<img alt="" src="https://secure.cope0hear.com/215242.png" style="display:none;">
Supporting Mitel customers in response to Covid-19

Supporting Mitel customers in response to Covid-19

Onecom, UK’s largest independent business telecoms provider , , , ,

The Challenge

The coronavirus (Covid-19) has caused unprecedented disruption for many businesses, and it isn’t something that many companies would have planned for. Following the Governments advice for as many people to work from home as possible; the challenge has been to enable our customers to continue operating while ensuring that their employees can work remotely.

From the get-go, we received requests from a large proportion of our customer base for assistance. From small customers with 10 employees – right up to larger businesses, and local Government with 3000+ employees. This meant we had to really look at changing our processes quickly so that we could step up and help them!

Our approach

Most requests needed additional features activated in the customers Mitel solution.

We quickly created a new support team specifically for Covid-19 tickets. This team managed the sudden influx of support tickets that we received in relation to the pandemic. By utilising members of the team who were multiskilled and Mitel trained, we were able to increase the number of support staff. These employees predominantly came from our Project Engineering and Mitel Consultants team who had previously worked in support; this allowed us to:

  • Ensure that business-as-usual demand on the Support desks was continued, so that our normal workload and SLAs were not disrupted.
  • Escalate the priority of the tickets received to support working from home to ensure minimal impact to our customer’s businesses.

Timescales

For some, we were able to put in place a divert or phone enablement that could take as little as 10 mins. However, for the majority of the requests we have received, business needs were more complicated. There would usually be a 2-4 week project to change the systems; however, due to the severity of the issue, we were able to work hard to get these set up within 48 hours. It was essential for us to do everything that we could to help.

The solution

In order to support businesses enabling their teams to work from home, we mostly implemented one of the following:

  • Softphone: Ability to take calls on their laptop

https://www.mitel.com/en-gb/products/devices-accessories/ip-phones-peripherals/other/micollab-client-softphone

  • External Hot Desking: Desk phones pushed to mobile, which makes it appear as an extension on the system.
  • Teleworker Service: Turns a Mitel Office phone into a teleworker communication device, allowing the user to use their desk phone at home.
  • MiTeam Meetings: Video Conferencing Solution, free for 6 months to help our customers through these difficult times.  https://www.mitel.com/en-gb/products/applications/collaboration/miteam-meetings

The outcome

We managed to support all of our customer’s requests quickly and effectively. The creation of the new team enabled us to manage this spike with no detriment to the rest of the business. This was all effectively carried out with our own workforce having to work remotely too. Overall, we managed to implement:

  • 400+ Contact Centre users now set up to work from home
  • 3500+ other users now able to work from home

Now that the initial influx has calmed down, we have been able to return to our standard processes. However, the quick response that we implemented is now something we know we can switch too quickly as and when required. It was a real success in terms of teamwork from multiple stakeholders around the business, and despite the incredibly anxious climate – it’s something that we can all be proud of at Onecom.

Remember, we’re here to help. Please contact your account manager, or call us on 03300 888 999 to discuss how we can support you and your business. Take a look at our remote working solutions if you would like tips on how to make this work for you.