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:
The challenge
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 When Chris joined the company in 2021, he immediately identified the communications issues caused by their outdated VoIP phone system.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.
Chris Wright
President at OnCentive
The solution
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
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."
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 is almost like Slack for phone numbers."
Chris Wright
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.
Chris Wright
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.
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.
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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