Gerard Lighting New Zealand relies heavily on the stability of their network to access their main product database housed in Australia. As well as being stable, the WAN network needed to follow strict network security protocols set by Gerard Lighting Australia.
The Gerard Lighting New Zealand phone system demands maximum flexibility and mobility, specific to each department’s needs. This also meant they required reporting on the incoming and outgoing calls to track staff performance, as well as maintaining high customer satisfaction. Being able to identify training opportunities within their own sales and customer services teams was also a requirement.
Previously, Gerard Lighting New Zealand was using an ISP that handled both voice and data. This was not delivering the quality and performance they so desperately needed. After looking at various options, Gerard Lighting New Zealand selected an integrated solution from CircleNet.
The ability for CircleNet to provide a trusted cloud voice offering, SD-WAN network and personal technical support from skilled technicians, rather than being handled by a generic helpdesk, was a key factor in the decision making.
“We worked alongside Darren and his team to design the phone system to fit our specific needs” said Pierre Van Heerden, General Manager at Gerard Lighting New Zealand.
“CircleNet made the transition easy and seamless, taking care of the planning, shipment of devices, scheduling of install, communicating directly with myself, install and gave 1-1 user training on the new system, as well as removal of the previous devices.”
Gerard Lighting New Zealand engaged with CircleNet to develop a deployment plan whereby they could move to CircleNet’s WAN and voice solution in parallel with the current WAN and voice systems. This ensured both the WAN network and voice were thoroughly tested in a sandbox environment beforehand, and also allowed time for CircleNet to provide training before going live.
“Throughout each step of the process, the team were transparent and flexible. We had a few instances where we asked for changes to the schedule and Darren happily accommodated our requests and went out of their way to ensure that our staff were happy and could continue to work without interruption.” - Pierre Van Heerden.
As a result, Gerard Lighting New Zealand now has a stable and secure network that accommodates for a true disaster recovery solution, meeting the strict PCI compliance set by Gerard Lighting Australia and eliminating the financial costs of expanding the WAN for future satellite offices.
CircleNet’s unified communications platform enables Gerard Lighting New Zealand to ensure customer service is kept to an excellent standard, achieved by utilising the powerful reporting tools on their call centres which are connected to their CRM tools. This provides valuable data that can be used to upskill their sales agents, measure trends of call volume to optimise how many phones need to be staffed throughout different times of the day and migrate all the satellite sites under one umbrella to make managing moves, adds and changes simple.
The powerful unified communications platform also enables mobility for their sales reps to be connected anywhere in the world on their mobile or laptop, essentially still allowing their customers to call an NZ landline number to reach them where ever they are.
“Can’t believe we haven’t made the jump to CircleNet earlier, Darren and his team have delivered on all their promises” – Pierre Van Heerden
