Background on red 7
Red7 is a diverse, unconventional, innovative group activity travel company based in Brighton, specialising in hen and stag weekends and any kind of group activity trip, both UK and overseas. Since 1983, Red 7 has arranged over 300,000 Hen and Stag parties. They’ve grown to 40 members of staff and operate 7 days a week.
Challenges
As a manager of Red 7, Jonny Clark had identified one of his business challenges as the telephone system. The system was around 10 years old, would no longer record calls and generally wasn’t advanced enough for their needs. For example, the wallboard they had wasn’t providing accurate and useful data in which they required to monitor and improve call statistic (A wallboard is a visual communication tool used to display real-time information on calls). When these challenges were brought up with the IT manager, he told Jonny that it would cost upwards of £50,000 to upgrade their telephone system.
The new telephone system provides Red 7 with 4,000 free minutes of calls per users, which can be shared across the building too. This means users who don’t make as many calls can give their minutes to other people that may use it more (e.g. sales people).
The telephones run over the internet (VoIP). This means the large upfront costs usually associated with traditional telephones are eliminated as no telephone lines or other traditional system requirements were needed setting up. The handsets were also included for free, as Red 7 signed up for a 3-year contract.
Ingenio Technologies set them up with an Akixi wallboard, which provided all the information Jonny needed. The Akixi wallboard is a software that can be used through any display.
For me as a manager, I can look into a lot more detail thanks to the Akixi wallboard. It’s more advanced and in line with the times so It’s made life a lot easier for me. The reports are easy to use and the statistics are at my fingers.”
– Jonny Clark
Director
Red 7
Results
Along with the large, upfront costs eliminated, Red 7 has also saved money on calls as they get 4,000 minutes free calls per user per month and internal calls (as well as VoIP to VoIP calls) are free. The Akixi wallboard has given Jonny all the stats he needs in which he can now manage his team effectively. All calls record perfectly and red7 can be more flexible with their employees as they can now work from home.
Our new telephone system works much better than our old one. The fact that members of our team can work from home whilst still using their office phone remotely is incredibly innovative. Our old system was temperamental and often wouldn’t record calls. This isn’t the case with our new phones! Ingenio Technologies could implement technologies that our previous telephone provider couldn’t, such as a failover switch, in that if there is a problem with the internet, the phone system will change to use our secondary internet. Reliable, Flexible and above all, a great service.
– Jonny Clark
Director
Red 7
To find out more about our telephones, and to watch a short video about them, click here.