TOW BARS specialist Dereck Hancock has been ringing-up fantastic sales figures and new jobs, thanks to a savvy move which is keeping his customers “on the line.”

The owner of Just Tow, based in Nottingham, is seeing his products being snapped-up like lightning, since investing in a slick telecoms solution from Welshpool-based internet telephone company Storm.

Less than a year ago, the eBay power seller realised he was losing out to missed calls. Just Tow only had one BT line and disgruntled customers complained that it was always engaged.

But Storm provided a breakthrough and opened the door to a massive rise in incoming calls for Dereck, by installing a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system which gave the business a three-user phone system, which runs on just its broadband connection.

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Storm Exhibit at Business Yorkshire

Business Yorkshire is Yokshire's premier business to business exhibition and conference, built specifically for business owners, directors and entreprenuers.

This was the first time we had exhibited at this event and we found it to be a great success. We spoke to hundreds of established business owners who have now become customers of ours because of the significant cost savings related to our phone systems"

Storm found that lots of businesses were paying for multiple BT lines, and after talking to vistors they showed them how they could run all of their phones using just 1 broadband line.

"Many businesses loved the flexibility of being able to have home workers, and also being able to have lots of geographic numbers all over the UK going into their one office - giving them a national presence"

Storm found Business Yorkshire to be a valuable exhibition, by proving to established businesses that Storms phone systems can make dramatic savings and provide them with a multitude of features, usually only expected with a high class expensive phone system.

Storm Exhibit at New Start Wales

The New Start Wales Exhibition launched in Cardiff and was based on the award winning Scotland New Start Event, which had been successfully running for the past 5 years.

The event gave Storm the opportunity to meet thousands of SME and new start businesses face to face from across the whole of Wales.

"It was really great to be able to exhibit at this event, we spoke to hundreds of potential customers who were just starting up a business, and were looking for a cost effective solution for their business telephones" explains Alan MD of Storm

"We found that our systems were extremely popular, as many visitors just simply didn't know about our products and this new technology, we found that we were educating people that there is another option, other than spending thousands of pounds on a phone system"

Storm were able to demonstrate the phone system live at the show, using just the internet cable within the arena, to run 6 of their business class phones.

"Visitors were really impressed and I think they realised that they didn't necessarily have to understand this Voip technology, just to benefit from it, because at the end of the day the user experience is the same, if not better than using traditional phones at a fraction of the cost."

Storm found the New Start Wales event to be fantastic for building their brand image and to build new customer relations and it was an unmissable opportunity to meet and sell to thousands of receptive, enthusiastic growing businesses.

Storm are the featured business of the month by F2S Internet provider

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has actually been around in one form or another since 1973 when it began as an experiment by the US Department of Defence. However, it wasn’t until the rise of high speed broadband that it has really taken off in a big way.

Established in 1996, Storm realised early on that there was a great potential market for VoIP. Alan Thorpe-Downey, CEO of Storm explains how high speed broadband provided by Freedom2Surf (f2s) has enabled him to build a successful business designing and building hosted VoIP telephone systems for businesses of all sizes:

"We had been in the communications industry since 1996 but it wasn't until we started using VoIP for our own office in 2001 that we realised this was a market that was going to explode one day. That day is fast approaching, more and more companies are experiencing the benefits of VoIP."

The company now has a wide range of customers, from dental surgeries to shipping companies with offices across the world. These customers have completely transformed their businesses using Storm's telephone system and Freedom2Surf broadband as a new means of communication.

"We have made VoIP very simple to use and the best thing about it is that you don't have to understand the technology, just reap the benefits of it because we have made the whole thing plug and play," says Alan.

One of the key benefits of Storm's "plug and play" telephone system is that businesses can now have up to 8 simultaneous calls running on just one BT line. Including features such as intelligent call queuing, auto attendant and call distribution, Alan explains the system gives businesses a competitive advantage as their customers will never hit an engaged tone:

"Businesses really benefit from the improvements that our system gives them because they no longer miss calls from their customers. Voicemails are automatically emailed to them so they can pick them up on their phones. They can even have a mobile phone as an extension of their main switchboard. After installing our system, customers are often amazed by the rise in call volumes. It makes them realise how many calls they must have missed, consequently missing out on potential sales opportunities."

"The ability to have multiple sites linked together means that you can have a customer call your UK based telephone number but the phones will not only ring in the UK, but in Dubai, the US and Germany at the same time, and the first to pick it up gets the call," says Alan, "that's the real beauty of it".

The particular broadband service which enables Storm and its customers to run such an effective communication system is provided by Freedom2Surf, one of the UK`s leading Internet service providers.

"All our customers have extremely high volumes of calls going through our service which means that we rely heavily on reliable, high speed broadband. A bad service from the ADSL supplier means a bad service for our customers, and we cannot afford that. Freedom2Surf provides exceptional reliability of connection and speed which enables us to deliver such an excellent service," explains Alan.

"Our experience has always been that if there is a problem, Freedom2Surf`s customer and technical support get things done fast. We can confidently install our system knowing that Freedom2Surf will not let us down and that our installation will be seamless and finished in no time".

In summary, thanks to high speed broadband provided by Freedom2Surf, Storm and its customers can now benefit from VoIP as a cheaper and more effective alternative to traditional telephone services.