Founded in Missouri, St. Louis Foods is an ancillary food products provider for commercial restaurants across the Midwest. For decades, it was located in an old building with what the employees referred to as “spaghetti wiring” and a 20-year-old digital phone system that had didn’t even have basic phone system features like caller ID and voicemail.

Founded in Missouri, St. Louis Foods is an ancillary food products provider for commercial restaurants across the Midwest. For decades, it was located in an old building with what the employees referred to as “spaghetti wiring” and a 20-year-old digital phone system that had didn’t even have basic phone system features like caller ID and voicemail.

After their original phone vendor went bankrupt, St. Louis Foods had difficulty finding anyone who had knowledge of their old phone system technology or access to legacy replacement parts. “It is impossible to describe exactly how antiquated and confusing things were with that old phone system,” says Switchvox reseller Matt Rygelski of PhoneWire in Fairview Heights, Illinois. “I was tied primarily to using replacement phones and limited by unreliable labeling and a complete jumble of phone wiring that was nearly impossible to trace. Cords were scotch-taped to broken handsets and the past phone administrator had used whiteout to label many of them!” All that changed when a new generation of owners took over the well-established food distributor and relocated the facility to a newly revitalized section of the nearby city of Belleville, Illinois. Along with the new location came a modern office space with fiber optic wiring, new floors, fresh paint, updated office furnishings, and upgraded computers. All St. Louis Foods needed was a modern phone system to go with it all. They did, however, have one unique request. Despite their new location in Illinois, they requested to keep their 314 area code in order to maintain their historical status as a St. Louis company. “That area code functionality was big for us,” says Mike Truran, Vice President of St. Louis Foods. “Some brand devaluation goes along with being relocated in a different state, and there are many advantages to still being seen as a local company in St. Louis. We knew we had to be practical about it, but it was important to us that we still reflect that 314 number on both incoming and outgoing calls. We were committed to making that work for us in a positive way.”

In order to maintain an outside area code without all the complexities of monthly line costs, PhoneWire set up call forwarding using a Personalized Communications Service (PCS). When calls come in from the old 314 St. Louis area code, they are automatically forwarded to the company’s new 618 Belleville area code. With this call forwarding service, St. Louis callers won’t ever know they are calling the company in Illinois. “Another benefit that we really enjoy are the call reporting features,” says Truran. “As a manager, with the old system, I never had any way of knowing who was calling or how many personal and business calls employees were receiving or making. I also wasn’t able to track or analyze any trends, like what days we seemed to get the most phone traffic and what kinds of calls they were. Having these features help us analyze our call volume and make better staffing decisions.” Truran also enjoys being able to access his voicemails through his email on the Switchvox mobile app. “Switchvox Cloud lets you take your office with you when you are traveling, no matter where you go,” says Truran. “Of course saving money can never be underrated,” continues Truran. “I know for certain that we have saved several hundred dollars per month on equipment and leasing fees with our new Switchvox Cloud phone system.”