Dundee and Angus, Chamber of Commerce

We sat down with Laura Rhoney, Chief Operations Officer at Dundee and Angus, Chamber of Commerce to discuss their mobile needs, and how GoodCall helped them be better connected.

Organisation Profile And Background

Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce are the leading business membership organisation in the area, which delivers business support, growth, and development. They aid over 750 member organisations through events, activities, and consultations that aims to provide networking connections and opportunities, fostering a strong community that enables businesses to flourish, attract and retain talented people and ensuring the region is recognized as a premier location for innovation and business prosperity.

Mobile technology and connectivity allow team members to work in a variety of separate roles, in various locations, like communicating between those in the office and those working from home and those conducting events elsewhere. Laura explains, “We have a range of different type of roles in the Chamber, we have some office-based roles, but we also have a membership team that go out and try and get more members and they go out and do events, so being able to connect with each other over mobile is really important. We also travel abroad, our CEO and some of our team go to some international destinations for some outward and inward missions. And so being able to have them across there as well, to communicate and be able to use our [Microsoft] Teams and use all of our connectivity and our CRM is really important to us.”

Challenges

As a non-for-profit organisation, Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce were previously tied to a “generic” contract that didn’t allow for flexibility across different work situations, as well as not being able to integrate different types of mobile technology like tablets and laptops. “We’ve never had a such a smooth and really easy to use contract, as we have now, with all other contractors. It’s always either really long or really expensive, and there’s no flexibility on the type of phones and things like that.”

The GoodCall Solution

DACC were looking for a versatile and adaptable setup, at an affordable cost, which complemented the activities of the organisation. “For us it was just getting something that we could be flexible with, and you know, flex up, flex down and absolutely be able to do something that didn’t cost us the absolute earth because we are a not-for-profit organisation and costs are key to us.”

Our Charity Engagement Manager, Elaine Gray, then began to explore their existing setup and provide a more grounded, flexible solution that better met the needs of the organisation. “Elaine was brilliant when we did a full sort of scope of what do we need, how many lines do we need, you know, can we do e-Sims for people that already got mobiles that we can use and re-use and so it was really good to look at the whole holistic view of it and say, “is there anything we already have?”. You don’t get that with other providers where they go, “OK, we just need more”. They want to have more money whereas you guys really look at in-depth of everything we have, how can we repurpose, how can re-use and how can we add if we need to. It was really, really in-depth and it might take a little bit longer than just phoning somebody and ordering a phone, but it really does make a difference to the business when you can do that.”

Impact

With a better configuration in place, Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce will now see better collaboration between team members as part of their own transformation to a better digital future. Laura said, “For us, we’re probably where we are at the moment, but what we want to do is we want to get everybody a little bit more mobile. We want to offer as much homeworking and things that we can do, but we want to be that as smooth as we can do. With that, sometimes comes cost and what you guys offer allows us to really make that an option for us as a business and sometimes when you look at other solutions, they’re just so cost heavy that you can’t really make it an option. We have a lot of digital transformation that we’re doing in the next 18 months and part of what we’re doing is the stuff that GoodCall’s going to do for us. So, it will make a difference to what we’re doing in the next 18 months, which is great.”

Our partnership also meant that better ties between GoodCall and DACC were established. Laura comments, “I’d say it’s one of the best, if not the best supplier relationship that we have, as well as being a member. I’m never waiting for a response. I’m never thinking “Oh God, I have to phone them because I need something”. It’s a really healthy and really friendly relationship and one that I wish I had with other suppliers.”

Recommendation

We asked Laura if she would recommend GoodCall to another third sector organisation, here’s her response:

“In a heartbeat. Absolutely yes. And the level of personal and professional care that you get with you guys, I really haven’t got that with any other supplier. I would absolutely. And on a more financial and strategic way, you guys really do look after that kind of financial burden that people have. You know, at one point she [Elaine] said, “Do you really need more phones?”, and so you know that’s really good to have somebody that takes enough care to say if there’s some another way to do it, let’s do it. And that is something that not a lot of companies will do because they want to make more money. And I think that’s why I would move them on and pass them on as a referral for sure.”

To learn more about Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce, please visit their website: https://www.dundeeandanguschamber.co.uk/

To read more of our case studies, please visit https://goodcall.org.uk/about/charity-case-studies/