Challenges

The company has three offices in Derby, Mansfield and Loughborough. JT Recruit MD Jon Thompson was looking for a solution which brought the three sites closer together from an operational perspective. He also required his staff to be within easy contact of each other, and for them to share the company’s new client database.

“We were bringing in new recruitment software that meant we needed a telephone system that was compatible across all three sites,” says Jon, who also wanted to review his employees’ telephone usage and activity in order to be able to react quickly to day-to-day recruitment requirements.

“The challenge was to implement a new telecommunications system in a structured way for all offices in conjunction with the company’s new IT infrastructure and database system,” says Steve Hogan of EBT Maintenance, JT Recruit’s communications provider.

Solution

The resulting solution implemented by EBT centred around the NEC SV8100 system for each of the three offices. “We installed each NEC SV8100 server as a separate stand-alone telephone system. This enabled a standardised operation for each office, whilst providing a resilient system crucial for business continuity,” explains Steve.

In addition, EBT connected all three NEC systems utilising the networking feature Aspirenet, enabling all of the sites to become connected as one system using Voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

This allowed both cost effective ‘internal’ dialling between office staff and the ‘single system’ solution required for access to the recruitment database.

Meanwhile, the NEC MyCalls Enterprise application provides both real-time access to the all telephone system activity and a reporting tool to review call information over days, weeks and months.

Results

The MyCalls system helped determine how JT Recruit could bring the operation of the separate offices together whilst retaining independent control for each of their regional communications requirements.

“By installing MyCalls at the Derby head office, we were able to provide Jon with the immediate information he required to manage the operation for all three offices,” says Steve.

“The most important thing is that the telephone system is now standardised throughout the company, and that you can route calls wherever you are,” says a delighted Jon Thompson. “All employees can see and contact each other through the internal network without making expensive phone calls. You can just forward calls to their offices – the ease of operation has streamlined our systems. Also, now when people call up, the dialler’s number is displayed, so it makes our customer service better as we can see who’s calling.

“You’re not wasting time trying to speak to someone when they’re already on the phone,” he adds. “There’s no waiting or wasting lots of time chasing each other and leaving messages instead. We can initiate ring back requests to individuals and forward messages to people in the phone system – it works very well.”

The NEC system is linked to the company’s own CRM database, and enables dialling to those contacts direct from the desktop. “It’s made all our lives easier,” maintains Jon.

One of the key benefits now for Thompson is that he has an overview of all call activity throughout the three branches. He says: “The system is so transparent: It’s made everybody more productive. You know exactly who’s on the phone at any given time within the company, which is great in the sales department, for example. Plus call reporting software runs reports per office, per branch, or per user.

“As we grow, we can standardise what we do and monitor the effectiveness of each consultant from day one. It’s not about being Big Brother but we can now verify what people are doing and what goes on in each office.”

Jon is also full of praise for communications provider, EBT Maintenance. He says: “EBT has been great. They have supported us from day one, took control of the implementation of the system and handled it really well. I’d have no hesitation in recommending them.”