Cwmbran-based telecommunications provider RPS Technology Solutions has helped Gwent estate agent Newland Rennie find a perfect telephony solution which works seamlessly across their six branches.

RPS moved all six sites across to hosted IP telephony over a course of several weeks and the business is already seeing cost and efficiency savings.

Newland Rennie, which has branches in Newport, Cwmbran, Monmouth, Chepstow, Abergavenny, and Caldicot, has been working with RPS Technology since 2010.

The telecommunications company supported the IT network and set up the Newport office with an ISDN premise based telephony solution which successfully transitioned into an IP telephony service.

In 2015 however, the Newport office moved to the RPS-hosted telephony service and once this proved successful, it was decided that all offices, covering 46 staff, would follow and switch across to the service.

Dave Martin, partner at Newland Rennie said: “The telephony solution we have chosen, moving all six branches over to hosted IP telephony, means that we can be far more sophisticated in identifying callers’ needs and routing them to the relevant person, before they even reach one of our members of staff.

“We wanted to centralise our lettings operation for Newport and Cwmbran to a single location without the caller being affected by this change. Our new phone system allows us to be far more efficient now, by routing all letting enquiries directly to the relevant office and we can also transfer calls between sites without charge.

“We can track the history of our callers to speed up our responses and ensure that everybody across the business has access to accurate caller information. Bills are produced per location so each of our site managers is able to see their costs complete with the breakdown of service charges and calls by type.

“Hosted telephony is the way forward for businesses – a lower cost alternative with numerous functions and far more flexibility to enable more efficient business processes and an enhanced service for customers. Implementation was painless and quick and the call quality is excellent. We are delighted with the outcome!”

RPS specialises in creating bespoke, innovative telecommunications solutions for a diverse range of SMEs across the UK. Their fully engineered, hosted Voice Over IP telephony network, designed utilising broadband integrated directly to their hosting platforms, ensures a first class quality service. Solutions delivered by RPS are engineered with their clients to provide direct business benefits, such as reduced costs, pan multi office integration, improved effectiveness and customer service.

RPS worked with Newland Rennie to design a telephony package tailored to their needs.

Managing director of RPS Ron Griffiths said: “Every business has needs specific to the way they work and the sector they operate in. We work closely with new clients to assess the telephony they currently use, and design a new solution in consultation with them. We pride ourselves on ensuring number porting and initial set up is as smooth as possible and we offer ongoing training and support to ensure businesses get the most out of the technology they have invested in. At RPS we constantly work with our clients as new feature functionality and capabilities are developed, to find ways to improve how they work and how they can improve their customer service where appropriate.”

“The Traditional ISDN network will no longer be supported by BT in once 2025 arrives and no new circuits are available after 2020 so businesses should be thinking about migrating across to hosted IP telephony. 2025 might seem a long way off, but with millions of customers to migrate and little further investment in the existing ISDN lines likely to take place, switching to more sophisticated hosted SIP/Voice over IP technology should be something businesses are planning or at least thinking about."