Financial co-operative work smarter with Evonex

About Partners Credit Union Ltd

Partners Credit Union is based in the centre of Liverpool and is a member owned, financial co-operative supporting over 8000 members.

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020 it became essential for the staff, who had always been 100% office based, to work from home. This was not something their existing system was able to facilitate and the restrictions soon became clear, with the only solution to have all calls were diverted to a single number with no option to transfer to colleagues.

Partners Credit Union started to look for a better solution and after reviewing several systems it was unanimous, across all staff, that Evonex from SCG was just what they were looking for.

There were two considerations, not just how the system worked but also how easy it would be to install a new system and train employees, who were now all working from home.

The whole journey has been fantastic. From the very first contact we felt both listened to by the consultant and confident that all our requirements were being taken into account. Installation was very straightforward, working with our IT team, the software was rapidly rolled out to our home workers, followed by an excellent Virtual Training session. The new features have improved efficiency and morale.

Stuart Lloyd, Head of Finance at, Partners Credit Union

The SCG Solution

Staff were delighted with how easy it was to use Evonex, it quickly become second nature and offered all the benefits of their on-premise system and more.  The intuitive desktop software makes it really easy to make, take and transfer calls and call recording protects the integrity of both staff and customers.  At the click of the mouse, staff are able to collect voicemails, they can chat online and see which colleagues are available or on a call, improving efficiency all round.

The customer service team have access to queues and hunt group information, directly from the toolbar, with visibility of who is on DND or ready to take calls. This means queues and hunt groups can easily be managed to ensure the highest level of service is delivered and agents breaks can easily be staggered rather than pre-scheduled.

The softphone has changed the way staff operate and whilst there will be handsets in the office the improved efficiency of the softphone is so well embedded into the way the staff work it is expected they will not want to give this up.

Installation

Working with Partners Credit Union IT teams Southern Communications were able to easily roll out the desktop clients to all staff, via remote connections, enabling them to access the telephone system through their home broadband.

Web agency mobilise staff with Evonex

“For the past 5 years we have been running a rather old phone system and I’d been aware we’d probably been paying over the odds. It took the onset of COVID and the shift to remote working to encourage me into action on it!

Britweb employ 12 full time staff and a couple of freelancers that work in their offices in central Horsham and had 7 handsets shared across the team.

The change in working dynamic to everyone working at home meant this phone system was essentially rendered useless and the only resolution was to have our supplier divert all the calls to my mobile phone and pass on messages, which was not only a huge impracticality but I also incurred additional charges for the privilege.

At this point, I was lucky enough to speak to Southern Communications and about the options offered by a cloud based service.”

Using the mobile app

Cost Savings

Further still, the price came in significantly lower than my current expenditure!

Southern even offered to assist me with the cost of coming out my contract early at the current supplier and allowing me to spread this cost.

It took a couple of weeks to organise and an engineer came in, set up the new phones and gave me clear and easy instructions to install the mobile apps.

One month later and we have a far, far better system and are saving a third of the previous costs to boot! We are very happy with the cost, service and aftercare.” said Dan Purchase, Managing Director, Britweb

About Apollo Hotel

Apollo hotels is a 125 bed independent hotel in Basingstoke. When their broadband connection was unexpectantly ceased, the result was devastating, affecting booking, payment and communication systems and guest WiFi. With services provided by different organisations it was hard for the staff to know where to go first, until they heard of SCG Service Protect.

The Challenges

Data, networks and telephony are increasingly part of a converged solution and at SCG we understand how vulnerable our customers can be, when not all services are with the same provider and maintaining high availability is business critical. Service Protect provides an added level of support to these businesses, with a team of highly skilled and dedicated engineers, who work co-operatively with your IT suppliers and 3rd party vendors to diagnose and resolve faults. The result being a faster, easier fix for our customers, with one point of contact, reducing the risk of interruptions caused by combined network/telephony issues.

The SCG Solution

About Falcon Equine Feeds

Falcon Equine Feeds have been developing specialist foods and nutritional supplements since 1999.

Pleasure riders and Olympic teams alike have benefited from the expert advice given by Falcon Equine Feeds to enhance and optimise the long term welfare of their horses. Products developed by Falcon Equine Feeds are available across the globe through a network of retail and wholesale outlets. A leader in their field, Falcon Equine Feeds have been appointed as the official feed supplier to the world famous All England Show Jumping Course at Hickstead, England.

The Challenges

For any organisation a telephone bill well above the average would be a surprise and for most it is a cost they have to bear, even if the calls have been made by telephone fraudsters. Over the course of a weekend plagued by storms and power cuts Falcon Equine Feeds fell victim to a series of fraudulent attacks on their telephone system when hackers dialled in remotely and generated a telephone bill equivalent to two years call charges in just two weeks.

Luckily, Falcon Equine Feeds had been trialling VoiceSafe a new and unique service from SCG, which meant their system had been protected by the VoiceSafe network and system offering. SCG caught a second attack and blocked the company’s telephones. Due to the attack happening intermittently over a time of disruption to the power supply it was only when the power was sustained the fraud was detected and stopped. SCG VoiceSafe Commitment is to protect the system and network and if the fraudsters still access the system they will pay up to £10,000 in compensation. In this case the attack was picked up and stopped but not before over £6,000.00 worth of calls were racked up.

Honouring the VoiceSafe commitment those costs have been covered by SCG for Falcon Equine Feeds. Although Telephone Fraud costs organisations millions of pounds every year, very little is known about it by those vulnerable to attack. Criminals are becoming increasingly advanced in their methods often striking at weekends and out of hours, when business premises are empty, hacking into the telephone systems of unsuspecting organisations and making large numbers of calls to expensive call destinations.

We are nothing but grateful to SCG for their support and would like to help other businesses realise how vulnerable they are.

The SCG Solution

Organisations constantly undervalue the importance of using a reputable company that will take the necessary steps to help prevent them becoming a victim of telephone fraud when installing & maintaining a telephone system and choosing a provider for network based Calls & Lines. SCG have developed VoiceSafe as a proactive service to defend customer’s telephone systems and telephony network access from fraud. We actively look to bar out of hours calls to specific vulnerable locations and lock our customers systems down. This is achieved easily where we maintain the system and where this is not the case we look at external telephony protection using a variety of methods we have developed over a number of years. We are so confident in our ability to protect our customers that if fraud still happens, as in the case of Falcon Equine Feeds, we will pay up to £10,000.00 of compensation as a credit against calls made through fraudulent activity on a VoiceSafe protected system.

The Benefits

VoiceSafe is a revolutionary product available exclusively from SCG. It means SCG can use its vast experience and look at every way to lock your telephony down both internally and at a network level to protect your organisation against fraudulent attack and, as in the case of Falcon Equine Feeds, if the fraudsters still get through our compensation offering covers the costs of the attack (up to £10,000) – a cost that without VoiceSafe the fraud victim would be responsible for paying.

Falcon Equine Feeds were surprised at how easy it was to become a victim. Delighted with the service they have received from SCG and the protection offered by VoiceSafe they are keen to share their experience to make other businesses aware of just how easily they can be targeted and the financial implications to an organisation if they are not protected.

“We are constantly made aware of on-line fraud yet so little is known about telephone fraud” commented Falcon Equine Feeds. “As a result of this we have a much better understanding of potential damage telephone fraud can cause a business. We are nothing but grateful to SCG for their support and would like to help others businesses realise how vulnerable they are.”

North Devon Hospice are a charity that provides specialist care and support to people who are affected by a life-limiting illness. 

Effective communication is key to running the hospice which covers the largest geographic area of any hospice in the UK, around 800 square miles and offers care to over 2,000 people every year.

Regular events, the hospice lottery, and a network of charity shops, are key to raising the funds the charity requires to offer specialist care to patients at home and at the hospice, while supporting the whole family throughout these toughest of times.

The Challenges

Driven by the continuing frustration of having an outdated telephone system and faulty handsets with different handsets across the sites, which lead to all sorts of training difficulties for staff who would work on more than one site, North Devon Hospice went to tender for a new telephone system.

The requirement was for a telephone system that would deliver a consistent user experience for head office staff, the 12 plus charity shops and homeworkers and additional functionality that was not available on the outdated system they were using. Being easy to use was a key requirement as many shops are staffed by part-time, retired, volunteers who may not always have another member of staff to offer help on site.

We are delighted with the system. It is easy to use with more features than we had before, for effectively the same price. Plus, the staff love it. Southern Communications are a pleasure to deal with, they took the time to understand what we needed to achieve, were helpful and informative right from the start.

Head of Information Systems & DPO

The SCG solution

The solutions connected the 96 extensions across the shops with the head office, where two main telephonists handle Inbound calls.  Telephony to the shops is delivered across ADSL connections and the ISDN lines at the head office were replaced by 30 SIP trunks delivered over a 20MBs fixed, synchronous, uncontended service. Configured primarily for voice, this connection also provides a much needed back-up service for the data pipe that was already on site.

• The NEC UNIVERGE 3C sits at the centre of this solution which delivers a consistent experience to staff across all sites, where the features and functionality are now the same, wherever they are working.
• Overflow and pick up groups mean that if the receptionists are unavailable colleagues could pick up a call or it can be directed straight to an overflow group.
• DDIs continued to enable calls to be sent directly to individuals.
• VoIP phones, deployed to remote locations, operate via a new MPLS data architecture, with voice priorities, connecting them together as a single system and management is simplified with a central firewall and internet connectivity which delivers security across the entire solution.
• The solution used the existing cabling which kept the installation costs low.
• Efficiency is improved with System labelling, which means staff can easily identify the intended recipient or service of an inbound call and abbreviated dialling saves time when making outbound calls.
• Management is simplified with permissions, granted to selected users, to be able to add modify and amend essential features such as call groups, auto attended messages and users, via the administration system which is access via a web-based portal, that gives managers flexibility to make changes even when they are when out of the office
• The system was shortlisted based on the tender requirements, however, the ultimate decision was made by the users, who had been given a demonstration by Southern Communications, and their decision was based on the simplicity of the system and the choice of handsets.

Benefits

Common features and functionality across all sites means that for North Devon Hospice users moving between sites is easier.

Remote diagnostics means Southern Communications are able to quickly and effectively respond to any support requests, reducing the need for staff to be on site to meet engineers

North Devon Hospice have a system that is cost effective and future proof. Significant time spent in the past training staff on the multiple handsets is eliminated, support is central and can be provided remotely and the system has many new features that save staff time on a daily basis.

The management experience has been improved with central management of telephony across the organisation; Speed dials and other service code functions are easy to configure and use, extension status (BLF) and monitoring of a multitude of other applications and data help to manage call flow.

Summary

North Devon Hospice are delighted with the new system and the service received from the staff from Southern Communications, from the first meeting.  The proposal was clear concise and fully inclusive with no hidden extras.

Southern Communications help Portway Domestic to reduce costs and maximise efficiency.

Portway Domestic use Southern Communications for all of its calls and lines together with the NEC Aspire system to bring greater efficiency through reduced costs and better integration of it’s office and field-based teams.

Portway Domestic Appliances Limited has been serving the independent electrical trade for nearly 20 years. A wholesale supplier of top quality domestic appliances from over 20 major brands, Portway are based in modern offices and warehouse facilities in Andover with nearly 70,000sqft of storage area. Portway’s aim is to offer its customers an unparalleled level of service backed with the most competitive pricing available in today’s marketplace. Portway have been a Southern Communications customer for over 10 years beginning with the installation of their first phone system in 1998. Today, Portway use an NEC Aspire system supplied by Southern Communications in addition to mobile phones, calls and lines. We spoke to Commercial Director John Bainbridge about their reasons for choosing Southern Communications.

About Portway

As a sales-driven business in a very competitive market, it is vital that Portway have in place systems that allow their trade customers to contact them quickly and easily at all times. Failure to do so would result in them being unable to provide the customer service required with the subsequent loss of business to their competitors. It is also vital that the field-based sales staff are fully integrated with the office based team in Andover to ensure an efficient operation based team in Andover to ensure an efficient operation.

The Challenge

In the late nineties, Portway were experiencing several issues which led it to rethink its telecoms provider. Firstly, as the business grew the costs of its calls and lines began to increase dramatically. The provider at the time was not proactive in identifying cost cutting solutions tailored to the needs of the business, resulting in Portway paying too much for its existing telecoms system. The incumbent was also hard to deal with – being both slow to identify and fix technical issues with the existing systems. This led to frequent down-times in the telecoms infrastructure and Portway customers being unable to contact the sales team. As the company became larger it was clear that the existing infrastructure was unable to cope with both the number and demands of it’s users.

The SCG Solution

The first priority was to control and minimise costs by switching the company’s calls and lines to a cost effective alternative. Southern Communications were quickly identified as the preferred supplier due to its ability to provide “a more personal service whilst providing cost savings on both our line rentals and calls” says John Bainbridge, Operations Director at Portway. The next step was to look at the phone systems themselves and how the reliability could be improved to create a new infrastructure that could adapt to the ever-changing needs of the business. John comments “Southern Communications were extremely helpful – they quickly assessed our needs and identified a system that was best-suited to our requirements.” The original system was upgraded in 2004 to an NEC Aspire as Portway continued to demand more and more from its telecoms infrastructure. Not only did this promise to be a more robust but also allowed Portway to better integrate their field-based teams with the head office in Andover by allowing remote staff to access office features such as voicemail. Since installation the NEC system has delivered “fantastic reliability” enabling Portway to offer its customers a much greater level of customer service through fast turnaround of enquiries and orders. In addition, the new system has grown with the business, adding more users whilst converging the company’s voice and data networks in order to reduce charges.

The Benefits

Portway say that the benefits to the business have been huge since switching to Southern Communications. “We’ve reduced our calls and lines costs by an average of 30%” says John, “and the robustness, flexibility and expandability of the NEC Aspire system has really paid dividends” he claims. With down-time now virtually “non-existent” the management team are able to concentrate on the business and delivering customers with an unparalleled customer service. The benefits also extend to staff who, despite being based out in the field, are able to operate as a single unit and feel part of the head office team.

In fact, Portway has been so impressed with the service provided that they have since moved the company’s mobile phone contracts to Southern Communications in addition to installing an array of system handsets, headsets and call loggers. John concludes “they really understand the needs of our business and simply take care of everything for us – leaving us to focus on our customers.”

Southern Communications help Water Babies improve customer services with integrated IT and telephone systems.

About Water Babies

Water Babies is the world’s largest provider of swimming tuition for babies. The business has grown rapidly in the last 5 years from 14 to 51 franchises, providing tuition to over 32,000 babies a week.

Marketing and CRM support are part of the franchise service, so Water Babies depends on reliable telecoms to provide smooth, seamless integration of franchisee operations with the head office in Honiton.

The Challenges

Before asking Southern Communications to get involved, this integration was almost impossible to achieve. The head office telephone system was difficult to use and service support from the systems provider was poor. On top of that, new franchisees, who knew very little about telecom operations, were dealing with a variety of different suppliers offering varying levels of service and incompatible equipment.

This led to delays in operational start-up, missed calls and lost clients.

“We needed a system for our head office that was easy to use and that gave increased savings and ease of administration for the franchisees. Southern Communications had all the answers. Southern Communications have consistently provided a service that is second to none.”

Alex Hart – Water Babies

The SCG Solution

Matters began to improve from the moment Southern Communications installed a new NEC switchboard at the Water Babies head office in Honiton. Southern Communications then designed a franchise-wide system that would achieve total integration between both Water Babies head office and its franchisees. Water Babies and the franchisees embraced the design enthusiastically.

This system married perfectly with the bespoke CRM system that Water Babies created for the entire franchise network, with the NEC system at its heart. Inbound calls trigger a pop-up with the parent’s record, for ease of recording, while out bound calls can be made from within the same record. This enables the franchisees to deal quickly with inquiries or run marketing campaigns, a significant added value for their business.

Today, the telecoms network is operated by Southern Communications on Water Babies’ behalf as a single enterprise, giving head office and franchisees confidence that service will be provided in a timely and efficient fashion. New franchises are brought on stream quickly and efficiently. Telephone equipment is pre-programmed with speed dials to head office departments and suppliers and call costs are kept low thanks to the aggregation of all systems under one account.

The Benefits

With Southern Communications supplying, installing and maintaining all sites, setting up a new franchise has been simplified dramatically. Every time a new installation or upgrade is required, all it takes is one call to Southern Communications, significantly reducing the amount of time it takes to get a franchise up and running.

Maintenance is no longer a headache. Water Babies now have one contact to deal with for any callouts or group-wide changes, such as updates to speed dials, system re-programming and upgrades. Remote access means requests for system changes are dealt with promptly and they have a team of engineers on the road capable of dealing with any support visits required.

Regular progress reports keep the company updated at all times. Using Southern Communications for telephone line installations and call routing across the company’s 100+ telephone lines means it also benefits from corporate discounts that it can pass onto its franchisees – keeping everyone’s costs down. Rate reviews are carried out regularly and routinely, which gives the company confidence they are receiving the best deal possible.

Leading education provider makes huge cost savings and improves working practices with Evonex hosted telephony.

About NCC Education

NCC Education is an internationally recognised awarding body and a global provider of British education in Computing and Business.

Working with a network of accredited partner centres, in more than 50 countries, NCC Education provides an affordable route for students to obtain a UK university degree and access to British education without leaving their home country.

Originally a division of the National Computing Centre, NCC Education was established as an IT initiative by the British Government in 1966. It started offering IT qualifications in 1976, and from 1997 developed its higher education portfolio to include Business, English language and Foundation level qualifications. In 1997, NCC Education was incorporated as an awarding body of British qualifications.

NCC Education aims to maintain its position as a global leader in the assessment and certification of recognised quality British qualifications and teaching programmes and the first choice examinations board for IT and Business. Its goal is to improve an individual’s future prospects and opportunities by providing quality qualifications that are widely recognised and valued by employers and universities worldwide.

The Challenges

NCCEducation was acquired by Singapore-based Infomatics Education Ltd in 2016. The takeover saw the workforce at the NCC Education’s Manchester office streamlined from 70 to 33. A number of the staff lost in the reorganisation were those most familiar with the existing server-based telephone system, which was complex and not particularly user friendly.

As part of the reorganisation, the business was set the challenge of reducing the amount of hardware on site. Another objective was to find a replacement for the existing telephone system that was easier to use yet delivered some additional features. Naturally, NCC Education approached their existing telephone provider, but were disappointed by what they had to offer. It was not immediately apparent how their proposal would provide the kind of solution NCC Education had envisaged.

NCC Education also contacted one of the largest telephone suppliers in the UK, with whom they had some dealings. To their surprise, NCC Education found them unwilling to help with the project; in fact, they seemed unresponsive, inflexible and uncompetitive. Plus, they were suggesting the installation of additional equipment onsite, which was precisely what NCC Education was keen to avoid.

We are delighted with Southern Communication’s customer service and attention to detail, from first contact, through the quotation process, installation, and after-sales support.”

The SCG Solution

Southern Communications approached NCC Education and suggested a hosted solution, which would accomplish everything they were hoping to achieve. Switching to a hosted telephone system would mean less hardware onsite. The system would also offer the flexibility to operate more efficiently. Inbound calls would be routed directly to the appropriate department, eliminating the need for a central receptionist. Several useful additional features – such as, hunt groups and pick-up groups, to enable call distribution within the individual departments – would also be included.

NCC Education liked what Southern Communications was suggesting. The proposal was comprehensive and the sales representative explained clearly what would be delivered.

The Benefits

Steven Bettoni, IT Support Manager at NCC Education, is clearly delighted by the change to a hosted system, and by the service that Southern Communications has provided: “We were unhappy with what our previous supplier was proposing. It was unclear precisely what they were offering and how it would work for us. By contrast, Southern Communications were on the ball, knowledgeable, and made every possible effort to help us understand how their proposal would improve what we already had and the benefits we would gain from that. Their representative made sense of the hosted offering. They were also price competitive, easy to work with, and gave us the feeling of being valued and helped.

“They kept us informed all the way, over and above expectation. The engineer set up the system at the weekend, which meant there was no disruption during our working hours, and remained on site from Monday to Wednesday to check that everything went smoothly when the system went live. Training was very thorough, making sure that everyone knew exactly how to get the best out of the new system. “We’ve been very pleased with the service we have received from day one of dealing with Southern Communications. Their commitment to provide the highest level of service has been clearly demonstrated throughout. This is the sort of customer service we were looking for.

“Moving to a hosted system has meant dramatic savings compared to the old system. We’ve seen a reduction in costs in licenses, maintenance, achieved our overall aim of reducing equipment footprint and shown a saving of 30% on our telephone running costs.