Accountancy and specialist services company increases client service level with Centralised Communications and Collaboration.

Established over 40 years ago Lloyd Dowson is a firm of Chartered Accountants, Tax and Business Advisors. The business which began in Bridlington with 3 members of staff now has 58 staff with a board of 5 directors. In 2013 Lloyd Dowson opened their second office in Scarborough. Lloyd Dowson services over 2,000 businesses locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Tax and business continuity is one of Lloyd Dowson’s specialist subjects and they are recognised nationally as a leisure sector expert by the British Holiday and Home Park Association.

The Situation

Learning that the existing voice system would no longer be supported and did not provide enough functionality or resilience, Lloyd Dowson decided to look for a communications solution that would help staff provide exceptional client service, while also increasing operational efficiency. The firm also wanted to introduce Contact Centre features to improve client call flow and also provide senior management with performance reports.

The voice system in the main office was connected to a separate voice system in a remote office for inter-site voice calls only. Lloyd Dowson wanted a centralized communications and collaboration system that would serve both offices

The Solution

Lloyd Dowson achieved its goals by implementing a redundant Cisco BE6000 system at the main office along with Cisco Contact Centre. This solution, designed and implemented by Practical Networks Ltd incorporates redundant Cisco Unified Call Manager, Cisco Unified Presence and Cisco Unity Connection with an ISDN30 as the primary PSTN circuit, along with a SIP backup circuit to provide full PSTN redundancy. Cisco Contact Center was implemented for the Contact Center requirement.

In addition with Cisco Jabber, staff answer client calls and still exchange instant messages with colleagues and managers from any office which improves the client service level as any queries are dealt more efficiently. Staff also instantly see the call status and availability of any member of staff.

The Result

Cisco Contact Center has streamlined call-flow and improved call handling and agent efficiency as well as providing all the performance reports to ensure client calls are getting answered quickly. Agents from both offices are now integrated into the same Contact Service Queues.

Call recording on all calls to and from PSTN is done using a dedicated recording application from Oak Innovation. This was required to resolves any disputes using a fully compliant FCA and PCI DSS call recording system. Call detail Reporting is also integrated into the single solution.