The Royal Yachting Association
The Royal Yachting Association is the national association representing all forms of sailing, motorcruising, sportsboats, windsurfing, inland waterways, powerboat racing and personal watercraft. As well as fighting for the rights of all boaters, the RYA administers training courses in all of these disciplines, through over 2000 recognised training Centres worldwide. The RYA’s personal membership has grown to over 100,000. www.rya.org.uk
History
The RYA had an archaic, problematic telephone system that could not cope with the call volumes a membership organisation receives, companies were invited to tender to replace this system with Datasharp as a local supplier then contracted to come up with a solution quickly and with the minimum of disruption to staff.
Requirements
Basic telephone requirements needed to be updated to include digital handsets, voicemail and the facility to expand to VOIP with centralised admin of system.
Solution
Datasharp’s Robert Stevenson recommended a visit to Siemens to look at all the systems available, this allowed them to speak with Siemens engineers and evaluate a lot of systems very quickly, after selecting the Siemens HiPath 3000 the project was handed over to Mike Holliday and Tim Mitchell who managed a seamless transition over a weekend to allow staff to leave on Friday and be up and running at 9am the following Monday.
VBi
VBi operates two divisions - VBi Retail Solutions and VBi Triscan Fuelling Solutions. Both leaders in their respective markets, they employ 140 people serving a respected customer base throughout Europe, a client base that includes multiple and independent Grocery chains, major oil companies, independent forecourt operators, local authorities, emergency services and fleet operators.
History
VBi Ltd offer 24 x 7 service to petrol forecourts owned, amongst others, by Sainsbury’s and Tesco. All Vbi’s agents are office based and cover the 24 x 7 with a series of shifts. To this point all calls were received in the Coventry office and then distributed to the agents by simple hunt group, an expensive office overhead. The agents are technical and respond by dialling back into the customer’s server; calls can last from 30 seconds to several hours, so call traffic information is critical for business planning.
Requirements
To offer 24 x7 without the office overhead, but while maintaining very stringent Service level agreements with customers.
Solution
All calls to be routed via non-geographic numbers to the Blackburn office. The Samsung CMS Automatic call distribution package in association with the Samsung Voicemail and Auto attendant to distribute calls depending on the name of company ringing in, the time of day and the agents available. The agents are now home based, the calls being passed via Samsung VoIP handsets. The Service levels are monitored using the CMS software and records returned to the clients. Statistics are also provided by the NGN’s and the call plans supported by the Samsung voicemail / Auto-attendant.
Coastline Housing
Coastline Housing is a major provider of affordable housing in west Cornwall, with nearly 3,500 homes. As well as rented housing for families, Coastline also offer sheltered accommodation for older people and shared-ownership schemes on a part buy/part rent basis.
History
Coastline Housing have 5 sites; 2 of which are main and the other 3 are branch offices. Their systems at the time did not provide seamless communication between the sites and companies were invited to tender to replace this system, with Datasharp as a local supplier then contracted to come up with a solution quickly and with the minimum of disruption to staff.
Requirements
The main driver for purchasing a new system was that the IT manager wanted a single, centrally managed platform for all Voice requirements. As the Leased Lines were used for both Voice and Data, the use of VoIP had to be a tried, tested and low impact solution. Additionally, being a Housing Trust, incoming calls were for a variety of purposes i.e. Letting Enquiries, Rent, Repairs, Complaints, etc. With Staff positioned over all 5 sites, fielding calls and distributing them was a major factor. Creating a Call Centre environment was also high on the agenda as a way forward. Furthermore future proof, ease of use and administration, simple deployment and (importantly) the implementation of a major manufacturer with a track record of providing these solutions were also required. Detailed Call Logging was also required to be able monitor and account for each site's traffic.
Solution
A network audit using Datasharp's LAN audit software was undertaken to establish what type of environment the Leased Lines were experiencing and to indicate the best route forward for a solution.
The BCM stood out from the beginning as the optimum solution for the client and was a natural choice taking into consideration the type of system they were looking for, therefore a BCM 400 was proposed at the main office with IP handsets deployed across 3 of the sites and IP trunking to the BCM 200, options for Professional Contact Centre, CTI and Unified Messaging were also built in as options.
Datasharp UK won the tender for a BCM 400, ISDN30, 40 T7316 digital extensions at HQ, 35 i2002 IP handsets and IP trunking to BCM 200, all with Voicemail, Call Logging and PC based Reception Console. Recommendations were made, on the back of the LAN audit, to improve network functionality, all training was performed prior to install and the cutover from the Mitel to the BCM for all extensions took an incredible 40 minutes from start to finish thereby providing a tiny amount of downtime for an install of this size.
Subsequently Coastline Housing are now a centralised Professional Contact Centre with agents across all sites, their next phase is to roll out Unified Messaging for all users.
Tamura-Europe Ltd
History
Tamura make circuit boards for companies such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson. They had an old Index system located in their site in Devizes, which had no IP capabilities. They have offices in other countries so inter site comms was making their phone bills expensive.
Requirements
A modern, ip enabled system with voicemail and plenty of expansion to future proof their investment. They wanted to use nothing but IP telephones throughout and no tdm sets at all. They needed to lower the cost of calling their other sites located across Europe, as well as lowering their international call spend. The customer also wanted a system which he could partially administer themselves making it easier when additional phones are required etc.
Solution
We placed a BCM400 in their office in Devizes, and a BCM400 in the Czech Republic. We used the smaller BCM50 in France and Sweden as they had very few extns and lines. We used IP trunking to link the offices together using Tamura’s existing network infrastructure. This enabled us to also configure dialling plans so that we could route international calls via the system which was located where the calls would be cheaper, e.g., when calling a Sweden number from the UK, the call goes through the IP trunks to the Sweden system which then makes the call using it’s local lines. The initial install was completed in on-site in Devizes.
The customer deployed the other 3 systems themselves. To make this possible we fully configured the systems in our office in Truro, then shipped them to the appropriate site where it was put into place by IT staff. This was made possible mainly because the customer had chosen to use IP phones meaning that no wiring was required on site. All they had to do once the system had been put into place is to switch on the IP phone, set some basic parameters and enter an extn number (which we had specified to him).
The customer put in the system in the evening, which we then accessed remotely to finish any remaining config so the system would be ready for when the users arrive in the morning. Firstly we deployed the system in the Czech Republic, then France and finally, Sweden. The customer has also placed 2 IP phones in a site in the Far East, which connect back to the system in Devizes.
Telephone Information Masters (TIM)
Telephone Information Masters (TIM) is a large call centre, managing calls on behalf of rail & bus companies. At its peak TIM has handled up to 17,000 calls per day.
History
Previously TIM were supplied a Toshiba system by another local company but were unhappy with both the product and service they received. Datasharp was contacted to present them with a cost effective and highly efficient solution to their telecommunications needs. Following consultations and analysis of TIM’s operation Datasharp were able to provide a future proofed solution that satisfied all requirements for TIM’s operation both for product and service.
Requirements
As a call centre operating seven days per week, system reliability, on going support and maintenance was vital. Datasharp were asked to provide complex call centre, CTi and statistics reporting software packages that had to interact seamlessly with system hardware.
Solution
Siemens’ Hicom OfficePro system plus a TAPi 170 CTi software package, Callview Wizard MIS/ACD, Navigator and Netlink satisfied all the customer’s needs. The install was completed with minimal downtime. TIM are delighted with both the initial solution and the ongoing service.