Three-year agreement follows successful implementation of new communications system across more than 20 sites in South of England

[lichfield] - 07 September, 2009. NextiraOne, Europe’s leading expert in communications services, has signed a second three-year managed services, maintenance and support contract with the Hendy Group, one of the leading automotive companies in the South of England. Under the new agreement, NextiraOne will provide diagnostics, remote and on-site fault resolution, maintenance and support for The Hendy Group’s voice and data communications across all the company’s South of England sites. It follows a highly successful project undertaken by NextiraOne to update, upgrade and unify the Hendy Group’s communications systems, resulting in significant efficiency gains and cost reductions.

The Hendy Group is a family-owned business employing over 900 people. The company handles car, van and truck franchises including Ford, Mazda, Honda, Kia and Iveco and also runs vehicle hire operations and used car supermarkets. First established in 1859, the Hendy Group is the oldest continuously owned Ford dealership in the UK, celebrating its 100th anniversary as a Ford dealer in 2010.

NextiraOne worked with the Hendy Group to design and implement the company’s new communications platform at every one of the company’s locations across the South of England, bringing them all into one unified communications system which provides greater efficiency and flexibility and is saving the company many thousands of pounds per month in external call costs. The ongoing support provided by NextiraOne helps to maintain the efficiency of the system and ensure that it runs smoothly at all times.

The Hendy Group has expanded rapidly over the last 20 years, with the opening of several new sites and the acquisition of a number of existing motor operations. Each site had its own communications system installed at different times and with different features and applications. This had led to a fragmented and inefficient system with telephony costs which continued to rise. At the same time, the demand for bandwidth was growing rapidly as the company took on new technologies and applications. The administration time needed to ensure the smooth running of the communications system – with a variety of third party suppliers - was also proving to be inefficient and costly.

NextiraOne helped the Hendy Group to rationalise its communications by migrating to one integrated Cisco-based IP telephony platform linked by a Wide Area Network that supports IP telephony and reduces the cost of inter-site communications whilst making the system more efficient. NextiraOne has also implemented a centrally managed wireless network that allows access for data and telephony across all the sites and provides mobility solutions for personnel combined with a high level of security. This continues to be managed by NextiraOne on behalf of the Hendy Group.

“The new system has really improved our organisation and our working environment,” said John Hendy, the Hendy Group’s Systems & Resources Director. “NextiraOne designed exactly what we needed and showed us how we could make our company more efficient, improve the way we deal with customers through our Call Centre and save money at the same time.”

The Hendy Group also unified many of its individual, site-based switchboard operations into one central switchboard which handles most of the calls into the Group and redirects them to the individual sites as appropriate. This allowed Hendy Group to streamline its reception operations and provide a better service with professionally trained staff and a more efficient system. This is backed up by a call centre that handles all service bookings centrally, providing a better customer experience and allowing the company to add marketing messages during call waiting time, including sales promotions and information about specific activities such as the Government scrappage scheme announced earlier this year.

NextiraOne also provides a single source of support and maintenance for the communications system and all its parts and also provides managed services – and this has just been renewed for a three year period in the new contract. The Hendy Group’s in-house IT team handles day-to-day moves and changes, but NextiraOne is on hand to deal with queries and potential faults. Calls are logged and monitored through NextiraOne’s Welcome Desk and almost 99% of faults are resolved remotely, with on-site back-up support available where necessary.

“NextiraOne impressed us first and foremost because of the people and the personal service they were able to offer, together with their knowledge and experience of working with the Cisco technology,” commented John Hendy. “We have had a great service and we really like the continuity – having had the same people to deal with throughout the project and the implementation. That’s why it was an easy decision to renew the contract this time around.”

NextiraOne is Europe’s leading expert in communications services and has a direct sales and service presence in 17 countries, serving more than 60,000 customers.  The company  designs, installs, maintains and supports solutions to meet the communications needs of its customers - from voice, data and video to mobility, security and applications. Working with the world’s leading technology companies, NextiraOne provides end-to-end communications solutions to deliver measurable business benefits to its customers.

Steven Skakel, Managing Director UK & Ireland at NextiraOne, said: “We have an excellent team of experts on hand to provide the highest quality support and maintenance to our customers. This contract renewal – along with many others - is an excellent example of how we work in partnership with our long-term customers and is testimony of how successful we are in this important area of our business. It shows that we can not only build the best communications solutions for our customers but that we are there for the long haul to help maintain, support and upgrade them on a regular basis.”