Aug. 31, 2009 (PR Newswire) -- MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Spanlink Communications, a leading provider of advanced business communications technology and network integration, today announced it has helped Knight Transportation deploy Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) to eliminate costly long distance, toll and carrier costs, and excel customer service. Cisco UCCE is helping Knight Transportation centralize its business communications solution and answer customer calls more quickly and easily.

Additionally, financing options with Cisco Capital is making it easier and more affordable for this nationwide truckload company to equip its 400+ customer service reps with Cisco Unified Communications applications.

"In the transportation industry you are talking to customers and drivers on a daily basis, and missing a phone call equates to losing business," said Cory Staheli, vice president of IT at Knight Transportation. "We chose the Cisco solution over the Avaya solution for a number of reasons - we were comfortable with the Cisco architecture, we liked their technology roadmap and we were impressed by the way Spanlink and Cisco packaged the IP solution to meet our business needs."

By partnering with Spanlink and deploying Cisco UCCE, Knight Transportation:

    --  Is moving from managing 31 phone systems, down to one.
--  Has pre-configured disaster recovery measures in place; in the case of a
phone outage, calls will automatically route to the nearest available
service center.
--  Has access to real-time and historical reporting data, such as hold
times and call volumes.
--  Dials only five digit extensions to connect with employees throughout
the organization.
--  Provides its drivers and customers with one common, consistent caller
experience.

--  Accesses email, voice, and fax messages from a single inbox anytime,
anywhere and on any device.

In addition to the above benefits, as Knight continues to grow its business, the new UCCE solution makes planning for future sites much cheaper and easier. With its previous solution, opening a new facility meant installing two physical networks: one voice and one data. Combining the networks provides a reduction of $9,783.95 per site. Since the beginning of the deployment, Knight has already opened four new sites and has saved more than $39,000 in hardware costs.

Besides advising, selling and installing the solution, Spanlink is also providing Knight with its customer support services. Spanlink Support monitors Knight's solution and has a highly-skilled team available to help solve any issues that arise 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.