Overview

Henry Ford College, a leading educational institution, relies on its call center to support students, faculty, and staff. But the college's communication expenses had grown out of step with the actual value it was receiving — driven largely by charges from its CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) providers and a billing issue with its incumbent carrier that no one had caught.

The college brought in Metro Wireless to get to the bottom of it. After a close review of the college's call center architecture and carrier billing, Metro Wireless identified two compounding problems and moved to fix both.

The Challenge

Henry Ford College's phone bill was high, and not for reasons that added value to the college's operations. Two issues were driving up costs:

Key challenges

1. High call center costs — Substantial charges were coming from the college's CCaaS providers, inflating the overall communications spend.
2. Double charging by the incumbent carrier — Due to long-distance rate centers, the incumbent carrier was effectively billing the college twice for the same traffic.
3. No clear line of sight into billing — The college was paying for more than the actual call center service it was using, without an easy way to identify or isolate the excess charges.

The Solution

Metro Wireless went straight at both problems at once.

Integrated trunks with the CCaaS providers. Metro Wireless collaborated directly with Henry Ford College's CCaaS providers to integrate their trunks, eliminating the additional phone charges those providers had been generating.

Rate center optimization. Metro Wireless identified exactly where the incumbent carrier's long-distance rate centers were causing double charging, and corrected it — cutting out a significant source of unnecessary expense in one move.

Together, these two fixes meant the college was finally billed solely for the actual call center service it used — nothing extra layered on top.

The Result

The impact showed up directly on the college's bottom line, and in the day-to-day relationship with Metro Wireless's team.

Key results:

1. Substantial cost savings — Integrating trunks and correcting the double-charging issue drove a significant reduction in the college's phone bill.
2. Billed for exactly what was used — No more paying for phantom charges layered on top of actual call center service.
3. Consistently excellent service — The college's IT team has dealt with Metro Wireless's technical staff extensively, and reports the same high level of responsiveness today as on day one.
4. A long-term, trusted partnership — Rather than a one-time fix, the relationship has held up over time — a rarity the college's IT Director called out directly.

Key takeaways

Communication costs are often inflated by billing structures institutions never chose and rarely have the visibility to catch. By integrating trunks directly with CCaaS providers and correcting carrier rate-center errors, Metro Wireless shows that meaningful savings frequently come not from switching providers, but from fixing what's broken in the billing itself.

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