Phones 4u Limited is the UK's fastest growing independent mobile phone retailer. Headed-up by CEO Tim Whiting, with headquarters in Newcastle-under-Lyme, the company employs more than 6,000 people and has more than 400 stores located across the UK and Southern Ireland. The company’s approach to customer service is simple – to understand what customers need and to regularly update products and services to ensure that customers are provided with exactly what they want.
For the last four years, Servo has provided store support services to Phones 4u. This includes the support for all point-of-sale equipment, printers, scanners and back office equipment installed in the retail outlets. This amounts to around 21,000 devices in total. Servo is also responsible for supporting the in-store cabling infrastructure from all networked devices back to the stores communications cabinet.
First-line support for the retail outlets is provided by Phones 4u’s own internal IT staff and when a fault is identified with any of the in-store devices, Servo is called in to visit the site and rectify the problem.
Servo manages the calls through its National Response Centre in Darley Dale, Derbyshire. There is a dedicated Phones 4u line and 14 call handlers manning the incident desk during core working hours. Servo receives around 450 call-outs per month to the Phones 4u network, equating to approximately 20 calls per working day. Servo’s nationwide network of engineers enables them to be on-site rapidly to ensure minimum downtime to the store.
Servo works to an SLA that calls for a four hour, eight hour or 16 hour fix. The SLA priority is determined by the Phones 4u help desk at the time of logging the call. The agreement stipulates that Servo must achieve a minimum 95% success rate against these priority levels. Servo meets or exceeds these levels consistently. Monthly management reports are produced by Servo which provides Phones 4u with an accurate and up-to-date picture of service level performance against SLA. The management reports also provide call trends and root analysis to identify developing and repetitive issues. These can then be addressed to drive down incident rates and improve store uptime and trading capacity.
Should, for example, a trading till be inoperable for a number of hours, the business impact to Phones 4u may be considerable. A jammed printer may prevent new contracts being printed and a faulty scanner could also hold up the process of signing up new customers.
Servo understands these issues and provides a flexible service that aims to help Phones 4U maximize uptime of point-of-sale and in-store equipment and thus maintain maximum operational efficiency.
Support cover is required during normal working hours for all of Phones 4u’s stores. Additionally, opening times vary and this means that Servo must provide cover between the hours of 8.00am until 10.00pm 7 days a week. The company has 200+ engineers located across the UK and Southern Ireland, therefore the company is always in a strong position to meet the required response times.
Servo has provided maintenance service for Phones 4u since 2003. This contract has again been extended until 31st December 2007.
In addition, Servo also provides equipment and installation services for the provision of new stores. Phones 4u continue to expand its retail network; opening over 50 new stores during 2006 with an expected further 50 planned for 2007. Servo is also currently updating some of Phones 4u’s most well-established stores with the latest equipment and technology.
Phones 4u has a standard store configuration. Servo carries out till and back-office builds and testing prior to delivery and installation by Servo’s installation team. Servo works with Phones 4u to ensure new stores can be open and ready for business at the optimum time. Often, this means scheduling installation teams for a Saturday opening; on other store works such as store re-fits, a store will be re-fitted and re-equipped over a weekend.
Servo has also carried out a number of other projects for Phones 4u, including the installation of over 1000 new point-of-sale terminals, Chip and Pin and document scanners across the store estate.
Servo has also been involved in a number of projects at Phones 4u’s Head Offices in Newcastle-under-Lyme. One of these projects included moving 300 users to a new Head Office location. Servo provided full project management services over a period of three consecutive weekends, ensuring staff were able to move to the new location and be up and running when they arrived on Monday morning.
Servo also worked with Phones 4u to implement a data centre at the new Head Office location and assisted on the design of a Storage Area Network (SAN), using Double-Take to replicate data to the hosting centre in Manchester. Servo provided a complete service, from the management of the initial pilot, through to the full testing and roll-out of equipment.
“The Phones 4u experience is a first class illustration of how well-equipped Servo is to meet the needs of retail operations that cannot afford stores to be out of full operation for any significant time”, says Ian Easthope, Retail Account Manager. “Phones4u is a successful, fast-growing, nationwide retailer. It operates in a highly competitive market and needs to know that, when a till or a printer develops any kind of fault, that it will be rectified quickly. Through our nationwide network of engineers and our experience in managing large-scale contracts, Servo is able to give the company that reassurance.
Commenting on behalf of Phones 4u, James Gallacher, Associate IT Director says, “As the UK’s leading mobile retailer, Phones 4u prides itself on offering the very best customer service and meeting customer needs. It is vitally important that we can ensure that our stores are equipped with the very best technology and able to operate efficiently at all times. Having a reliable and professional maintenance supplier in place ensures that we can go on delivering customer service of the highest standards.”
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