Fairview New Homes
Fairview Homes are one of the largest new home builders in the South East and Telecoms costs at the company were seen as incidental until Segmentation Group identified and re-claimed a large refund from one of their suppliers.
Pat Yates, Office Manager at Fairview, is responsible for the bulk of communications services including the switchboard, the leased lines and the billing for normal calls and keeps a tight eye on overheads, “Like many firms, we can’t afford to employ a full-time specialist to manage our communications” says Pat, “and it’s even worse trying to keep track of it all when the supplier’s account manager keeps changing all the time!”
Pat asked Segmentation Group to come in and do a ‘spring-clean’ on Fairview’s telecom service to make sure everything was in order with their new service contracts. Segmentation’s Nick Cassidy discovered that the revised rates and agreed discounts had not been applied properly and having agreed with Pat how she wanted to tackle the issue, Segmentation prepared and submitted the claim to the network resulting in a substantial rebate for Fairview.
Segmentation Group has worked with Fairview over a period of years beginning with a review of landlines, which delivered a large reduction in costs by cleaning up the billing and giving costs greater visibility. The review led to a series of initiatives including cancellation of a number of unrequired lines, barring access to some expensive services, a big reduction in the cost of inter-site calls and calls to mobiles, and improving Fairview’s cashflow by changing the billing cycle and improving management information.
“The networks got away with it because we didn’t have the specialist resource and knowledge”, says Pat. “When it comes to materials costs, building regulations or health & safety, we have to be meticulous because that is what our business is about but, for services like telecoms and mobile, it makes sense to use an expert like Nick.” “I knew from his work over the years on our fixed line telecoms that he had the expertise and I could trust him to do a good job for us across the whole of our communications.”
The construction sector is by no means alone in asking non-specialists to take care of telecoms in addition to their day-job and Pat concludes, “If you haven’t got the expertise and the time to check everything yourself, it really makes sense to get Segmentation in to do a spring-clean. The bottom line is that we now must have some of the lowest communications costs amongst firms in our industry. We plan to keep it that way too, our business doesn’t stand still and neither does the communications sector.”