Gordon Harwood Computers

Sector: IT

Key Feature: Apple Mac Integration 

Gordon Harwood Computers (GHC) is one of only 19 Apple Centres in the UK. A family run business, originally founded in 1955, with the computer division formed in 1982, GHC started supplying Apple products as an Authorised Reseller in 1990 and subsequently became an Apple Centre in 2003. Now 20+ staff strong, GHC employs a telephone sales team to supply customers throughout the UK via their own national direct courier delivery service and offer regional and national maintenance and engineering support - in addition to serving the whole of the Midlands area from their Alfreton showroom. 

"In 1989 we were the first site in the UK to have Alcatel's T1600 digital switchboard installed. This was the French company's first digital key phone system which was brand new from the ground up. We chose this because it was the most sophisticated system we had come across at the time and it had a number of advanced features making it head and shoulders above anything else on the market. This system served us well, but by 1995 we had started to look for a replacement as it had become clear that a number of important features which had been promised in future upgrades - such as voicemail, ISDN connectivity and direct inwards dialling - were not going to materialise. By this time the talk was of CTI becoming the next big thing - and I wanted the same for GHC despite the fact that we used Apples - and not Windows PCs which were at the forefront of this new technology." Giles Harwood, Managing Director of GHC 

Nearly ten years of searching later, Giles was beginning to give up hope. The company could no longer obtain maintenance cover for their existing Alcatel system and the stock of spare terminals, cards and power supplies they had sourced to keep it serviceable were dwindling low. They were finally preparing to bite the bullet and accept a compromise and had even narrowed the choice down to Avaya's IP Office system when, purely by chance, Giles heard that the original UK development team behind this product had started another venture. This time concentrating on a pure IP based business telephone system, but one that also supported analogue telephones and - wonder of wonders - they were even rumoured to have applications that ran on Macs. "A quick phone call to SpliceCom proved fruitful in the extreme, not only had they developed an application that allowed any Apple computer running the OS X operating system on an IP network to be used as an IP Softphone or as what SpliceCom term a "Partner," working in conjunction with a traditional desktop phone, but that they used Macs themselves, in addition to Windows and Linux platforms. A journey down to SpliceCom's delightful HQ in Chorleywood - just to ensure that this dream scenario had some substance to it - and I was sold." Giles Harwood, Managing Director of GHC 

GHC finally installed their new maximiser telephone system in September 2004 - a 4100 Call Server with Primary Rate ISDN (PRI) trunks and a single 30-extension 4330 analogue phone module. Every employee runs the PCS 50 on-screen softphone application for OS X on their desktop or laptop Mac, in conjunction with their "partnered" analogue phone. This allows them to see at a glance which Department (or Hunt Group as its called in traditional telephony terms) an incoming call is destined for and gives them the ability to pick that call up, should they wish to. Once they're on a call they can also see who's on the phone, who's available should the call need to be transferred, and to be able to do so with a single action. In addition to providing GHC with facilities they've never had before like personal voicemail, auto attendant, unified messaging, conference calls and call recording, they've also been able to link their customer database to the phone system. 

"The ability to integrate Windows PC applications with telephone systems using TAPI is probably the only area in which Apple users have been made to feel 2nd best to their Microsoft using brethren. SpliceCom have not only provided parity in this area for the first time, they have comprehensively bettered it through their support of AppleScript. This provides far greater flexibility when linking with applications than TAPI, allowing bespoke tailoring for specific applications - Apple's in-built Address Book and the ever-popular FileMaker Pro are supported in this manner. Through maximiser's open architecture we've even be able to link our Sea Change database, which runs on a Sun UNIX server, to our phone system - even though it supports neither TAPI nor AppleScript. As a combined back office customer/supplier records and sales purchase/processing system, this database forms the very backbone of our business - so having customer and supplier records appear on screen when they call us, combined with being able to dial out from maximiser's in-built phone number directory database has allowed us to streamline a great many of our business processes." Craig Hopkins, IT Manager of GHC 

On the day the new system went live, the actual changeover to the new ISDN digital channels for maximiser from our old analogue external exchange lines connected to the Alcatel T1600 took no more than a few minutes. However, planning the installation, finalising the configuration to GHC's existing telephone cabling and preparing for integration with their IT network had been underway for several weeks in advance. There were surprisingly few issues to overcome throughout the whole project, as GHC's in-house staff had been trained and so became familiar with the system to ensure their needs were met from the first moment that the switchover was made. At the same time they treated the installation as a "customer" project, so identical processes were followed as those used when GHC provide network or telecoms products to any of their clients. The biggest initial problem -  simply remembering to look at the computer screens instead of just at the phones themselves, to make use of the additional information that maximiser provides over GHC's previous telephone system. 

"Many Apple users will be happy to have simply discovered the first business telephone system that will operate - in a truly integrated sense - with their Macintoshes. However, simply finding the product and realising that it's the only solution available, could lead to hesitation - it could be a concern that the system's only worthwhile feature is its Mac connectivity. This was a thought which occurred to us and it was reassuring to have had the knowledge gained through our years of searching for a system which allowed us to recognise the many other maximiser benefits, provided though its breadth and depth of features." Giles Harwood Managing Director of GHC 

"As an Apple Centre serving the wider Midlands area, efficient customer service is a cornerstone of our business. We have over 250,000 customers; their retention is of crucial importance to us. There's no doubt that the introduction of the maximiser telephone system and its integration with our Mac network and Sea Change database have greatly enhanced our service offering. In the future we want to extend the possibilities offered by Extension Anywhere - mobile and home working - that we've only just started to explore. In the meantime, as we are users of the same computer technology that we supply and support, there's no doubt that what's helped us to improve our business efficiency will also work wonders for our customers too. We're currently working closely with SpliceCom and together now provide converged solutions for the benefit of the greater Apple community." Giles Harwood, Managing Director of GHC 

Project Highlights 

The very fact that SpliceCom's maximiser was the answer to Gordon Harwood Computers' ten-year quest to find a replacement telephone system, which would also integrate with their Apple Mac network and Customer Database, speaks volumes in itself. IP Softphone and traditional phone 'Partner" applications running on Apple Mac OS X computers, support of 3rd party applications through Apple Script, forwarding of voicemail to Apple Mail, complete system configuration and management through Safari, Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Mac, or any other standard web-browser allows maximiser to offer unrivalled support to the Apple Mac community - in addition to those using Windows or Linux computers. 

System Summary 

• One 4100 Call Server 
• One 4330 Phone Module 
• 30 ISDN channels 
• 30 analogue extensions 
• PCS 50 Phone "Partner" application for Apple 
• Mac OS X 
• Two PCS 400 IP Phones 
• 10 PCS10 Business Phones 
• Nine existing analogue phones 
• Eight port voicemail with 30 mailboxes 
• Call recording 
• Auto-attendant 
• SpliceLog call management system 
• Integration with Sea Change database running on Sun UNIX 

Commercial Benefits 

• Reduction in everyday business process times. By linkingmaximiser with GHC's Sea Change database, customer and supplier records are automatically 
• found and shown on screen when they call. 
• Quicker, slicker and more efficient handling of customers calls. maximiser now provides many facilities previously unavailable on GHC's old telephone system. With support for DDI calls are dealt with more efficiently, without the need for an operator. The addition of voicemail also provides a final contactability option should the required recipient of the call not be at their desk. 
• Clear visibility of who is calling allows the "right" person within GHC to take the call, first time, every time. 
• Increased customer contactability. maximiser's Extension Anywhere facilities allows MD Giles Harwood to be "in-when-he's-out" and receive DDI/Departmental calls and voicemail messages whilst working from home. 
• Reduced implementation costs through the use of existing twisted-pair cabling. 

Staff Benefits 

• Less total time spent per day handling telephone calls. 
• Personal voicemail replaces "Post-It" notes. 
• Customer/Supplier records are found "automatically" 
• Less time spent looking up telephone numbers to dial. 

Management Benefits 

• Clear visibility of which salesperson is answering the most incoming calls/making the highest number of proactive outgoing calls. 
• Average sales call duration can be easily calculated. 
• Peaks in daily/monthly/annual incoming call volumes can be identified allowing staffing levels to be planned more appropriately. 
• Helps eliminate much wasted time trying to identify who has called a customer, if the customer subsequently calls back after using "1471" to return missed calls when they were out.