Telephone System

New centralised telephone system enhancing communication between teams and offices and lowering cost of telephone calls

Challenge

An independent firm of chartered accountants and business advisors, Duncan & Toplis have ten offices across the East Midlands, supporting some 12,000 clients.

Duncan & Toplis were encountering problems with their existing telephone system due to not having enough capacity to meet increasing team numbers. As they were using an existing telephone system that was over 20 years old, the decision was taken to upgrade. Duncan & Toplis had a clear brief with regard to the systems improvements they wanted. Ten separate phone systems were in place, creating a barrier to inter-office communication and efficient working practices.

Objectives

• Merging ten telephone systems into one centralised cloud based system
• Team members to be able to log into any phone from any location
• Scalable system that can be upgraded over time
• Desktop, mobile and tablet integration

Approach and Solution

Datcom drew on their Cisco expertise to propose a solution that met every objective. Datcom installed a centralised Cisco telephone system on their Cloud platform linking all ten Duncan & Toplis offices together. The solution incorporated features such as SIP and VOIP, free inter-office calls, video calls, desktop and Outlook integration, single sign-on across the Practice and tablet and iPhone apps.

Datcom provided group and one-to-one training to team members, as well as creating specific training resources for all Duncan & Toplis team members available through Datom’s online portal.

Results

The new telephone system is now hosted on a Cloud platform and can be upgraded to the latest version, ensuring its always up to date. Desktop, smart phone and tablet applications are automatically kept up to date as part of the solution.

The new system routes all calls over Duncan & Toplis private network resulting in calls between offices being free. Due to the system being hosted on Datcoms; private cloud platform, D&T has been able to decommission the BT connections at all offices. This has resulted in a significant saving. External calls are routed via aSIP connection which provides a high quality call but at a lower cost than traditional telephone connections.

With the system being centralised, all D&T team members are able to log onto any phone at any location within the business. Voice and video calls can be made from the desktop PC or laptop to iPhones and tablets. Team members can also view presence and status of other colleagues as well as initiating group chats and desktop sharing.

Datcom provide support and maintenance of the system as well as providing ongoing reviews of any available upgrades.