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How one Cork company overcame the connectivity challenge

Fitzgerald & Partners also developed an app to help Kinsale town and community stay connected

Kinsale-based accounting firm Fitzgerald & Partners needed to quickly readjust to remote work when Covid-19 struck in 2020. The firm also had to contend with an increase in workload as it helped clients deal with the impact of the pandemic and manage Government supports. And they found time to develop the free Doing Business in Kinsale app to help the town and community to stay connected and support the post-Covid recovery postpandemic.

Connectivity was a major challenge. With Government restrictions requiring staff to work from home as much as possible client service would have suffered if staff had to rely on their own mobiles for business use.

That led Fitzgerald & Partners managing director Cormac Fitzgerald to approach Three Ireland in search of a solution. Three provided SIM cards which enabled the Fitzgerald team to contact clients, while their mobiles showed the office number for inbound and outbound calls.

That apparently small detail made a big difference. “It’s more professional when interacting with a client and the new phones were a great team morale booster,” Fitzgerald points out. “It means they can be based anywhere as a team.”

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Office number

“We put the app on their mobiles,” says Three head of business propositions, products and operations Ciara O’Reilly. “When they call clients, it looks like they are calling from the office. Clients can call the office number and get through to a staff member on their mobile. It doesn’t matter where you are, you need never miss a call again. Things like that make a big difference to SMEs.”

Three also provided its security tool 3Mobile Protect. “We treat cybersecurity very importantly as we are holding our clients’ data safely and confidentially,” Fitzgerald adds.

That positive initial experience led Fitzgerald to replace the old office telephone system with 3Connect, Three’s fully hosted internet telephone system.

“The 3Connect system routes calls over the internet instead of fixed lines,” O’Reilly explains “It can work with a traditional desk phone system, on mobiles or both. Because its cloud based it offers an awful lot more than traditional phone systems. Fixed line systems need a costly PBX and need maintenance. Also, there is no facility for internet calls to reduce costs and there is no mobile integration.”

This is next generation telephony, she adds. “It’s hosted in the cloud and all you need is an internet connection. It has full redundancy built in, so you don’t have to worry about failures. Also, there are no maintenance costs and functions are easy to add. It really comes into its own with mobile integration.”

The 3Connect system is managed through an online portal that lets the user control their call forwarding and other settings quickly and easily. The portal also provides reports and analysis on call patterns, so users can change call flows to manage work between staff more effectively.

“Everything is managed in the cloud,” O’Reilly notes. “You can log in to the portal from home and see what’s happening on the system, change settings or manage functions. It’s very easy to use. The system includes true hunting with incoming calls going from phone to phone until they are answered. You can also select who calls should go to outside of office hours. It also includes interactive voice response [IVR] functionality. You can also get voicemails forwarded to your email. Conference calling is built in, and the system integrates with Microsoft Teams for video conferencing. People are very familiar with that application now. All that functionality is standard.”

Installation is very quick, she adds. “The app is a simple download, and the desktop installation is very straightforward. Three also gives training to all staff using the system. We want to make it as simple as possible.”

Scalability is another advantage. “A typical customer will initially use the system for a small number of people and as they experience its benefits, they scale it up for the whole organisation.”

Security

The 3Mobile Protect security tool protects an organisation’s entire mobile estate. “Security is very much top of mind this year in particular,” says O’Reilly. “It detects and disables malware and protects against phishing attacks and so on. It also offers a remote lock and wipe facility. Very importantly, it protects without compromising performance. And it’s very discreet, it doesn’t collect any personal data, only corporate security critical data. We want to make it easier for our customers to manage and grow their businesses. We want to make it easier for our customers to do business with their customers, to connect with them and ensure they are secure while doing it.”

Barry McCall

Barry McCall is a contributor to The Irish Times