Case Study Bohle Limited

Plum Communications creates £20K cost savings for Bohle 

Bohle Limited is the UK subsidiary of family-owned Bohle AG, a manufacturer and wholesaler to the glass and glazing industry of tools, machinery, and accessories for glass processing and glass finishing. Providing a fast, knowledgeable, professional experience is what drives the business’ customer loyalty.

At the heart of Bohle’s business operations is its telephony system and internet connection. It keeps the team connected with their clients and colleagues and is the route that many customers take to ask for advice and order the products they need for their building projects.

Having invested in a fully featured telephone system and 100Mbps leased line from a national supplier over a five year contract, the Bohle team had become increasingly frustrated by the time and effort spent on trying to overcome issues with their solution.

Dave Broxton, Managing Director, Bohle Limited explains: “I had reached the end of my tether with our complex legacy telephony system and unreliable internet service. During the final twelve months of our contract, we had at least four days without a connection. There was a tangible cost I could attribute to this downtime.

“It was further impacting our productivity through the time spent trying to reach customer services and support to resolve issues with the functionality of the kit (that we were paying for). In the five years it was installed, we never got to the bottom of it.

“The phone is business critical to our operation. This, combined with the looming PSTN switch off was the catalyst for us to find a suitable Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony solution that would meet our needs now and in the future. As I had lost faith in the provider we had at the time, an internet search allowed me to come across Plum.”

Dave said: “Peter has taken the pain away. He was able to liaise with our head office’s IT team in Germany, and as a result, I have had little involvement and been able to concentrate on my day job. We had no downtime when Peter made the switch to our new system. Our new leased line was installed quickly with the minimum of fuss. Our staff were trained effectively on the new systems and feel supported. He has fulfilled his promises and then some, and ultimately implemented a solution that has upped productivity, helped us to deliver an even better customer experience, and saved us more than £20,000 per year in leasing fees, call charges, and line rental costs.”

As a result, Bohle has achieved its goals of futureproofing its tech, and has been able to establish effective hybrid working. There have also been additional benefits to enhance customer experience. For example, repeat customer calls are routed to the same member of staff to ensure continuity, and the team can now access reporting which support staff training and development.