After Pennine was called in to audit usage of 160 lines installed across the campus the university has seen the bills for these lines slashed by around a third. The savings were identified after Pennine examined call patterns and volumes alongside the previous supplier’s line rental charges, usage, tariffs and payment structures.
Telecoms Manager Peter Jones is blunt about the motive behind the move: “Cost is the driver behind all this. It’s a good cost saving exercise, there’s no doubt about that,” he explains. The process is also remarkably easy. “We simply gave Pennine a top copy of the bills that were coming in, they then did the number crunching and came back and told us what savings we could make if we moved the lines over to Pennine.”
Jones then asked Pennine to put that theory into practice at what is Britain’s largest single-site university. “What we decided to do was to put our toe in the water and move 60 lines to Pennine. Everything went fine and we were happy, so much so that we asked them to come back in and look at the rest of the lines. In total we’ve moved 160 of our lines across to Pennine.”
He’s also enthusiastic about the service offered by Pennine which also provides the university, with mobile ‘phone routing facilities. “They’re old school customer care people. They’re not machines, they’re not reading from scripts, they’re actually real people who are know what they are talking about and are very good at what they do which is really refreshing.”
Pennine’s Telephony Audit service is offered free and without obligation to both public and private sector organisations. It’s something Jones is pleased to recommend: “It gives you the opportunity to have someone examine your telephony charges and structure and find savings not only by offering lower rates but by identifying lines you no longer need. The bottom line is that there are good cost savings to be had and who isn’t looking to save money at the moment.”