The award-winning estate agents, John German, move all their staff across 10 offices to remote working thanks to SCG
John German Estate Agents are one of the most well-known and trusted estate agents in the Midlands, selling, letting and valuing homes and land across the region since 1840.
The award-winning organisation was looking to modernise their business communications system and move all their staff across 10 offices to remote working without any negative impact on business productivity at the peak of the global pandemic.
The Problem
Operations Director, Elaine Chamberlain, explains how the COVID19 pandemic revealed significant issues with their previous communications system, as they were facing numerous limitations and were lacking vital functionality that could guarantee business continuity and provide no interruption to their services.
“We were looking to change our corporate communications system back in 2019 as we knew that our existing server based system, at that time, was quite outdated as we introduced it back in 2013 and in those six years technology has significantly changed.”
“We have got a ten office branch network and all of them connected to one system, so if the system went down every single office was without any telecoms. When the pandemic struck, we found ourselves with that old system going into the lockdown; with our staff working from home, we managed to set up the system to allow them to receive and make calls, but we could not transfer calls between each other, and that disadvantage was really creating issues due to the nature of our business.”
The Solution
SCG have been looking after all telecommunications needs of John German Estate Agents for more than 10 years.
“Our trusted advisors from SCG had already suggested the a new telephony system to us early in 2020, saying that it would be the best fit for our needs, and we were in the process of reviewing the proposal. When the pandemic struck, we realised this new system would not only resolve all our issues, but would also allow us “home working” while also giving us some substantial cost savings, so we did not hesitate or look for alternatives anymore. Our relationship with SCG is based on trust and first-class service, therefore we followed their expert advice and are very pleased with the final result.”
“The new system has really given us the flexibility we were looking for: Collaboration is the number one feature for us. It is so much easier now to take and transfer calls between all agents, you can use it on your laptop, tablet or mobile — productivity is no longer tied to our premises or office desk. The mobile app is constantly on demand among those Employees who are out for external appointments.”
The Results
“Thanks to SCG we can still be in touch with our numerous customers across the Midlands and deliver the high quality service they are used to getting from our estate agency team regardless of circumstances and where they are working from. The COVID19 outbreak has proven it.”
“We completely moved to the telephony solution whilst we were in lockdown, and this transition was painless for us, firstly because the solution is very intuitive at use, and secondly – because SCG were always there for us.“
