Quiss Technology case study: A law firm on a transformative journey matched by its ambition
Although as a managed IT service provider it’s important to deliver a comprehensive solution encompassing IT, Cloud and communications, it’s worth considering each aspect separately as a case study, so here we look at our work with Taylor Walton to improve their remote working capabilities.
We are explaining the changes we recommended in the context of the business case for a more mobile workforce, not just to address the challenge of the global pandemic, but the changing demands of clients, who expect better more frequent communication with their advisers.
No criticism is intended or implied in our critique of the previous solution, which was perhaps more appropriate at the time and had not endured the single, significant driver to change that Covid-19 and associated lockdown became for law firms across the UK and beyond.
Cost savings realised over time
With all mobiles consolidated onto a single, easier to manage contract and the new hosted unified communication solution deployed, the key reason for change, greater flexibility and agility has been realised, but cost savings will follow.
As part of the package, each user within the firm receives 2000 minutes per month and 1000 minutes of calls to mobiles, which for most will be ample. Importantly, the minutes allocation is pooled across all users thus providing over 500,000 shared minutes to the business, which helps improve the ability for users to answer incoming calls more readily and avoid the need for call backs.
Although a huge improvement for a mobile workforce, the new system will be equally proficient when the firm’s three offices are again fully utilised.
The head office in Luton features two operator consoles, together with reception facilities at both remote sites, which ensure the three offices are united by a single flexible phone system.
The new system was live during the second lockdown, which precluded the need to purchase a lot of new mobiles on contract, making a potential saving over the life of the system contract of around £40k, ensuring the project was implemented on a cost-neutral basis without any upfront costs.
A major benefit of a hosted unified communication platform is that all upgrades to the system are undertaken by the service provider, occur instantly and more regularly, rather than directly on a single system, which delivers significant cost savings beyond the 3-year contract.
This transfer of responsibility to keep the system current, secure and resilient also delivers a quoted 99.999% up-time, which further improves the ability for users to stay connected with colleagues and clients.
As with the Quiss managed service installation, this system change was accomplished successfully during working hours and without disruption, with members of the QVoice technical team on site for two days afterwards to help everyone in the firm with the transition.
Telecommunications fit for the new normal
Taylor Walton, a renowned full-service law firm, with a full range of legal services for businesses and individuals provided by more than 150 dedicated professionals, working from offices in Luton, St Albans and Harpenden.
The most pressing immediate issue was to add around 20 new mobiles and consolidate the firm’s existing 75 mobile phones onto a single new account that would make management of the phones easier and ensure any future cost savings were realised.
As lockdown restrictions hit, the firm discovered their existing Mitel system could not deliver the remote working services the business needed to maintain the exceptionally high service levels on which Taylor Walton’s reputation is built.
Calls into direct numbers could be diverted to mobiles, for those that had them available, but it would then be impossible for that call to be transferred to a colleague, or back to reception if the matter required the input of more than the individual who first took the call.
The newly implemented Cloud-based unified communication solutions, allied to softphones for every computer with a Mobile softphone app, with the ability to pick up and transfer office calls, message colleagues and clients, click phone numbers in emails and web-pages to make calls, is making a significant difference to productivity levels across the business.
This improved ability of colleagues to connect and communicate with each other and more importantly, with clients, also avoids the need for so many messages and call backs, which helps reduce the cost of call backs and improves customer service.
Some technical highlights
In terms of the technical elements, Quiss deployed and managed the following:
• Cloud-based Unified Comms solution delivering huge flexibility for a mobile workforce.
• Call now rings desktop phone, softphone and mobile app
• Polycom VVX 411 VoIP Phones deployed across business
• Softphone installed on every desktop and laptop
• Mobile softphone app deployed for business mobile users
• Reduced site wiring port usage by 40%
Client Feedback
Steve Smith, Chief Financial Officer, Taylor Walton said: “Recognising the need for a phone system that could deliver what we needed as our workforce became more mobile, our initial investigation showed an upgrade to our office based system would be costly and rely on the existing old phones.
This new hosted platform from QVoice, ensures our people can work more flexibly, from anywhere and still be connected to colleagues and clients, which is important given our commitment to delivering a client centric service.
The fact we save money too, is an added bonus and I recommend other firms follow our lead.”
