How will a cloud-based business phone system help small to midsize companies in the United Kingdom and Ireland?
Let’s start with the benefits:
- Telecommunication costs decline. Companies don’t have to buy, configure, or maintain PBX hardware. Instead, they pay a predictable monthly fee for each user. Total costs fall because the cloud service provider handles the hardware, software, and security. Mobile apps run the service on any internet-connected device.
- Employee productivity rises. A cloud phone platform centralizes and standardizes calling for the entire company. Software helps salespeople and customer service staff streamline scheduling and calling, making everybody more efficient. Employees can use their preferred smartphones, PCs, laptops, or tablets.
- Customer service improves. Customer calls are managed in queues, reducing hang-ups and call waiting times, and ensuring issues get resolved. Features like a single phone number for all customer-service calls drive consistency and strengthen the company brand.
- Data drives smarter decisions. Digital data tracks employee performance and exposes inefficiencies, telling managers what’s working — and what isn’t.
What do the real-world results look like? We asked four businesses from the UK and Ireland about their experience with GoTo Connect, our cloud-based unified communications platform. Here’s a quick look at their experiences.
Bradshaw Taylor
- Industry: Outdoor adventure apparel and gear
- Size: 100+ employees
- Home base: Oakham, England
Bradshaw Taylor supplies top outdoor clothing, footwear and equipment throughout Europe. When the pandemic hit, the company’s six-year-old phone system threatened to undermine its reputation for stellar customer service.
“In a market where everyone says they are the best, we aim to be better by having the best customer service,” says Michelle McGrath, customer service manager at Bradshaw Taylor. “So, when we switched to remote working, we needed a much more reliable and flexible phone system to maintain and improve our service standards.”
The company’s phone system handles 40,000 calls per year. They found that GoTo Connect was the right fit for that kind of call volume, thanks to its queue management, call handling, reporting and real-time monitoring.
“For me, it provides up-to-the-minute data so I can manage our teams effectively, identify where extra support is needed, move resources around to ease pressures, and optimize our resources,” McGrath says. “I’ve never had those capabilities before, and the flexibility it gives us is fantastic.” Read the case study.
Michael Murphy Home Furnishing
- Industry: Retail
- Size: 140 employees, 7 stores
- Home base: Newbridge, Ireland
The home-furnishing retailer’s customer-service PBX phone system was more than 15 years old and due for replacement. Michael Murphy needed a modern system with upgraded analytics and easy access to recordings of customer calls. “Call costs were also increasing, particularly for mobile calls made by our delivery drivers and service technicians on the road,” recalls Anthony Fagan, group operations manager at Michael Murphy.
Their solution arrived via the GoTo Connect cloud platform, which can connect employees via a mobile app, which reduces monthly bills. Managers can set up call queues to reduce hold times and hang-ups.
“All inbound calls are now funneled through our customer service team, which has reduced call-waiting times and almost eliminated abandoned calls,” Fagan says. “And because we have the data, we can call back the few customers who do abandon a call, which we could never do before.” Read the case study.
Ormsby & Rhodes
- Industry: Accounting
- Size: 9 partners, 50 staff
- Home base: Dublin, Ireland
The accounting firm was eager to replace its analog PBX system. When COVID-19 forced everybody in the company to work from home, company leaders knew it was time for a change. “The most important thing for us was to enable staff to make and receive calls on their mobiles via the main office phone number,” says Justin Brady, director of business services at Ormsby & Rhodes.
GoTo Connect’s simplicity and professional polish won over the Ormsby & Rhodes team. GoTo’s training videos made it easy for the staff to adopt the new technology. “No-one had any difficulty getting up and running with the new system,” Brady says.
All calls to the main Ormsby & Rhodes phone number go through GoTo Connect, where managers can set up call queues and monitor the results of customer calls. “In daily use, clients won’t notice any difference from our original office system, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Brady adds. “It enables us to continue providing a professional standard of service while we are working remotely.” Read the case study.
Ayrfield Medical Practice
- Industry: Health care
- Size: 10 general practitioners, 8 nurses, 22,000 patients
- Home base: Kilkenny, Ireland
The medical practice’s call volumes rocketed from 200 a day to more than 700, pushing their aging PBX system to the limit. Convoluted call queues left patients lost and confused, causing too many hang-ups. COVID-19 required doctors to make more outgoing calls and consult via videoconferences.
Stress piled up for patients, doctors and nurses. “When the pandemic hit, the phone system simply couldn’t function with all the extra needs placed upon it,” recalls Paula Scott, IT administrator at Ayrfield Medical Practice.
They found a capable replacement in GoTo Connect. The office switched over in one morning without interrupting phone service. Patients know exactly where they are in the queue when they call.
“It’s so much easier for everyone to use and takes away so much stress from handling phone calls, which is so important when you’re dealing with people who are unwell,” says Ronan Kearney, Ayrfield’s practice manager. Read the case study.
The value of strong partners for GoTo implementations
Here at GoTo, we depend on local IT solution providers and approved partners to help our customers realize the full potential of our software. These companies have deep experience with telecom and business phone systems. Their expertise is essential to delivering rapid time-to-market, getting everybody fully trained and customizing the implementation to companies’ precise needs. These are the folks you’ll be working closely with when it’s time to update your business phone system.
