SmartNumbers extends leadership in Advanced Business Telephony On Demand with announcement of several important customer wins

London, England. May 2004

SmartNumbers are pleased to announce a number of important additions to its growing customer list, and further endorsement of its portfolio of advanced business telephony solutions on demand. With more than 250,000 users across more than 5,000 customers, SmartNumbers is the European leader in advanced telephony solutions that work across both PSTN and VoIP. Under this announcement:

Business Continuity: Autoglass

Autoglass have deployed BT SmartNumbers to ensure that should the call centre fail, or staff be unable to reach the office, agents can log into the call centre from their homes or any other location. Since SmartNumbers is a network service, no equipment was needed to deploy the new service.

“SmartNumbers has helped us ensure that in the event of a crisis, our 1.1m customers can still get through. In the event of a disaster, our agents can log into the call centre at any phone, anywhere.” said Kevin Young, group IT Service Manager.

Flexible Working: GE Frankona

GE Frankona have adopted SmartNumbers across the organisation to help support their flexible working initiative. Home workers can now use the company web site to select the virtual personal numbers which simplifies home working. Calls to their personal numbers are transferred free of charge to their home or wherever they are working – in the UK, Europe or North America.

“Its like being on the company telephone system, wherever you are” said Tim Hollands, IT manager at GE Francona, “and the saving in call transfer costs gave us an immediate cost reduction.”

Virtual Contact Centre: Applied Biosystems

Applied Biosystems have started to deploy SmartNumbers for their Nordic customers. In each country, customers can call a local free phone number and will be connected to specialists who can log onto the network wherever they are – Europe or North America.

Customers now feel that they are calling a local office while the company can spread calls across all the available specialists – wherever they are.

“This is a great solution for us, and our customers” said Paul Buckley, IT manager at Applied Biosystems. “Customers can be confident of reaching a specialist even though we are connecting them to North America. Team members log in to team numbers wherever they are – we can make far better use of our precious specialist skills.”

Virtual Contact Centre: English Churches

English Churches have introduced SmartNumbers to simplify calls to the IT help desk. Staff now call a single ‘Team number’ that will connect, night or day, to the first available specialist who is on duty.

Specialist simply log in when on and duty, and with a few simple keys, log off and the end of their shift.

“This service is so simple to implement. Team Numbers are like a virtual hunt group” said Richard Dryden, Head of Information Services at English Churches. “Its great for staff needing help and its great for our specialists. And it cut costs.”