Homeserve case study
Answering the call of domestic
emergencies
With an ever-growing customer base reliant on telephone
assistance, Homeserve wanted to make their phone system more
resilient and reduce costs. But with over seven million policies to
support, maintaining a consistent service during and following any
changes would be vital.
Homeserve needed to move their existing Special Rate Services
(SRS) 0800 numbers to a more stable network and expand their
service, helping the home emergency service company to manage their
increasing workload.
Our dedicated team of consultants and SRS specialists developed
a solution to transfer and add to Homeserve’s series of 0800
numbers. And to ensure long-term resilience, we also developed a
sophisticated disaster recovery strategy – ready to step in at the
flick of a switch.
Connecting with customers easily and efficiently
Turning over in excess of £477m and employing more than 4,000
people across the UK, Homeserve provides domestic emergency
plumbing, drainage, central heating and electrical services to over
two million customers. By providing a low-cost and stable telephone
platform, our solution makes sure these customers can always get in
touch – quickly and easily.
Expanding and strengthening the service
As we’ve been key suppliers to Homeserve for many years, Lee
Phillips, Service Delivery Manager–Telecoms at Homeserve, turned
straight to us. Lee’s first priority was to transfer and expand
Homeserve’s 0800 services, and once this was achieved, support them
with a failsafe back-up strategy. "ntl:Telewest Business has good
local presence, so we knew they’d be able to support our needs and
help us to benefit from economies of scale on rental." Lee
explains.
Set to use our lines and SRS services on very competitive
tariffs, Lee was happy that cost savings would be achieved. "We
were also looking to improve resilience by supplier
diversification, so we looked to ntl:Telewest Business to offer us
a stable platform and strong customer service." Lee commented.
Number porting made simple
Twenty SRS numbers were to be transferred to our network,
including Homeserve’s crucial main sales and service numbers.
Making sure this process ran smoothly, our engineers used the
ntl:Telewest Business established porting procedure – proven to
deliver fast and effective number transfer with no downtime.
"Although this was both a major and crucial operation, it was
painless," Lee confirmed. "Everything simply worked – first time."
With the 0800 numbers successfully ported to our network, the next
step was to make sure that Homeserve’s customers and affinity
partners would always be able to get through, even if the system
went down.
Working in partnership for outstanding
solutions
Addressing Homeserve’s need for a disaster recovery plan, our
consultants created various templates that would spark into action
should the worst happen and the telephone system fail. "We agreed
on three ntl:Telewest Business disaster recovery templates that can
be activated at the flick of a switch," Lee explains. "These
include facilities such as recorded messages and automatic call
re-routing onto back-up numbers."
Having also recently opened a £10m state of the art call
centre for over 600 Homeserve staff, Lee is confident that our
hands-on approach has been key to the success of our solutions.
"We’ve built up an extremely good working relationship with the
ntl:Telewest Business team – we know that when we pick the phone
up, the job will be done," Lee confirms. "We also receive regular
visits from account and service managers and senior managers as
well, which is valuable and productive."
What it has made possible
Following the successful transfer of the initial batch of SRS
numbers, we’ve added many more to Homeserve’s network. With over
two hundred and sixty 0800 numbers and over three hundred 0845
numbers now set up, the company can benefit fully from our
competitive tariffs and increased network efficiency. Our team has
also developed Homeserve’s telephony platform even further to make
it possible for Lee and his team to make network changes via a
simple web-based application.
Now enjoying the benefits of our resilient and cost-effective
solution, Lee sees us playing an important role in supporting
Homeserve’s continuing growth – currently at over 20% year on year,
"The quality of support and service we received and the ease of the
porting process means that we definitely see ntl:Telewest Business
as an ongoing partner."