Modern telephone system

When the temperatures reach 20 degrees, you can see the cyclists again in crowds. Now, the employees of Bike and Outdoor have a lot to do. Bike and Outdoor company abbreviated B.O.C., operates 30 specialist bicycle stores throughout Germany. The trading company is managed from its headquarter in Hamburg, where B.O.C. was founded in 1999. The company employs around650 people.

“From April to September is our peak season. We noticed this from the technology in the phone system,” reports Henning Schorling, Head of IT at B.O.C. B.O.C has previously operated an ISDN telephone system, which has been a reliable service since 1990. However, the terminal devices gradually reached the end of their operating life. “Especially at peak times like summer, we felt that important basic functionalities such as mailbox, caller list, automatic call forwarding or the possibility of running announcements texts were missing. Not to mention Contact Center and UC functionalities such as delegation rules or conference calls”, summarizes Henning Schorling. Changes to the old telephone system was also very time consuming and could only be made partially by the B.O.C. internal IT team.

IT Manager Schorling, decided it was time for a new start. He set out to find a telephone system that could cover all his requirement from a single source: PBX, terminals or soft clients and management software. Schorling opted for a voice IP system from innovaphone, coupled with software for administration, Contact Center, UC and monitoring functionalities.

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In 2017, the B.O.C. IT team began to replace the telephone systems in the head office and its branches. Henning Schorling and his team were supported by the telecommunication specialists of IP Dynamics. “IP Dynamics scored with deep technical competence in telecommunication, the project team had experience with innovaphone products and was ready to implement our wishes. Besides, IP Dynamics is right around the corner”, recalls Henning Schorling.

Joachim Uhsemann, who leads the project team on the IP Dynamics side, added that “it was also important to B.O.C. that the IT administrators could finally work completely with the new system by themselves. This is not a problem with modern systems like innovaphone. However, from our side, it was important that we not only implement the requirements, build the new plants and put them into operation. Right from the start we had to involve the IT Department from B.O.C. closely in the implementation, which worked out well”.

After the head office, the existing branches will be gradually converted to new telecommunication infrastructure, around eight locations per year. By the end of 2020, IT manager Schorling wants the system change to be completed company-wide. The B.O.C. IT team and the employees who work with the new system are already feeling the results.

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In the branches, most of the callers only inquire about the opening hours. These calls, even though each is kept very short, costs the sells staff in the long run a lot of time. Sales discussions are interrupted or incoming calls are not picked because no one has time. “This is an unsatisfactory situation, both internally and externally, which ultimately has a negative impact on the company’s image”, says Joachim Uhsemann.

With the new telephone greetings, customers who call a branch now can hear an announcement that informs them about opening hours, among other things. “This way we can take a heavy caller load off the store staff. Local employees can forward calls from outside to extensions when they are in a customer meeting. Calls no longer go to waste, but in worst scenario to voicemail”, reports Schorling.

The B.O.C. service team, with a sum of 15 employees, receives particularly many calls during summer months. This has led to long waiting time at the hotline in the past. “With the new system, we can bring additional employees from the back office into the service pool to absorb call peak.” A delighted Henning Schorling said, “Normally, all of our employees are very familiar with everything to do with bicycles. But if a service employee can’t help, he or she can find the right colleague, at the click of a mouse, with the help of delegation rules and skills sets”.

B.O.C. ‘s IT team also uses the monitoring functionalities of the new innovaphone system. “Now we can see, for example, how many calls come in, where they end up and where calls run into the void. This is important information for taking countermeasures if necessary,” explains Henning Schorling.

Even if the telephone systems at B.O.C. are still physically separated from each other and are based on ISDN technology in many branches: IT manager Schorling is already planning on the next step. “All-IP is of course a big topic for us. We will use IP telephony in all our new locations or are already doing so. All-IP also helps us if the carrier cannot deliver quickly to a new location. Then we build a bridging solution with the help of mobile radio based routers. We use the same solution at trade fairs.”

Joachim Uhsemann brings another advantage of IP technology for B.O.C.: “With a common logical unit, all functionalities that were previously only possible within the branch, such as call forwarding or delegation rules, could be used across companies.”