Point-of-Sale Software Provider Appetize Consolidates Video & Phone for Seamless User Experience

As a leading enterprise cloud point-of-sale (POS) and management platform for food & beverage and retail clients, Appetize has brought the efficiency of the digital age to the dining and shopping experience. Founded in 2011, Los Angeles-based Appetize provides POS technology for some of the world’s highest-volume businesses, including theme parks, sports and entertainment venues, convention centers, travel and leisure sites, and restaurant chains.

Rapid expansion demands scalable communications

Appetize has been rapidly expanding as it enters new verticals and grows its team to meet the increased demand for its POS software. With such rapid growth, Appetize needed a communications system that could scale with the company while meeting the needs of its workforce.

Although Appetize had an array of communications solutions in place, its legacy provider couldn’t offer the constant support and updates that Appetize required to maximize productivity and drive sales.

“Originally, we were using a Zoom competitor for both video conferencing and our phone solution,” said Quinton Myers, Director of Client Services at Appetize. “But they were always a bit late to update their technology, and we needed them to more aggressively provide those updates.”

Appetize’s phone solution also came with extra costs, but those costs didn’t provide Appetize with any additional capabilities.

“All of our employees have cell phones,” Myers said. “With our previous provider, we were paying for their phones and also employee cell phones, but there was no need to have those phones alongside the mobile phone. It just didn’t make sense from a budgetary standpoint.”

The move to Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone

After learning its legacy provider’s video solution was powered by Zoom, Myers and his teams decided to eliminate the middleman and work directly with Zoom for video. With its user-friendly interface and interoperability with other applications, Zoom offered a more consistent and seamless user experience.

“We found out that the provider we were using was white-labeling Zoom’s video technology, and we wanted a more direct relationship with our video conferencing provider, so we switched to Zoom,” Myers said. “Zoom integrates with all of our applications — Slack, Zendesk … it even has a Google Chrome extension and integrates with Gmail. The functionality and usability of the platform really make the user experience seamless.”

And when Zoom launched its own telephony product, migrating to Zoom Phone was an easy call for Appetize. “We had some employees using another provider for video and phone, while others were using Zoom,” Myers said. “So consolidating our video and phone solutions into one platform just made sense.”

Myers said Appetize also saved money when it switched to Zoom Phone because it eliminated desk phones within the organization, which reduced the cost of provisioning and supporting that hardware. The teams now use Zoom Phone to handle sales calls.

“We are using Zoom Phone as a sales enablement tool,” Myers said. “It’s how we route our calls from our 800 number to our business development representatives. I also use my Zoom Phone number as my personal business and office line.”

Appetize also supplements its support processes with Zoom. By scheduling Zoom calls and using the screen-sharing features, support teams can more optimally help Appetize’s client base. Additionally, Appetize uses Zoom Rooms in every conference room at its Los Angeles headquarters, simplifying the room experience and enabling a one-touch experience.

‘Zoom is the ecosystem for communication’

By migrating to Zoom’s unified communications platform, Appetize consolidated video and phone onto one platform, which led to a more seamless user experience, reduced costs, and better supported all its use cases.

“We are constantly running Zoom all the time,” Myers said. “We use it for communication inside the organization, we use it to communicate with outside client sales, our vendors, and our partners. Zoom really is the ecosystem we utilize for communication.”