The Customer
Northgate School Academy Trust is a multi-site secondary school serving 600 students with disabilities, located in Northampton, United Kingdom.
Northgate School Academy Trust is a multi-site secondary school serving 600 students with disabilities, located in Northampton, United Kingdom.
Business Challenges
Its 80 poorly functioning analogue phones were obsolete and out of service, connected to a few BT ISDN lines through an ageing PBX that, mysteriously, kept incoming calls.
The phones were wired to fixed locations on desks and in offices, offering users no mobility. School leaders and senior managers, whose roles involved frequent travel around the academy’s sites throughout the day, were often “unavailable” and had messages left for them to return calls once back at their desks.
The academy knew that its key telephony users wanted to provide parents, partners, and other callers with a much improved experience. It also wanted to give staff a simple, lightweight way to call or connect internally with colleagues. Finally, it was keen to implement strategies to reduce costs wherever possible.
Solutions From Sangoma
With the ISDN switch-off in the UK approaching rapidly, the academy’s long-standing technology provider—the accredited Sangoma Integrator Partner Education Technologies—explained that digital modernisation offered a timely and cost-effective solution to transform and secure the academy’s communication capabilities.
With the ISDN switch-off in the UK approaching rapidly, the academy’s long-standing technology provider—the accredited Sangoma Integrator Partner Education Technologies—explained that digital modernisation offered a timely and cost-effective solution to transform and secure the academy’s communication capabilities.
VEGA VoIP Gateway SIP trunks were deployed, converting the analogue phone signal and enabling connection to a VoIP network. Then, Sangoma’s powerful, all-in-one Switchvox Cloud communications platform replaced outdated and cumbersome PSTN voice calling with a streamlined and highly reliable suite of cloud-powered functions that transformed the user experience and immediately reduced telephony costs by around 20%.
By replicating all of the academy’s communication functionality on any connected device, anytime and anywhere through a single application, it instantly provided rich and powerful unified communication features such as voice calling, video, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), call redirect during school holidays, and comprehensive call management and analytics.
The schools’ staff all received comprehensive and easy-to-understand training on how to use the new system, its live switchboard features, and its call reporting functionality.
However, it is the as-standard Switchvox Cloud mobile app that is really driving positive transformation. When non-teaching, management, technical or administrative support staff were once unavailable due to being away from their desk, they now have the entire system and its feature-rich functionality replicated on their mobile device. Also, for those with appropriate roles, that same mobility and flexibility enables them to work from home.
Customer Testimonials
The Academy’s Executive Head Sheralee Webb says:
The Academy’s Executive Head Sheralee Webb says:
“We were unaware of the impending switch-off of the traditional UK telephony network but fortunately we have an extremely good working relationship with our trusted IT Managed Service Partner Education Technologies which flagged to us a year ago that we would need to transform.
“Probably like most organisations focused fully on their own day-to-day priorities, having the time or inclination to consider the implications of a fundamental change to our phone system was a challenge. The consultative nature of our relationship was key. They talked us through the technicalities of the switch-off and the benefits on offer of moving to the cloud. Our existing system was ageing and out of service, and we were persuaded that now was the time to fully digitise.
“The reduced costs, the simplicity and reliability, the enhanced functionality and agility – the benefits are everywhere. Our new Sangoma handsets are modern and robust, and the Sangoma Switchvox solution unifies all of our internal and external communication channels in a way which enables us to navigate the switch-off, improve user experience, and future-proof our organisation.”