Greenstone Carbon Management

Greenstone Carbon Management is a London based company in the business of providing carbon measurement and advice to companies. Greenstone works with companies to account for and drive down carbon, realise significant operational cost savings and mitigate the impact of emmissions. They employ 22 staff and are a repidly growing, successful business.

Greenstone shares new premises off Regent Street, London with their sister company, St Albans Capital. A number of directors  and some staff work for both companies, hence the ened for shared premises and a shared telephone system.

Why were they looking to change?

Two main reasons: moving office as they were outgrowing the premises and  a need to cope with the growing number of staff. Sharing with St Albans caused additional challenges as there was only one inbound number for two companies and outbound calls  from Greenstone employees presented the St Albans number.

What was attractive about hosted?

The ability to 'segment' the system into two companies, despite sharing the same physical resources, which is something you can't do with a traditional telephone system. Flexibility and scalability were also key factors. Greenstone also preferred to avoid large up-front capital expenditure and pay for it as they use it.

Why choose the Communicator Hosted IP Solution?

"The service provided a low capex solution with more flexibility and features (e.g. home working, different geographic numbers for the, same office, etc). It was also sold as a solution with advice available of the different options available." Matthew De Villiers, Director.

"The new service really helped us streamline our handling of calls, reduce the waiting time and transfer time and improve our administrator's productivity." Suzanne Cribb.

How did the implementation go?

The only problem greenstone had was being let down by BT with access circuits at the last minute prior to moving to the new office. This was overcome on a temporary basis by installing a 3G wireless router.

What impact has the new system had on Greenstone Carbon?

• Costs. "As the headcount has trebled in our company it is difficult to do a like for like comparison of costs.  One thing I can categorically say, is that the new systemis less expensive  than the money we would have had to pay to implement a traditional pbx to cope with our increase in size. To be honest,  the improvements in call handling, brnad image and office productivity would have been worth an increase in costs anyway." Matthew De Villiers, Director.
  
• Working Practices and Productivity.
  
  Receptionist - the calls are answered by the individual or by one of threestaff who act as receptionists.If no one is available the Voicemail answers the call in the name of the Company or if callers have dialled direct numbers, the person themselves. An easy to sue auto-attendant also helps callers get through to the right people quickly.
  
  Field based staff - use their mobile whenout of the office yet can log in to a phone when working from the office. They only need to publish their DDI number and callers can get hold of them  in or out of the office.
  
  Twinning - They can even take a call on the mobile and then pick it up seamlessly on a desk phone. The two companies have different numbers: the finance company has an 0207 number and the new company an 0203 number. They can add an Edinburgh or Cardiff number whenever they want.

"The great thing about Communicator is that it is so easy to use. We've made major improvements in the way we handle telephony internally but are still only scratching the surface in terms of what we can do with the Communicator service. We just need time to get to the next level of sophistication." Suzanne Cribb.