Technology company VIA is moving ‘a stone’s throw away’ from its current city centre offices as it paves the way for future expansion.
The Skype for Business and unified communications (UC) specialist is relocating from 21-23 Castle Gate to Poynt South, Nottingham, in July – giving it the space it needs to hire for a number of new roles.
Sales director Alex Tebbs, who co-founded VIA in 2012, said: “While we love our Castle Gate offices, and the impressive views it gives us of the city, we need somewhere bigger to accommodate our growing support and development teams. We searched across the city before setting our heart on Poynt South, a period building which has been refurbished into a number of modern offices. We’ll now have double the working space, which puts us in a good place for future expansion; we expect to hire at least ten people over the next 12 months.”
Ross Buggins is the most recent hire to VIA, having taken up the role of UC and contact centre specialist, in June. Speaking of his appointment, he said: “After over a decade of being a contractor, it had to be a special company to make me move to employment. After using the VIA UC platform for a number of my clients I knew early on that both the product and the organisation were excellent. In the end, the decision to become employed was an easy one. I look forward to the continued development of the new Contact Centre solution, which I know call centre teams will love and see value in.”
Ahead of the move, VIA has been working with commercial office design and fit-out company Redrock Interiors to create mock ups for their new open plan space. Benjamin Lawson, a designer at Redrock Interiors, said: “We are delighted to be working with VIA to create a vibrant working environment for their staff. The design has been built around representing both their brand and company values, we are confident that this has been achieved.
“There was an emphasis on not only creating a great place to work but to also incorporate spaces for their staff to both breakaway and brainstorm. The office will clearly represent VIA by tying in their brand colours and will also provide their staff with much-needed meeting and conference calling space.”
Commercial property agent Innes England brokered the deal on the property. Surveyor Laura Jardine said: “The office suite is very modern and open plan, which gave those at VIA the flexibility and a blank canvas to make the space their own.
“We started formally marketing two suites in the building in January and they were both under offer by March and April, which was quite a quick turnaround. It shows that creating this type of modern space in the city centre is very appealing to companies as it allows them to put their personal mark on their offices.”
Alongside new offices, VIA has invested £500K into a brand new website and Contact Centre solution, which will enable contact centres to reduce call waiting times and improve customer satisfaction. The new service offering features intelligent call queuing, real-time wall boards and skills based routing, determined by a clever in-built algorithm called Smart Agent Selection (SAS).
Calls are routed based on team members skill level (out of 100), activity level and availability. Businesses can also prioritise customers or calls, putting them at the top of the queue or directing them to a specific agent – without the need for a switchboard operator.
The recent investments will support the firm’s plans to double its turnover to £3.5 million in the next financial year.
VIA’s development director Gareth Sobocinski added: “We know how tricky it can be when setting up call queuing for a contact centre. We wanted to design a system where call queueing works hand-in-hand with the manager to make their life easier and crucially, give customers a great experience on the phone. SAS does this, and when rolled out to our existing customer base, we have received extremely positive feedback on how SAS has reduced call waiting times and improved working efficiencies in the call centre. What’s more, because our Contact Centre solution is based on Skype for Business, it gives staff a seamless unified communication experience too, making it easier, and less time consuming for them to navigate and use their own internal systems.”
Earlier this month VIA was shortlisted for the ISPA (Internet Services Providers’ Association) UK’s annual awards. The company is in the running for the Best Cloud and Best VOIP categories, which it will find it whether it has won at a ceremony in London on July 13.
