RingCentral Online recently spoke with Work with Ease Vice President Eric Atwood about how he uses RingCentral. Eric and his wife, company president Athena Williams-Atwood, operate their business from San Francisco and Warkworth, New Zealand, where they reside.
Firstly, can you tell me a little about Work with Ease?
EA: My wife and I own this business. We work with businesses and organizations to bring more ease into their work environment, which translates to greater productivity, less stress, better results.
How difficult is it to manage a small business in two different hemispheres?
EA: It is surprisingly simple, actually. The technology, the Internet, communications as they are, it’s really simple to run this type of business anywhere in the world, and things like RingCentral make it even easier.
How?
EA: Everything just seems to be integrated. We do everything on the phone and over the Internet so it's really efficient that way; it's just a matter of being mindful of the time difference. We’re a day ahead here in New Zealand. But it’s really been quite easy to transition our business from the states to New Zealand.
So someone in the states, a potential customer, could reach you in New Zealand at any time, just by calling your RingCentral Bay area local number?
Yes. With RingCentral's technology the way it is, and we also use Skype, we like to think that we’re a 24-hour-a-day business, because anything can come in at any time through the Internet. We also almost always follow-up with people the same day. If it’s late at night then we follow-up the next day.
Do you use RingCentral's Answering Rules so that incoming calls are automatically directed to alternate phones during different times of the day? Especially given the time difference between the US and New Zealand...
EA: Yes, we use the Answering Rules so that we can answer calls right away.
And the Answering Rules feature probably helps with managing calls for you and your wife, who is often in the Bay area.
EA: Exactly, yes.
What would you tell people about RingCentral Online?
EA: We’re really happy with it. We’ve been using it for two or three years now and we really like how efficient it is, and it’s very accessible, it’s immediate, and easy to use. We like everything about it. It’s also very reasonable and that’s obviously a very important factor.
Are you in New Zealand right now?
Yes, I’m in New Zealand and my wife, Athena, is in San Francisco now on business. RingCentral is very useful for our way of life. Calls are forwarded to alternate phones in both countries, and when the calls go to voicemail we’ll get a notice on our computer saying that we have voicemail. We’ll get them right away and call right back. Of course, the service has fax capabilities as well, and if someone sends a fax we’ll get that notice, too, right away.
It’s a very efficient tool for us.
Is it just the two of you in this business?
EA: We also have a virtual team.
In the Bay area?
EA: Three are in the Bay area and one is in New Zealand.
Your employees are also on your RingCentral account. How does that work?
EA: Calls to our employees are directed to a combination of their cell phones and home phones. This is absolutely a big benefit. Calls can be forwarded to multiple phones and if you’re unavailable, the technology gets the messages to you.
Tell me a little more about your business. What kinds of problems do your customers want you to solve?
EA: What we’re trying to focus on is how to attract, retain and engage an organization's employees. We 
found that companies have all types of different challenges from insufficient revenue to a lack of collaboration to an inability to have virtual teams work together efficiently, so there is a range of different challenges that we can meet. Work-place stress and high healthcare costs are also big--we help with that, too--as well as absenteeism and a lack of full employee engagement or morale.
Can you provide an example?
EA: One company was having a hard time getting its employees to buy into the company vision. The 
employees were just doing their day-to-day jobs so there was a disconnect between what the employees were doing and what the management’s objective was, which was to create an international organization that would obtain an achievable and sustainable impact in the marketplace.
So what we did was to formulate these programs in which the employees and the managers would work together to implement the goals--from specific tasks to long-term business planning. The employees became involved in the day-to-day business planning so the vision became part of their job responsibilities.
You operate another business as well. Do you use RingCentral for that business, too?
Yes, I also use RingCentral for the other business that I have, which is a marketing, copywriting and consultation business.
One final question. You and your wife are both Americans. Why did you decide to relocate to New Zealand and where in New Zealand do you live?
EA: We're in a town called Warkworth, which is about an hour north of Auckland. It's a fairly small town and we really like it. It's near the ocean and there is a lot of wide open spaces and clean air. It's a fascinating country.
Athena and I traveled across New Zealand a few years ago and we fell in love with it, we knew that we were meant to be here. There's just something about the land and the people.
Sounds lovely. Thank you, Eric, for the your time.
EA: Thank you.
