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Financial Consultants
Turn To Hosted Services For Mobile Communications Solution
Imagine
running a thriving business, managing staff and providing a
responsive customer service when over 50 per cent of your time
is spent out of the office at customer sites. This exemplifies
a typical daily scenario for the management team at independent
financial adviser Trinity Financial Limited. Following the installation
of a hosted Microsoft Exchange platform from Hosted Services,
the team can access email, diary and address book functions
whilst on the move.
Trinity is a family run business providing independent financial advice. The
company specialises in wealth management and offers advice on investment portfolios,
tax planning, tax mitigation, retirement planning and financial security.
The Business Challenge
Prior to the implementation of the Hosted Services solution, Trinity was relying
on a POP3 system for sending and receiving emails. However, running a business
on a single dial-up email account was almost impossible. It was slow and unreliable
and affected productivity levels. In addition, there was no virus protection.
In winter 2001 Trinity was hit with a virus which erased all client records.
As a result, an independent IT consultant was employed to clear the virus and
obtain three months worth of back-up information. This costly two-week retrieval
period, resulted in an adverse effect on customer service levels.
In a bid to provide improved customer communications, Trinity invested £15,000
in a dedicated Microsoft Exchange server with Internet access via dial up ISDN.
The robust solution offered instant and reliable access and delivery of email.
Jeff Moores, a director at Trinity Financial commented: “This new system
was supposed to solve our business communication problems and enable us to concentrate
on our core business – providing financial advice. However, I did not envisage
just how much time and effort it would take to manage the infrastructure.
“
For instance, software upgrades, virus
checks and information had to be backed
up regularly. As we did not have the time
and expertise to handle these maintenance
procedures, our independent consultant
undertook this task. It soon became clear
that managing this infrastructure was costing
us more in time and money than we had budgeted
for.”
In addition, this technology didn’t facilitate mobile working. As a result,
employees had to call the office for telephone and email messages when working
off-site.
Jeff Moores continued: “Being responsive is key to success but, when most
of your time is spent out of the office it is very difficult to handle customer
communications promptly. So we turned to Hosted Services to help us to address
this problem and eradicate any dead-time.”
The Solution
The implementation of a hosted Microsoft Exchange solution for Trinity’s
London office has enabled executives to send and receive emails whilst on the
move using HP iPAQs and O2 XDA devices. This means that clients benefit from
a flexible and responsive customer service. From a management point of view,
productivity levels are up as employees can work anytime and from any location.
The ability to work from the office and at home is facilitated by an ‘always
on’ broadband Internet connection using cable modem technology - supplied
by Telewest Business. This technology provides a connection that is up to 10
times faster than the previous service. As a result, accessing and transmitting
information is instant and uninterrupted. The hosted system was installed in
under a day by Hosted Services and Trinity did not experience any interruptions
to its email service during this implementation period.
Jeff Moores concluded: “By outsourcing our communications to Hosted Services,
we no longer have to deal with the daily headaches of running an email service.
In fact, we don’t have to spend a small fortune on an IT consultant as
Hosted Services manages everything. This includes automatically upgrading the
software, running the virus scans and providing back up services – all
for a monthly cost of £15.00 per user.
“ Working in a mobile office environment has enabled us to work efficiently,
keep in touch with customers and offer them an unbeatable service. Thanks to
Hosted Services, daily email downtime is a problem of the past. This means that
I can focus on running my business, confident that Hosted Services has my communication
needs under control.” |
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Email
myOfficeSystem Support |
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Telephone
| Information: |
08700 731735 |
| Support: |
08700 731736 |
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Fax
08700 731734 |
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Postal Address
myOfficeSystem
Delme Place, Cams Estate
Fareham, Hampshire
P016 8UX, United Kingdom |
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Company Information
VAT No. 682 2512 41
Registered in England No. 3283443
Registered with:
Companies House
Crown Way
Cardiff
CF14 3UZ |
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