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First Federal Savings Bank: Unplug the Old Phones, Plug In the New Ones

First Federal Savings Bank migrates from a legacy Mitel PBX to RingCentral — eliminating reliability issues, meeting HITRUST and FINRA compliance requirements, and executing a seamless cutover in the middle of a pandemic.

The Challenge

First Federal Savings Bank's legacy Mitel PBX was unreliable, difficult to manage, and didn't meet the security standards a financial institution requires — making it hard to deliver the customer service the bank's culture demanded.

The Solution

CTPros guided First Federal through the evaluation and implemented RingCentral Office — a HITRUST-certified, FINRA-compliant cloud platform that gave the bank reliable calling, built-in conferencing, voicemail transcription, and mobile flexibility across all 9 branches.

About First Federal Savings Bank

First Federal Savings Bank has been serving customer financial needs since 1904. Headquartered in Evansville, Indiana, First Federal operates 9 branches and offers a range of personal and business banking services to the local community. With more than 120 employees and a highly engaged Board, the bank's identity is built around exceptional customer service — and its communications infrastructure has to reflect that commitment.

An Unreliable PBX and High Standards That Couldn't Coexist

Christy McBride, First Federal's EVP, Chief Operations Officer, and Information Security Officer, knew the bank's legacy Mitel phone system had to go. It had proven difficult to program and manage, connectivity issues were a recurring problem, and the system simply wasn't performing at the level a customer-first financial institution required. When something went wrong — and it went wrong often enough — the bank's customer service standards suffered for it.

Security and compliance added additional stakes. As a federally regulated financial institution, any new communications platform had to meet stringent security requirements. The combination of reliability problems and compliance exposure made the case for moving to the cloud clear. When a board member attended a CTPros presentation and came back with a recommendation, the bank had a place to start.

Need-Based Guidance First, Sales Second

Mark Johnson, Senior Account Representative at CTPros, led the engagement. McBride appreciated the approach — early conversations focused entirely on understanding the bank's challenges and requirements before any solution was discussed. That consultative posture was a meaningful contrast to the experience she'd had with a previous provider.

CTPros recommended RingCentral for its HITRUST certification and FINRA compliance — the right foundation for a financial institution — along with its 99.999% uptime SLA that addressed the reliability issues directly. The migration happened in the middle of COVID-19, with training delivered remotely through RingCentral's online resources since employees couldn't gather at branches.

Simplicity, Reliability, and Functionality — All Three

McBride described the impact in three areas:

Simplicity: Easy setup, deployment, and responsive technical support. Employees can answer calls from any device, transfer between office and home without disruption, and manage their own settings without routing requests through IT.

Reliability: Call quality is consistently excellent and uptime has delivered on the 99.999% SLA promise — a significant change from the connectivity issues the legacy Mitel system generated regularly.

Functionality: Built-in conference bridges eliminated a third-party conferencing platform and the administrative overhead that came with it. Employees can now set up their own meetings without administrator involvement. Voicemail transcription delivered via email means the team can check messages from any device without dialing in.

The cutover itself was as smooth as implementations get. The bank unplugged the old phones, plugged in the new ones, and within a minute had a fully operational high-quality system.

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