Kent Enterprise Trust

Kent Enterprise Trust see great benefits in a Hosted Solution

Kent Enterprise Trust is a charity and social enterprise looking to promote and create innovative ways to support and develop 3rd sector organisations based in Kent.

They provide employment, work skills and training opportunities for disadvantaged people, taking pride in the individual’s needs.  Services are provided at a local level to benefit the community and employers, particularly in areas of deprivation and growth regeneration.  

The Challenge

On moving into new offices, Kent Enterprise Trust needed a flexible telephone system that offered a fully functional business solution, to provide to its tenants, with multiple extensions on a single outside line that was ready to go as soon as possible. They also needed a system that would require little ongoing in-house maintenance and attention. 

Kent Enterprise Trust tenants run busy offices where employees are quite often on the phone receiving and making calls for most of the day, calling businesses and partners across the region.
They needed a high quality telephone system with a capacity to deal with many incoming calls that could be easily logged and transferred to other landlines and mobiles.
 
The previous system was rudimentary and prohibited growth insomuch as it did not allow for new phones to be added to the system without significant investment in further hardware and rack space. Kent Enterprise Trust reached their line capacity two years previously, so if they had a new employee, that person would have to share a phone and the system could not be updated easily to record this. With hosted VoIP there is no real limit, all that is needed is more data, which can be easily added.
Furthermore individual users did not have direct numbers, just extension numbers, plus there was no ability to leave a message for employees, and so messages were left on a central voicemail, which was not ideal.

The Solution

IP Solutions, who were recommended by an IT consultant, were approached along with various other providers to offer a new communications solution. There were offers from PBX resellers, but it was not felt that these systems provide any more than the current system, with perhaps the exception of updated handsets. Furthermore it was felt that the learning curve and general ongoing support from the IT team would be too resource sapping.

There were also offers from VoIP providers, but IP Solutions recommendations were both the most cost effective and of the highest specification. 

“We were impressed by IP Solutions ability to explain every feature and possible solution to us in a jargon-free way. Not only was their recommendation the most cost effective, but they filled us with confidence that this was the ideal solution for our business, both now and for the future” Paul Danvers, IT Coordinator.

Kent Enterprise Trust opted for a fully hosted solution from Voicenet Solutions, with two switches and routers on site. Together with this the Cisco 7911 was the chosen handset with a further two operator consoles. These consoles give the front office greater usability and many more options in being able to transfer calls. The operators are able to see all the calls that are currently in use throughout the office enabling greater efficiency and accountability for each call. 

Business Benefits

Kent Enterprise Trust now makes significant savings

With a hosted solution no upfront hardware investment is needed, cutting the cost even more

The hosted VoIP solution means the IT management can add new phone lines for new users in minutes, previously the old system had reached its capacity – so this was impossible

Has allowed the IT management to concentrate on IT rather than having become specialists in telecoms

All maintenance to the system is done remotely, off-site saving time and cost

All employees have their own direct numbers and IP handsets enabling everyone to use all features, including Follow me, Voicemail, conference calling

Flexible Telephone System that easily accommodates future expansion and growth and the ability to offer managed telephone services to serviced office clients

“IP Solutions and Voicenet Solutions stood out from the competition. They helped us every step of the way and the result is a telecommunications solution that has enabled us to work more effectively and given us significant savings.”

Helen Deeson, Project Manager, Kent Enterprise Trust.