How the Cleveland Guardians Modernized Their Communications with Intermedia’s Intelligent Contact Center

The Background

The Cleveland Guardians are more than just a Major League Baseball team—they are a pillar of the Cleveland community, committed to delivering an exceptional fan experience on and off the field. Their contact center plays a critical role in engaging with fans, handling ticketing inquiries, season memberships, and customer service. However, their legacy on-premises phone system lacked the flexibility, scalability, and modern capabilities needed to support their fast-paced environment.

With a mobile workforce operating across 162 regular-season games, Spring Training, and multiple locations, the Guardians needed a solution that could provide a more adaptable communication experience, improve fan interactions, and reduce IT complexity. By partnering with TTx, Ohio’s premier managed service provider, and Intermedia Intelligent Communications, a leader in cloud-based unified communications and customer engagement solutions, the Guardians transitioned from a restrictive on-premises system to a cloud-based platform—enhancing fan engagement, increasing operational efficiency, and ensuring reliable communication across their organization.

Company Profile:
The Cleveland Guardians are a Major League Baseball team in the American League Central Division

Industry: Major League Baseball

The Challenge

The Guardians contact center was central to their fan engagement strategy, but their on-premises system had become a major obstacle. The outdated platform struggled to keep up with high call volumes, lacked the flexibility to support remote and mobile work, and required constant IT oversight to maintain aging infrastructure.

Key Challenges included:

  • Inability to handle high call volumes, especially on game days, leading to slow response times and fan frustration.
  • IT resources were stretched thin, maintaining outdated infrastructure instead of focusing on innovation.
  • Limited visibility into fan engagement and service quality, making it difficult to measure and optimize the experience.
  • Lack of flexibility for remote and mobile work, particularly during stadium renovations when staff needed reliable access from anywhere.

As Whitney Kuszmaul, head of IT for the Guardians, explained:

“We needed a system that could keep up with the fast-paced nature of our organization. The priority was making things simple, scalable, and reliable so we could focus on baseball and the fan experience—not managing infrastructure.”

The Solution: TTx Inc. and Intermedia Intelligent Communications

The Cleveland Guardians turned to TTx, a trusted full-service IT provider, to source, implement, and manage the right communications solution for their organization. As a longtime IT partner, TTx had a deep understanding of the organization’s unique needs and provided hands-on expertise to guide the transition seamlessly.

TTx offers Maven Cloud, a cloud communications platform that enhances customer engagement, collaboration, and operational efficiency. It delivers a suite of tools for voice, video conferencing, messaging, file sharing, and contact center services. Beyond implementation, TTx provides expert management, personalized support, and ongoing optimization, ensuring that organizations like the Guardians receive a tailored and fully supported solution.

Intermedia, a leading provider of cloud communications solutions, powers the technology behind Maven Cloud. Serving 150,000 businesses and supporting 7,500 IT partners—including TTx—Intermedia delivers the secure, scalable, and AI-powered platform and applications that enable organizations of all sizes to stay better connected, informed, and productive from wherever their team members work.

We needed a system that could keep up with the fast-paced nature of our organization. The priority was making things simple, scalable, and reliable so we could focus on baseball and the fan experience—not managing infrastructure.

WHITNEY KUSZMAUL,
Head of IT, Cleveland Guardians

Products They Use

The Results: A Cloud-Based Contact Center Platform

To modernize their communications, the Guardians implemented Maven Cloud, starting with an upgraded contact center platform. The transition to the cloud eliminated the constraints of their outdated on-premises system, providing greater reliability, scalability, and efficiency. This allowed IT to focus on higher-value initiatives while delivering a more responsive and connected fan experience.

Key Benefits include:

  • Superior Fan Engagement & Customer Service
    • Intelligent call routing ensures fans quickly connect with the right ticketing or service representative.
    • The system scales effortlessly to handle seasonal workforce fluctuations, including Spring Training, playoffs, and peak game-day surges.
    • AI-powered analytics help improve service quality and response times, allowing continuous optimization.
  • Reliable, Mobile-Optimized Communication for Enhanced Productivity
    • Team members can work from anywhere—home, the ballpark, or on the road—without connectivity concerns.
    • The mobile app’s expanded capabilities have led to increased adoption among management and staff, boosting productivity.
    • Contact center agents now experience crystal-clear call quality, ensuring they seamlessly assist customers from any location.
  • Deep Integration with Existing Technology
    • Seamless integration with Microsoft Teams & Dynamics 365 eliminates data silos and improves efficiency.
    • CRM synchronization and screen-pops provide real-time insights into fan interactions, allowing for more personalized service.
    • Reduced training time and faster user adoption, thanks to a system that works with the team’s existing tools.
  • Seamless Deployment with Long-Term Reliability & Cost Savings
    • Deployment required less than five hours of IT oversight, an unprecedented efficiency gain.
    • The transition was so seamless that the IT team initially felt like they should be doing more.
    • Downtime risks and hardware failures were eliminated, ensuring a consistent and reliable system.
    • TTx and Intermedia fully manage the cloud infrastructure, saving 20–30 hours of IT time per week that can now be reinvested into innovation.
       

Expanding the Playbook: The Next Step with Unified Communications

Following the success of their contact center transformation, the Guardians are now rolling out Maven Cloud for their broader unified communications needs. This next phase will unify business phone, team messaging, video conferencing, and collaboration tools under one platform. By replacing fragmented systems with a single cloud-based solution, the Guardians are creating a more connected, efficient organization, ensuring seamless communication across coaches, front-office personnel, and mobile staff...not to mention the fans.

As Whitney Kuszmaul summed it up:

“We trusted TTx to bring us the best solution, and they delivered. With Maven Cloud, we have a reliable system that lets us focus on our team and our fans—not outdated technology.”

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