Case Study - Frosts

Background

Frosts is a family-owned, independent group of four garden centres and landscaping company.

The head office and the Woburn Sands Centre is located just outside Milton Keynes. The other three garden centres are located near Bedford, near Huntingdon and near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. Frosts aim to be the first choice for customers, offering outstanding service, a wide selection of exceptional plants and high quality, inspirational products.

The company has a green trading policy. Their aim is to enhance and protect our environment

• by minimising our consumption of water, gas and electricity
• by managing our waste efficiently
• by recycling wherever possible
• by avoiding chemical products that are harmful
• by working together with the local community, our colleagues, suppliers and customers to achieve this goal

The Business Requirements

In early 2006, Frosts Garden Centres set about addressing certain business challenges to reduce costs, and improve the management information generated from their telecommunications infrastructure.

By understanding the current usage in detail it would be possible to manage the service, and to inform future investment in telecoms to further improve client service and satisfaction.

There was a requirement to have a single consolidated service across all sites; there was a requirement to have 24 x 7 access to management information, and there was a requirement for responsive customer support - in particular at weekends.

Addressing the business challenges

Rupert Frost, Director of support infrastructure, set about rationalising the costs and management information across the group.

'We wanted a single supplier who was able to provide a competitive and responsive service. We also wanted management information that would help us to understand our call profile, and to plan our future telecoms investments.

'As a service business, it is of paramount importance to us to ensure that we are responding to customer demand quickly and appropriately.

'We are members of an independent buying group for garden centres, so we went through a fairly rigorous process of comparing service provider options across the buying group, and we selected Telecom Together based on a combination of the best call rates available, and their 24 x 7 web based access to management information'.

'Since working with Telecom Together, we have rationalised our cost base significantly; we have useful management information, and we have a responsive service provider if problems occur.

'We commend the service to others in our buying group, and to businesses wanting to control costs and consolidate management information'.