THE PROBLEM
An established manufacturer of heating equipment located in Portsmouth and Fareham approached Alphascan after a period of expansion as they were interested in upgrading their old Avaya phone system. With the business increasing the size of its sales and services team they were also very keen to try and reduce expenditure.
THE ANALYSIS
With over 50 employees including 10 sales representatives making more than 1000 calls per day, telephony was clearly an important part of their business. The contract on their Avaya system was due to finish in a few weeks and after consulting with the senior management team we concluded that the following needs would have to be addressed by any proposed solution.
- Cost effective
- Easy for the staff to learn
- Quick to implement without disturbing regular operations
- Outstandingly supported
- Able to increase employee productivity
- Manufacturer Independent
THE SOLUTION
We looked at a number of solutions from different manufacturers very closely and decided that the 3CX Phone System would be most suitable. 3CX is the market leader in software-based VoIP Phone systems and its functionality alongside cost savings suited the customer perfectly.
3CX could reduce the running costs drastically – through reduced administration and the flexibility to choose SIP standard IP phones. By building on a Windows-based IP PBX they could integrate it with their IT infrastructure and achieve the flexibility that was required.
In January 2019 we started to setup a test infrastructure. A project team, consisting of 6 users from Sales, Production and Support tested the 3CX for several weeks. 3CX quickly proved itself as a dependable solution and it was resolved to take 3CX Phone System into production for the entire company. The business initially decided to run both the 3CX Phone System with the old Avaya phone system in parallel to act as a backup. For internal calls the existing company network is used. For external calls, there are 2 options – users can either use a VoIP provider or a VoIP Gateway. For the VoIP Gateway, Two gateways connect to 2 ISDN PRI lines and provide full redundancy.
In addition, because the 3CX Phone Software was standards based and built on Windows, the technical staff within the company could use their knowledge of the systems and not be so dependent on 3CX, unlike previously where they had been completely reliant on the vendor during their proprietary PBX days.
THE RESULTS
The business owner were very satisfied when telephony costs went down by a staggering 80% compared to the previous year! There is now just one network to be managed and monitored for both IT and telephony.
Because of the integration of the 3CX Phone System in the existing Microsoft Environment, everyday processes involving the phone system are much easier. Employees can make calls directly from Outlook, without having to type the number again. All calls are journalled for reporting purposes. In addition users can hit the F11 key from any application to trigger a call based on a selected phone number. Inbound calls are automatically matched to the customer record, saving sales people time identifying the customer in the database.
Another advantage of the 3CX Phone System is that the complete old style telephone wiring can be removed. Because of this, creating new extensions or moving users can be done in a matter of seconds, as opposed to half an hour or more with the old phone system. The 3CX Phone System gives tremendous flexibility and is very scalable since there is no limit to the number of extensions or lines you can add. There is no need for special add on modules that are limited by the number of extensions they can support!
With the 3CX Voice Application Designer, the business has also built interactive voice driven applications that automate everyday processes.
For example, they have a voice application that asks for the customer number, then verifies this number against the customer database and routes the call to the appropriate Sales or Support person responsible for that specific customer. They will also be using the call recording feature to be able to automate more processes.
Because of the switch to an IP PBX, the business can now work much more effectively compared to before. Due to the unified communications functions such as presence, employees can see whether a colleague is on the phone or not and avoid unnecessary phone calls and useless transfers. This saves employees time and reduces frustration with customers. Communication is more effective and less time consuming, increasing the amount of calls to and from customers each day and thus increasing sales.
For the Sales Managers it is also important that field sales people can always be reached via one single number, independent of whether they are in the car, with a customer or in the office.
3CX Phone System has achieved significant savings whilst increasing staff productivity.