Case Study: Raleys Solicitors

Challenge:

For the past 7 years the company had relied on an outsourced managed telephony service based on Centrex. However the running costs including call charges were very high incurring total fees of up to £64,000 per year.  Raleys’ Chief Technology Officer Richard Hilton explained, “Not only were the rental costs expensive, we were frustrated by the lack of response from our supplier when we asked for any moves or changes to be done.  We were also aware that new alternative VoIP unified comms offerings on the market could give us more flexibility and features allowing us to integrate ‘voice’ with our other applications giving our clients better customer service as well as securing substantial cost-savings.”

Solution – A system that was easy to maintain and could be administered in-house

The company reviewed a large number of solutions on the market including Lucent, Panasonic, Samsung and Cisco but none of these gave them the flexibility and cost-savings they were looking for.  Richard Hilton says, “After our experience of the Centrex service which meant we had to wait days or weeks for an engineer to add a new user or alter a routing configuration, we wanted the independence to manage the solution in-house, so that even non-technical personnel could make changes themselves.”

He continued, “Finally, a local supplier, Digital Exchange (Yorkshire) Ltd and Swyx Silver partner recommended SwyxWare which ticked all the boxes. It had a user-friendly web interface that was easy to understand and because it is software and is IP based we had the additional advantages of an affordable licence model and the ability to integrate our telephony with our other IT systems. Everyone instantly liked Swyx and it has been one of the most positively received systems we have ever had”

Results – ROI within 18 months and £30,000 on-going annual savings

“After some excellent training to our IT department from Digital Exchange, we then devised our own training plan and courses for everyone in the organisation who are now using Swyx.  With its integration with Microsoft Outlook we can recognise who’s calling in and make outbound calls directly from any application, whether it’s the CRM system or the web, simply by highlighting the number and using Swyx’s unique ‘shortcut’ dialling functionality.” says Hilton.  “Another unexpected by-product of installing Swyx was discovering a shortfall of Outlook expertise across the organisation. As a result we introduced extensive training for all staff and we are now making much better use of functionality such as calendaring and the setting up of meetings.”

It’s imperative that customers talk to a human and not a machine

He continued, “In the legal sector the majority of our work is conducted over the phone and it’s imperative that our customers have the option of talking to a human rather than a machine.  Using Swyx’s ‘presence’ functionality, it’s possible to route calls dependent on someone’s diary movements and secretaries now have the ability to pick up group calls so we can reduce the number of times the phone rings before the caller can speak to someone. Therefore if a customer calls a direct number to one of the partners, but they are not available then a secretary can pick up the call instead.”

The maintenance of the system is now far easier than previously so moves and changes can take seconds rather than days or weeks. Another feature that Raleys finds useful is the record of calls received so that even if calls are missed the receptionist can retrieve the numbers and re-contact customers.

More economic licence model

The company has 10 SIP phones installed for meeting and conference rooms and partners are using SwyxMobile so that they have the same benefits remotely, such as call routing and lower call rates, as they would in the office.  “In the past we were also charged for extensions we weren’t using but because Swyx licences are concurrent you are not paying for staff connectivity unnecessarily, for example when they are on holiday. At the moment our call tariff hasn’t changed significantly but if we take advantage of SIP trunking we will be able to reduce these downwards in the future.”

Unified communications – future integration plans

According to Hilton the Swyx solution fits well with the company’s virtualised IT infrastructure based on Citrix. “Swyx is just another software application so can be managed centrally with the rest of our IT.  The integration with Outlook was the initial step in our unified communications strategy.  The second stage will be to integrate Swyx with our case management system, ‘Partner for Windows’.  In addition we will also install some of Swyx’s other extensive functionality such as call recording, voice mail and conferencing.”  At the moment the company is also trialling the concept of home working and has one member of its IT staff connected to the Swyx system using a soft client and USB headset.  There may be further plans to extend this to other more mobile workers in the future although due to the nature of the legal sector the majority of staff are predominantly office-based because customers prefer to meet them regularly on a face-to-face basis.

In Summary

According to IT Manager Richard Hilton the solution delivered by Digital Exchange was within budget and within agreed timescales. “The service from Digital Exchange has been excellent and we will continue to rely on them to provide on-going maintenance although so far thanks to Swyx’s reliability and ease of use we have had no substantial problems that we have required support on.” 

He concludes, “Of all the solutions we considered Swyx was by far the best, the most cost-effective and gave us the flexibility that we needed both in terms of its licensing and our future integration plans. Moving from the Centrex model to unified communications means we are no longer held to ransom by a third party and can continue to enjoy considerable cost-savings year on year.”

www.raleys.co.uk