Why Off the Fence Trust really connected with David Jones of Phoenix Communications
If you had to choose between a telephone supplier who is nice but inefficient, and another that is also nice but efficient. Which would you go for?
That was the position I found myself in a few months ago after putting up with a bunch of nice guys in Manchester with a well known brand who whilst delightful on the phone never got around to actually doing anything.
The best, most frustrating example of this was the fact that my personal desk phone had not rung since my arrival 3 years ago which obliged me to pick up someone else’s phone – a cause of some tension in the office. As the closest approximation to an IT person in the office, I would get calls from the 24 people working at Off The Fence wondering why they hadn’t received any calls for the past week – and were they still in a job?
All normal on-site work was done remotely so the pleasant voices on the phone could have been ai-generated robots. However hard I tried, they never took offence.
So when my colleague Sarah came back from a business network meeting armed with the business card of David Jones of Phoenix Comms in Brighton, I was like John Mills ordering a beer in ‘Ice Cold in Alex’. It was worth waiting for. The call I made to him could have been the most pathetic conversation he has had with a customer to date. ‘Please come in and rescue my phone system’, I pleaded.
Within a day (it might have been hours), David was in my office looking ruefully at the existing telephone provision. After one of those long drawn-out sighs that you tend to get from car mechanics and fitness coaches, he said he could fix things. The clouds parted. The transition would be entirely handled by him, that it would take a couple of weeks and that I would be paying less than before. The sun came out, and for a moment I could have sworn there was a halo behind his head.
Below is an extract from the email David sent within 12 hours of the site visit.
We will supply 16 x HPBX Smart User Hosted Telephony Extensions each with UBOSS features (see Smart User Licence overview) & inclusive minutes. As discussed if we are able to provision the existing handsets the contract term is 1 month. I have factored in three of the users having the Webex Mobile softphone bolt-on. I have also attached pricing based on supply of new T33G handsets, should we find the existing Yealink phones are locked down. If new handsets are supplied the term is 36 months. (They weren’t, as we owned them).
The figures include:
- Port of numbers & setup of Hunt Groups, Open/Closed periods, Mailboxes &
Webex Softphones. - Provision of existing T42G IP handsets or supply new Yealink T33G IP Handsets – for
new handset figures please see document ‘Off the Fence Hosted Telephony Figures’ - Online Management Portal
- Time & Holiday Scheduling
- 2000 minutes per month to UK 01,02,03 & 07 mobile numbers per user extension
- Call Reporting
- Voicemail to email delivery
- Free remote training on management portal
If the figures work for you I suggest the next setup would be a system demo/trial so you can see how the service can really benefit you operationally.
David was as good as his word. The next two to three weeks were spent organising the nice but dim chaps at my former supplier to a point where the transfer could smoothly take place.
Unlike my former Manchester phone duddies, David visits the office on a regular basis to check that everything is ok, chats to us like he really likes us – and even took part in a recent social enterprise fashion launch catwalk as a standby model. Check out https://teamhope.life for the photo gallery.
Phoenix has really put a smile on my dial.
Roy Stannard
Head of Income Generation & Comms
Income Generation & Communications | Off The Fence Trust
Resisting Poverty. Empowering People. Restoring Hope.
Registered Charity No. 1108777. Charitable Company No. 5300691