The Problem
JHP Group Ltd (www.jhptraining.com) was established in 1983 by Mr J H Pitman of the Pitman family. They offer a wide range of work-based and job-seeker training for adults and young people alike. In early 2010, a management buy-out by the Executive Board in partnership with LDC (Lloyds TSB Development Capital) gave significant growth opportunities to the business and enabled skills and employability services to be offered to many more customers. As a result their national network has grown to 70 sites throughout the UK and they now employ over 1400 staff and have plans to grow the business threefold over the next few years. JHP Group were looking for high inter-site telephony costs, reliance on expensive third-parties for call conferencing, expensive support and inefficient staff communication. The management buy-out in 2010 provided the perfect opportunity to review their communications strategy with a focus on reducing operating costs, and improving staff and client interaction. The new merged organisation had aggressive plans to expand rapidly, but they recognised that this would be impossible with their existing telephony infrastructure. This included expanding their network of regional offices, but with the existing technology, this would be prohibitive as it was inflexible, had high call and line rental costs, and was expensive to run and maintain. Many of their staff work remotely, either on the road, at their regional offices or even at home. They needed a system that would allow them to seamlessly integrate with their network, so that they would always be available regardless of location.
In Summary
The impact of the Swyx system together with the work carried out by Swyx Gold partner HBT Communications has been outstanding, revolutionising the company’s ability to do business more cost-effectively and efficiently.
A Summary of the Features and Benefits that the Swyx solution introduced by HBT:
By moving to the new unified communications solution JHP has realised the following benefits
- Reduced operational costs – over £40,000 per year savings on teleconferencing plus reduced telephony and mobile costs
- Moves and changes can be done inhouse
- Enhanced customer service due to enhanced staff availability
- Maximise sales opportunities by capturing more calls
- Full reporting and performance management for contact centre to help boost productivity and levels of service
- Support for remote/flexible working – staff can log in from any location to make/receive via the office system
- Built-in conferencing facility – no longer have to pay for a subscription service
- Flexible solution that will integrate with any other IT application on the network e.g. CRM, Skype
- Enhanced company communication through ‘Presence’ functionality so colleagues can see at a glance what someone else’s status is e.g. ‘Available’, ‘In a meeting’, ‘Away’, ‘on holiday’ etc. (Swyx integrates with Microsoft Outlook calendar)
- Silent Monitoring facility in contact centre aids training
The Solution
A flexible unified communications solution that was scalable and would dramatically reduce costs.
JHP looked at several products and suppliers including Mitel, and Avaya. However, according to JHP it soon became apparent that these solutions were limited in terms of the functionality they offered. Furthermore they would need to be continually updated with additional hardware and software as the company expanded, which would incur more costs. HBT suggested they selected Swyx, a software-based unified communications solution. Swyx immediately stood out from the pack. It provided them with everything they needed. It was versatile, scalable, had all the features and won hands down on price. As it was ‘pure’ IP based solution, it had the potential to dramatically reduce their costs, not just in call charges between offices which would now be free, but in virtually every aspect of their business. Also as it was software base, expansion would be easy, all they had to do was add new licences.
Testimonial
It would not be an overstatement to say that both HBT and the Swyx solution has been a revelation to our business. The system does everything we want and so much more. The new solution is quite simply ‘an office in a box’ it gives us greater flexibility, reduced costs, increased sales and enhanced customer service. Overall Swyx is an ‘enabler’ for our business, giving us an unparalleled degree of flexibility – for instance we are able to open a new contact centre in Scotland within a single month. I cannot fault the service and support we have received from HBT. Their attention to detail has been impeccable and their expertise has allowed us to take full advantage of the rich features that Swyx offers. If we ever have any support issues they always get back to us promptly and resolve any problems. They have been key to the success of the whole project.
