Dacre, Son & Hartley are one of Yorkshire’s most trusted estate agents. They have been helping people to move in the county for over 200 years; they operate from 21 strategically positioned offices across Yorkshire. They are a team of highly trained professionals, whose enthusiastic marketing teams all have a high degree of local knowledge. This has to be supported by technology, and that’s where RHM could help.
Dacre, Son & Hartley have seen rapid and sustained growth in recent years. This success is not without its challenges though. During this expansion the teams in each of Dacre’s offices all choose different phone systems. This created a disjointed telephony estate, with Alcatel, Avaya and Ericsson-LG phone systems all being used in different offices.
These were all traditional, on-premise systems, connected by BT lines and supported by three separate telecoms companies. This created some serious issues for the business. Managing the system was an extreme headache, with updates being nearly impossible to roll out smoothly. Training was also very difficult, as if staff moved between sites they faced an entirely new communication system.
It also created customer service issues. One of the main benefits a business should receive when they work across multiple sites, is the ability to transfer calls between sites during peak times. Due to the different phone systems this was not always possible for Dacre.
Dacre, Son & Hartley got in touch with RHM to assist with moving their communications over to a single system for all 21 sites. To do this we recommended a cloud-based system from a single provider. We did this using the Gamma Horizon cloud telephony service.
The Horizon service provided a range of helpful features to the team. This included professional music on hold and voice greetings, ideal for an estate agent that need to prioritise professionalism. As the Horizon system is cloud-based it saves a huge amount on call costs compared to the previous solutions.
Over a period of three years RHM migrated the individual offices onto the platform. This schedule was designed to add new sites to the platform as their existing contracts expired, with all 21 now onboard. This now means staff can move between offices and use the same handsets and features, and any user can transfer calls between offices, set up a conference call or ring a colleague in another location.
Alongside the phone system we also provided managed Gamma internet connections to all 21 sites. This not only improved their ability to use online services, but assured good call quality as well.
Patrick McCutcheon – Head of Residential at Dacre said “RHM has worked with us to help simplify our communications across our 21 offices. We often have to make changes to incoming call routes typically at short notice and their helpdesk supports us really well.”
If you need advice on communicating between offices speak to the RHM team for some helpful advice. We can help you to make sure that any changes to your communication systems are handled with great care and attention. Call u
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