The widespread shift to home and remote working imposed on businesses by the Covid-19 lockdown has, in large part, been facilitated by advances in communications technology. The smartphone has become a virtual office in a pocket for many people while meeting by videoconference has become the norm rather than the exception.
Even these very powerful technologies have their limitations, however. Basic functionality like the automatic routing of calls to the correct staff member or diverting them to a recorded message which most people take for granted tends to disappear in the remote world.
This is where Three Ireland's 3Connect offering for small and medium businesses comes into its own. It works through an app or "soft client" on the user's phone or laptop which turns it into their single point of contact for all communications including voice calls. The app is in turn connected to an online portal which manages the system.
Businesses no longer need a physical phone system in their office. They can access the 3Connect portal on a PC or laptop from anywhere and self-manage the system, adding users or removing them when necessary.
"This is one of those products that has quickly come into its own since the beginning of the lockdown," says Padraig Sheerin, head of SME with Three. "It's a ready-made solution for the switch to remote home working, particularly for small businesses. It has the functions of a traditional telephone system. Instead of routing calls to extensions in an office, it routes them directly to people's mobile phones."
It introduces the world of unified communications to businesses of every size
It is particularly suited to small and medium sized businesses, he adds. “It introduces the world of unified communications to businesses of every size. If you tried to explain that concept to people pre-Covid-19, it might have been difficult. But most people can see the benefits now. It’s very easy to manage and our customers are able to do things like add extensions which they couldn’t do with their office systems because they were too old, or it was too costly to make the change. Users can do all this themselves with support from Three available, if required.”
Flexibility is another advantage. “3Connect is designed to be suitable for businesses of every size from a single user up to hundreds,” says Sheerin. “It is infinitely scalable, and customers pay on a price per user model. It scales as the business grows and there is no question of paying for more than you need when you start out.”
One company which was already using the remote working features of 3Connect before the lockdown is Lahinch-based human resources software company HRLocker. Most of its 18 employees were already working from outside of the office with its head of development living and working in Galway and another employee working from home in Brazil.
"Our whole concept is work is no longer a place," says HRLocker chief executive and owner Adam Coleman. "We have people who are fully remote, so this allows people to use telephony and software, to have a life outside of their job where they want to. We got into the whole agile way of working and the idea of scrums. Every morning we have a call at 9am and no matter where you are in the world, you dial in to it. Once I have the soft client open, I could be absolutely anywhere."
A feature which has proved particularly valuable to HRLocker is the ability to designate an in-market number that overseas customers can call, and it will ring through to an Irish mobile. The company has used this to support its expansion into the UK market.
People's level of comfort and confidence with videoconferencing has been transformed as a result of the lockdown
“Everyone has the idea ‘it’s the internet, people will deal with you anywhere’, but from a sales conversion rate perspective, if they see a number with +353, they know it’s not the UK. You need to be able to communicate to the UK with UK numbers, and the customer wants to be able to call you from local numbers. While it is a global marketplace, there’s still a local mentality, particularly around HR services,” Coleman explains.
“It’s a really function-rich product.” Sheerin adds. “Companies can add call recording if they need to. That is particularly important for regulated businesses and it can be a very complex piece of work with traditional systems. The product is always evolving. We are working on a video-conferencing component at the moment. People’s level of comfort and confidence with videoconferencing has been transformed as a result of the lockdown. This technology was struggling for acceptance a bit up until now, but it has really come into its own. Building it into an established platform like 3Connect is a natural evolution and we will continue to add features in response to customer needs.”