Expect Distribution with HQ in Bradford, West Yorkshire are experts at delivering bespoke logistics packages for their clients across the UK, from palletised and international distribution to contract logistics and warehousing.
Fusion’s goal was to provide Expect with a world class replacement for their telephone system ensuring their clients could get through to the right person, first time and to also provide live management reports that allowed team leaders to manage the call flow and ensure they have enough operators to deal with queries efficiently.
Challenge
People were used to using traditional handsets and working in a prescribed manner. These handsets were not mobile, nor were they particularly easy to move around without the assistance of IT. Expect’s operational needs move very fast and without telephony they are running blind, the system needed to be scalable and offer good DR.
Ensuring that Premier Point never lost connectivity was an important challenge we needed to overcome. Historically, the main suppliers of internet did not have great backup services in this area, we had to think outside the box to ensure that Premier Point would never loose their voice and data connection.
Data is also crucial to Expect, a big stumbling block on their old system was the lack of customisation options for reporting & wallboards and lack of integration into their key WMS systems.
Expect use a thin client environment the system needed to be run off Microsoft Remote Desktop with any audio lag or operational issues.
Solution
Fusion implemented a Wildix solution within the main VOIP softphones using headsets. Wildix is not just about telephony, it bridges the gap between telephony and unified messaging.
Fusion produced a fully customised reporting and internal address book platform that integrated with their existing backend systems to ensure that the operators knew who they were talking to before the caller had to explain where they were calling from. The PowerBI based dashboards we created were fully customisable to present the key data that was needed and able to be changed at will if the business required it.
As part of a move to ensure that their head office would never be without telephony, we implemented a completely diverse routed internet connection. This meant two completely separate circuits following different routes to the exchange, these two circuits were configured to automatically fail over and will never have planned engineering works at the same time and enables us to give 100% uptime.
Benefit
Moving from a hardware based solution to a cloud hybrid solution ensured that their reliance on having hardware always operating. Fusion were able to utilise their existing IT investment to ensure that if they did have a hardware problem they would always be able to revert to our backup systems.
Lots of firms don’t give much thought about what happens in an emergency, but being a busy logistics company, it was imperative that Expect had consistent IT support to keep in contact with their network and clients, with 24/7 support for the team, in case of immediate IT needs.
Fusion have ensured that for every scenario of Expect’s business continuity plan we have a solution that can be implemented either automatically or within minutes.
“Wildix and in particular the implementation that Fusion crafted bespoke for Expect has enabled us to move on in a crowded and extremely fast paced market.” Andy Taylor – Director of Transport
“Through the implementation of Wildix we now know better than ever how we are meeting our customers needs and expectations. It has allowed me to manage departments and the distribution of calls to the correct people. It has also ensured that we can hit our internal KPI / mantra that no call will go unmissed.” Kirsty Maginnis – Service Excellence Manager
