How GDI cooling saved money and improved the running of their business

GDI Cooling is a Banbury based Air conditioning and Refrigeration company, providing a service to commercial businesses and the hospitality industry. Earlier this year, BDM Voice had the pleasure of providing a new telephone system for GDI Cooling as their old system was outdated and costing them too much. We recently got in contact with GDI Cooling to find out how the new system is performing.

Can you provide a background to your company?

GDI Cooling is an Air Conditioning and Refrigeration company, providing a service to commercial businesses and the hospitality industry.

We’re situated in Banbury, close to the M40, and not only do we serve the local businesses but are accessible to Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire, Midlands and extend out to London and the surrounding areas.

How do you use your phone system?

We have a number of Engineers based around the UK, and use our business phone system to ensure they are able to keep in touch with our customers and the office.

Our system enables us to filter incoming calls to connect to the right department, and also allows us to forward Urgent calls, out of hours, to the on-call Engineers, or record messages for non-urgent requests, that are picked up the following morning.

Which telephone system did your company use previously?

We previously had an IP system from BT, which provided us with 4 lines incoming, however, whenever we transferred a call to one of the mobiles, it tied up 2 of them.

Originally this was not a problem as we only had 2 full time staff and a part timer who worked in the small office.

How did you search for a new solution?

When the decision was taken to re-locate to our present location, we knew the old system would not be capable of meeting our needs or our customers’ expectations.

We looked at several different suppliers that we found on the Internet, and narrowed it down to 3 for further investigation.

Our main criteria were to find a system that was:

• flexible enough to grow as we intended,
• simple enough for our own staff to manage any changes,
• provide a good reporting function for analysis,
• allow for recoding of incoming calls for both training and queries that might arise,
• provide e-mail notifications of out of hours calls that have been recorded
• reduce our current cost to a more reasonable level
• to have proven reliability and support

What made you choose BDM Voice?

The first company was not able to improve on the original system, without increasing the costs.

The second company had a system that required additional hardware to be installed in our office to manage the various options that were available, and although there was some cost savings, it was not quite what we had been looking for.

What was the solution BDM Voice Proposed?

The solution originally offered by Jonathan Mills at BDM we thought was too good to be true, but after several e-mails and telephone conversations with questions and assurances the system offered could more than cope with our current and future needs, we confirmed that we would go ahead with his proposal for a Horizon Hosted System.

Our new system comprises:

• 7 Polycom VVX 410 desk phones
• 8 Port Switch
• Cisco Router.

Our package includes:

• Unlimited free calls between company handsets regardless of location.
• 2,000 minutes to 01, 02 and 03 numbers per user each month.
• 2,000 minutes to all UK mobiles per user each month.

All allowances are pooled giving you a total of 14,000 minutes to 01, 02 and 03 numbers plus 14,000 minutes to UK mobiles each month.

We housed the Switch and Router in a small 19” rack next to where the BT line comes into the unit we are in, along with a 240v Surge Protection rail for the powers supply to them.

The Interface to manage the system is Cloud based and very intuitive and easy to use.

I was even able to make changes and update the contact numbers for the on-call Engineers, while in Cyprus for a couple of weeks.

How did you find the process of switching your phone service?

The changeover was very smooth indeed, with our original number being kept, and service was interrupted for less than an hour.

The one fly in the ointment we had in moving over to the new system, was not the fault of BDM or Gamma, but BT.

We had researched thoroughly, the availability of a Broadband service in our new location, and in every inquiry we made, had been advised we had one of the best speeds available in the area.

Cutting a long story short, we were routed from a different sub exchange 3.5Km further away, which gave us a maximum speed of 4Gb and only allowed us to use our line for the new phone system.

How did the new solution improve the running of your business?

The new system has allowed us to improve the response time we have with our customers and suppliers.

Previously, when the phones were in use, we had to rely on e-mails to communicate with our suppliers.

Now with 7 lines available we have the capacity to contact suppliers for parts and get them to site for the next day.

The system also provides us with the ability to direct calls to the relevant department, Service, Parts and Accounts, ensuring the customer get hold of the right department.

We have the flexibility to alter the hours of business, so if we have a meeting or the Boss lets us go early one day (just keep hoping it might happen) then we can amend the call schedules to reflect this.

We have also made use of the Auto Attendant, to allow our customers to leave a message for non-urgent service requests while the office is closed.

This has significantly reduced the call volumes we used to get in the morning, and allows us to schedule our Engineers workloads more effectively.

The after sales service we have received has been brilliant, with both Andy and Jo talking us through all the, what must have seemed like daft, queries and resolving them very quickly.

Did the new system save or make money for your company?

Our original intentions were to reduce our costs if at all possible while increasing our capacity to make and receive calls.

We originally had an out of hour answering service that went through to a call centre.
They would screen the calls and forward any urgent ones to the on-call Engineer and email the details of the rest to our Service Mailbox.
On average, we received between 6-12 calls and e-mails a day, with double that over the weekend and holiday periods.

There is a cost for each call taken and e-mail sent, which we no longer have.

The cost for the phone IP system from BT was around £900 per quarter.

The new system from BDM cost us £165.93 per month, nearly a third of our original costs.

We have a very happy Finance Director.

Find out whether BDM Voice can save your business money by calling : 0330 159 4000