What they needed was a reliable, central resource for communication to and from the company. Chris turned to OpenPhone, which he was familiar with from a previous company. 

"OpenPhone is almost like Slack for phone numbers," says Chris. He imagined different sales teams could have their own shared number that anyone on the team can answer. They could also communicate internally on those sales conversations and then pass the complete communications history for each qualified client over to the operations team.

The impact

With OpenPhone, everyone as OnCentive is on the same page

OpenPhone keeps all the teams at OnCentive aligned. Collaborating on customer communications within a shared inbox dedicated to a specific phone number breaks client calls out of the silos they were in previously and allows team members to easily share information with each other.

"The ability to see what everyone is doing and share communications actively and being able to tag teammates within a conversation that’s only internal is very nice," says Chris. "For everyone to have visibility into what’s going on, I think that’s probably the biggest thing that OpenPhone solves."

Read the full customer story here ->

Read the full customer story here ->

How OnCentive delivers a great client experience with OpenPhone

Every year, the U.S. government sets aside over $150 billion in tax credits and incentives to businesses, but only 2% of eligible small businesses actually take advantage of the credit. That leaves $146 billion sitting in bank accounts, just waiting to be claimed. It’s not that they don’t want or need the money, it’s that businesses don’t know it exists. With over 3,000 tax credits available, it’s impossible for most companies and even tax professionals to keep track of them all. That’s where OnCentive comes in.

"We make sure businesses of all sizes can take advantage of the very complicated tax credits that the government is giving out," says Chris Wright, president of OnCentive, which has helped hundreds of businesses claim over $1.5 billion in tax credits.

Industry
Financial services
Use Cases
Sales
Operations
Founded
1998
HQ
Alabama
Previously using
Nextiva

"OpenPhone is almost like Slack for phone numbers."

Chris Wright

President at OnCentive

Frustrated OnCentive employees were using personal phones 

OnCentive works with businesses over the phone to support them through the tax credit qualification process and then help those businesses to actually claim those credits. Previously, OnCentive used Nextiva for their business phone service. When Chris joined the company in 2021, he immediately identified the communications issues caused by their outdated VoIP phone system.

Nextiva made it possible for OnCentive to give teams working on different credits their own unique phone numbers, but the handoff from sales to operations was still painful. "[Customer communication] wasn’t stored in one central location," says Chris, "and other people can’t see your communications easily."

Those communication challenges led some OnCentive’s employees to continue using their personal phones to conduct business — which introduced further challenges. "We had clients calling people at nine o’clock at night or four o’clock in the morning just to ask us questions," recalls Chris.

The ability to see what everyone is doing and share communications actively and being able to tag teammates within a conversation ... For everyone to have visibility into what’s going on, I think that’s probably the biggest thing that OpenPhone solves.

Chris Wright

Chris Wright

President at OnCentive
A speech bubble icon

Chris’s team members each had their own phone number to communicate with clients, however, due to the traditional setup, communication between departments was difficult and information was siloed. Different teams of people at OnCentive work on qualifying businesses for different credits. Once qualified by the sales team, those accounts are handed over to the operations team to process the credit application.

Nextiva made it possible for OnCentive to give teams working on different credits their own unique phone numbers, but the handoff from sales to operations was still painful.

"[Customer communication] wasn’t stored in one central location," says Chris, "and other people can’t see your communications easily."

Those communication challenges led some OnCentive’s employees to continue using their personal phones to conduct business — which introduced further challenges. "We had clients calling people at nine o’clock at night or four o’clock in the morning just to ask us questions," recalls Chris of life under the old system.

What they needed was a reliable, central resource for communication to and from the company. Wright turned to OpenPhone, which he was familiar with from a previous company.

OpenPhone promised to tame the communication chaos

What they needed was a reliable, central resource for communication to and from the company. Chris turned to OpenPhone, which he was familiar with from a previous company. 

"OpenPhone is almost like Slack for phone numbers," says Chris. He imagined different sales teams could have their own shared number that anyone on the team can answer. They could also communicate internally on those sales conversations and then pass the complete communications history for each qualified client over to the operations team.

With OpenPhone, everyone as OnCentive is on the same page

OpenPhone keeps all the teams at OnCentive aligned. Collaborating on customer communications within a shared inbox dedicated to a specific phone number breaks client calls out of the silos they were in previously and allows team members to easily share information with each other.

"The ability to see what everyone is doing and share communications actively and being able to tag teammates within a conversation that’s only internal is very nice," says Chris. "For everyone to have visibility into what’s going on, I think that’s probably the biggest thing that OpenPhone solves."

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