Devon and Cornwall Housing Group

Devon and Cornwall Housing Group (DCHG) is more than just a landlord. Its staff of more than 700 works with local communities across Cornwall and Devon, offering housing, support, regeneration, and new development, including building 250 new homes each year. Effective and affordable communication is key to the success of these projects.

“ShoreTel has contributed vitally to the quality of services offered to our residents. The communication with customers has become customised and more accessible. They can contact us cost-efficiently and flexibly through a wide range of communication channels.”
— John McElroy, Customer Services Manager, DCHG.

The group’s call centre in Cornwall has been recognised as very effective in terms of performance, with a very low average waiting time for customers and very high numbers of calls dealt with successfully. Building on this foundation, DCHG decided to establish two new contact centres in Devon and upgrade the existing one in Cornwall. Another important driver was the need to improve employee communication by integrating the system across its nine offices in Devon and Cornwall and enabling employees to work remotely.

“We have become more customer-friendly while at the same time improving internal communications.”
— John McElroy, Customer Services Manager, DCHG.

Solution design and project services provided by Datasharp UK included a network assessment prior to the design stage. The deployment of the 340-user ShoreTel Unified Communications system included ShoreTel Certified Syntellect Customer Interaction Manager contact centre solution and SMS Gateway from VoiceConnect. The intuitive Web-based interface of ShoreTel Director allows all sites to be configured from one place. Employees can log on and off the phones in different locations, increasing their productivity. One of the long-term goals of DCHG is to encourage flexible working practices and remote working of its employees. ShoreTel supports this with additional teleconferencing, voicemail, and other features that minimise the need for travel. Other benefits include:

• The system, which looks and behaves like a single, unified platform, scales with plug-and-play simplicity across as many sites as needed and can be managed from anywhere on the network with the Web-based interface of ShoreTel Director.
• ShoreTel teleconferencing, voicemail and other features enable flexible working practices and help lower DCHG’s carbon footprint.
• The ability of the system to integrate new contact points such as SMS increase the accessibility of DCHG services to its young and mobile customers.
• Powerful customisation options, such as group-based call routing, enable managers to better serve their customers with special needs.

“ShoreTel has contributed vitally to the quality of services offered to our residents.”
— John McElroy, Customer Services Manager, DCHG.