Foehn launches ‘Flat Fee’ Hosted Telephony
Full market availability of pay-as-you-grow solution after successful trials increase Ah!Media sales by 10%
London, England – 28 June 2011: IP networks and communications specialist, Foehn, announced today the launch of its hosted telephony platform which lets businesses ‘rent’ telephony services on a per head, per month basis. The announcement follows comprehensive trials with media agency, Ah!Media where its installation led to a 10% sales increase because of its call monitoring and recording functionality. Foehn’s flat fee offering has been launched in response to market demand for low-cost, cloud-based communications.
Unlike other hosted telephony offerings in the market, its pricing is a flat fee per user, per month for all features as opposed to an upfront capital investment – with the only additional cost being storage for call recordings. Foehn founder and CEO, James Passingham, explains: “Small and medium businesses are definitely in the mass adoption phase of cloud services. Traditionally, we’ve seen slower uptake on the telephony front as it’s not the first business service that springs to mind when considering moving over to the cloud. But that’s quickly changing. It simply doesn’t make sense for home workers or small businesses - especially those with a number of locations - to have to invest the upfront capital and on-going maintenance in a central on-site telephone system. Now we can give them an alternative by ending the ‘guesstimate’ of future telephone needs and capacity.”
Commenting on the timing of this launch he added: “Developing our own proprietary solution for hosted telephony wasn’t the problem. We’ve been building complex customer phone systems for all manner of businesses for many years. It was really a question of maintaining the right level of connectivity and of course sufficient market demand. We’re delighted the service is already paying dividends to customers like Ah!Media.”
Ah!Media has been using Foehn’s hosted telephony service for over six months to enhance working practices and improve customer service. Fahran Ahmed, managing director of the London based media agency, explains its decision. “Having enterprise-size clients such as Hitachi means we need a robust IT and telephone system, both in terms of reliability and meeting delivery and service satisfaction levels. Foehn’s solution offers us specific call features like call monitoring without the big-ticket call centre prices. We didn’t need to pay up front for 100-150 extensions we didn’t need. It allowed us to start small and scale up as we needed. And as it’s all hosted offsite, we didn’t have to worry about hardware costs either.”
He added: “We manage a number of high profile b2b conferences like the Healthcare Strategy Forum. Foehn customised the telephony platform for us so we had the ability to listen in and record calls, with the customer’s permission. This has really made a difference to our customer interactions and staff training. Now if we hear a telesales agent call going in the wrong direction we can step in to help steer it back on track. Our analysis since the system was installed tells us that this ability to monitor and intervene alone has really increased outbound sales”
Foehn’s hosted telephony service includes all features such as voicemail, conferencing and automatic call distribution as part of the monthly flat fee. Clients connect to Foehn’s hosted telephony service over secure internet to a portal that gives them access to change settings themselves - such as adding new extensions, setting up Interactive Voice Response (IVR) messages and routes and setting up out-of-office settings. An added benefit of a hosted system connected using VoIP is that employees can make free calls to one another regardless of their location (from a landline). Foehn uses Polycom hard phones and Counterpath’s Bria softphones as part of its service.
About Foehn
Independent managed communications provider, Foehn, was set up in 2000 by James Passingham to manage and implement systems within mission-critical and telco-class networks and data centres across EMEA. The company specialises in IP network and communication solutions for retailers, call centres and small and medium sized businesses. www.foehn.co.uk. For more information please contact: Rachael Thomas, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry on +44(0)2074038878 or email: rachaelt@rlyl.com
About Ah!Media
Head quartered in London, Ah!Media is a full service Media agency that has have been creating consumer and business events and exhibitions since 2001. Its managed events division caters for a range of local and international clients offering 360 degree solutions from bespoke promotions to strategy based business forums. Its consultancy services help with anything from taking a new product to market to cutting edge brand design.
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