As enterprises continue to utilise unified communications organisations of all types and sizes are embracing the technology. Even so, UC is often still seen as the preserve of large corporations who have the management time and resources to select and manage the best solutions for their needs. There’s a concern that smaller companies are being left out of the process and left to go it alone with off-the-shelf, consumer products, when in fact fully-featured, flexible, mobile-first solutions are available.
One company that has recently adopted UC is Christopher Shaw Residential, a Bournemouth-based estate agency that first turned to the technology in the pandemic but has found it so valuable that adoption has become permanent. The company selected NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT UCaaS solution for its laptops and mobile clients in response to the need to have greater flexibility to adapt to changing staff availability as colleagues had to self-isolate.
“Our previous hosted system simply wasn’t flexible enough and we were diverting calls to our personal mobiles when we were on an appointment,” explains James Tiller, the Operations Director at Christopher Shaw Residential. “We can now operate from home as if we were in the office and we no longer need to give out our personal mobile numbers.”
With a highly mobile workforce that is regularly away from the office attending property viewings, Christopher Shaw Residential wanted to adopt a ‘mobile-first’ strategy. This also needed to handle the challenges of increased home working and self-isolation constraining staff availability while ensuring customers still receive the usual rapid response to enquiries.
“Our clients expect to get hold of us quickly regardless of our location,” says Tiller. “Recently, when two team members were ‘pinged’ and had to self-isolate, they were able to set up and work from home really easily using the UNIVERGE BLUE system operating as though they were in the office.”
Founded in 2007, the company offers lettings, property management and sales from its Bournemouth office. The UNIVERGE BLUE user interface has proved to be simple to use and the team has required no training to use if effectively. In addition, features such as the Group Chat function are being widely used to enable rapid internal communications.
“We work on two floors so, when a customer comes into the office I can message my colleague to come down to see to them while I’m on a call,” adds Tiller. “The Click-to-dial feature also enables us to call directly from a website which is an excellent time saver.
The extra flexibility UNIVERGE BLUE delivers means our team efficiency has improved 100% and best of all, we can now work from any location seamlessly and continue to deliver a high standard of service to our clients”
The UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT UCaaS solutions with desktop and mobile apps and NEC business telephones deployed in the office has proved you don’t have to be a massive company to reap the benefits of UC as-a-service and you can get all the features you need regardless of company size. Christopher Shaw Residential has experienced improved team communications and efficiency but it is the flexible capabilities that have driven uptake and enabled it to operate through the pandemic, providing seamless communications to clients and colleagues alike.
