Telecoms firm on cloud nine after surge in enquiries

A Castle Donington-based telecoms firms says it has received a surge in enquiries from businesses who want to move to cloud-based telephony as working patterns become more diverse following the coronavirus lockdown.

Invictus Communications says it has been working with existing business customers throughout lockdown and has also provided telephony solutions for new customers who needed to restructure working practices.

Managing director Jonny McPhee said: “Flexible and secure telecommunications have been crucial to maintain business continuity during the past months and feedback from customers with our hosted telephony in place is that it has been invaluable to maintain operations.

“As soon as lockdown measures were announced, businesses were able to divert calls from the office system onto numerous other lines.

“Staff have been able to work remotely using the phone system from a laptop, fixed phone or mobile using a special app; and monitoring systems has ensured that calls have not been missed.

“Furthermore, managers have been able to assess work efficiency with call logging and recording if required and presence management enables colleagues to see who is engaged on a call at any one time.

“Conversely, many businesses with traditional telephony have had to leave answerphone messages, divert to one other number or even have reception staff on site to take calls and then alert remote working colleagues to return calls.”

McPhee added: “It is now commonly recognised that WFAFE (working from anywhere for ever) will be a reality for many employees at many businesses across a wide range of sectors moving forwards.

“We are therefore receiving increased enquiries in the past weeks particularly from local and regional businesses who are returning to the workplace but want to ensure that their telephony systems are fit for purpose either with continued remote working or a return to lockdown should a second peak emerge.”

Among the businesses who have benefited are Abode Sales and Lettings with branches across Derbyshire and Staffordshire. With the system in place, the company was able to do remote working and also monitor calls.

Director Nathan Anderson Dixon said: “Invictus Installed the phone system six months ago and it’s a good job they did as when lockdown came our staff took their handsets home, plugged them into their routers and were able to work as if they were in the office. It was a godsend.”

Bespoke Inns which owns the Dragon in Willington, The Boot in Repton and Harpurs in Melbourne has installed a wifi and a telephone system to support the current delivery and collection service and increase flexibility of functionality for the system once lockdown restrictions are lifted for the hospitality industry.

Director Patrick Hammond said: “Lockdown gave us the opportunity to upgrade our wifi and phone system which Invictus Communications has completed across all our sites both inside the buildings and outside as that is where our customers will be for the coming months.
“An immediate benefit has been that the new phone system has ensured we havn’t missed a call for our busy takeaway services during lockdown.”

Williamson Global Logistics moved into new premises in Swarkestone during lockdown and were unable to get phone lines installed so turned to Invictus Communications for support.
Nick Breen explained: “We got the keys to our new site and only had two weeks to move in. This left us with a predicament as Openreach weren’t installing any new phone lines due to lockdown which meant we couldn’t have broadband.

“We contacted Invictus Communications who managed to take over an existing line, apply broadband and install cabling, the communications cabinet and a new phone system all within our two-week timeframe.”