Cathedral of St. Paul

Objective:
Allow Clergy and staff to manage phone calls from multiple work locations, provide more personal communications to parishioners, and do simple day-to-day administration on the phone system.

Situation:
The Catholic Cathedral in downtown Birmingham was undergoing the renovation of the new Family Life Center. Fr. Donohoe, the pastor, thought spending any additional money on their legacy phone system was unwise. Father and his staff often worked remotely or were roaming the campus. Most callers ended up leaving voice mail messages. Parishioners flooded the office with calls days before Holy Days, checking mass schedules, making a hectic time even more difficult.

Resolution:
Blue Ocean installed an Interactive Intelligence Voice over IP PBX. This allowed staff members to easily view from their computer screen the "Find Me - Follow Me" feature. Staff can leave their desk and walk about campus and receive their calls. It also allowed staff to log in remotely (i.e. from Rome, Italy) and make and receive calls and check voice mails and faxes. The Parish Directory and Microsoft Outlook contact databases were configured for 1 click dialing from the computer desktop. This saved tremendous amounts of time when calling parish members. Lastly the receptionist created a custom greeting for callers a couple days before each Holy Day. This greeting offers mass times and drastically reduces the call load.