The Client

For more than 134 years Hayes & Finch has been manufacturing quality products for the Church with their team of trained candle makers, silversmiths, cabinet makers, and sales staff.

Since beginning in Leeds Street, Liverpool in 1882 before moving to Aintree (after surviving as a business through two world wars), Hayes & Finch is committed to the manufacture and supply of quality products and services.

Part of that service is reliant on being there to answer the phone to key customers.

The Challenge

Hayes & Finch have been working with us for about five years since a change to their IT system and to a VoIP phone system uncovered a particular challenge when it came to their call answering.

“What we found was the majority of our sales calls were coming within the same three hour period and we couldn’t bring in enough people to manage the phones just for those three hours,” said Andrew Ware, who has been with the business for 25 years and is on the board of directors.

“We couldn’t afford the staff just to bring in for a three hour period to cover the phones, when we’d have no other work for them to do for the rest of the day.”

It was at a networking event around 2016 that Andrew saw a talk from Face For Business about our call answering service and decided to get in touch.

Creating a reliable overflow call answering function with extended operating hours

After an initial conversation we started the process of integrating Hayes & Finch’s IP phone system with our network.

“It was all made really simple,” said Andrew.

“Face for Business gave us a number that we passed on to our IT company and the whole thing was integrated completely seamlessly. We ran a few test calls with their virtual assistants, they dealt with them and we were up and running, there were no challenges in the set up.

“For us, it’s meant we have a reliable overflow call answering service so when we can’t get to the phone ourselves, we know the call will still be answered professionally as if it was a member of our team.

“Plus because Face for Business offers an out-of-hours call service, it’s allowed us to keep the phones active for an additional three hours between 5-8pm without the cost of staffing them with full-time employees, as well as allowing us to take calls on a Saturday.”

The results

Working with Face For Business has allowed Hayes & Finch to increase the number of sales calls they answer during the day, increasing the potential revenue opportunities, as well as giving them an extended call answering function after hours.

“For both customer services and sales staff it’s given our team more time to sift through our emails quicker, pick up messages and respond to calls. Whether we’re chasing orders and managing our time, Face for Business has made the business more efficient,” Andrew said.

“Plus it’s helped us extend our opening hours without a huge cost to staff the phone. Using Face For Business has been much more cost effective than taking on an extra employee. We can now be open for longer and know we have a customer speaking to a real person whenever the phone rings.”