Case study

Case study
Smiffys: What Timico brought to the (fancy dress) party.
Founded in 1894, Smiffys has become a global organisation with
offices and showrooms worldwide. Specialising in fancy dress
costumes, Smiffys distributes 5,000 products to over 5,000
stockists throughout the world; shipping over 26 million items
every year. A family business with over a century’s heritage,
Smiffys’ head office is located in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.
As a successful and growing fancy dress wholesaler,
Smiffys was looking for a reliable communications
partner that could keep pace with the millions of items it
ships every year. As a business which still predominantly
communicates with its customers via phone and also
experiences large seasonal peaks in customer interactions,
Smiffys needed a flexible provider with excellent customer
service and scalable offerings.
Ready for anything
A large percentage of Smiffys’ orders come in via
telephone, which means that a reliable and effective phone
system is imperative to maintain revenue. After suffering
a flood which resulted in a power outage whilst with its
previous supplier, Smiffys understood the importance of
having a robust system which could withstand a host of
unforeseen circumstances.
Michael Patchett, Senior IT Support at Smiffys, said:
“We decided that we needed a system that was easy to
manage and also had the flexibility to change in unique
situations. Having worked with Timico on a project a few
years before, they’d always been on hand to give us the
advice we needed, and more. The installation of the new
phone system from Timico was underway when the flood
hit, which further highlighted the need for a solution to have
DR capabilities”
With future plans to expand the number of offices around
the world, Smiffys needed a scalable solution which could
change and adapt in line with not only seasonal peaks –
such as Hallowe’en – but also as and when the business
expands into new territories. Timico installed an Avaya IP
Office solution, a fully featured Business Telephone system
which is flexible enough to evolve in line with Smiffys, but
also reliable and secure enough to handle the high volume
of calls.
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Case study
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All calls run over Timico ISDN lines which are supplied
along with a number of both fibre and bonded broadband
connections to support the company’s current data
requirements and a possible shift to SIP Trunks in the
future.
Family values
As a family run business, Smiffys prides itself on customer
service and keeps its call centre function UK based –
ensuring that all employees are up to speed on the latest
products and able to provide the best possible service to its
valued and varied customer base.
Michael continued: “We place a really strong emphasis on
customer service, so we expect the same level of care from
our partners and suppliers. With our incumbent provider,
we were starting to feel as though we weren’t quite getting
the service we needed. Timico really understood our needs
and treated us the way we treat our customers.”
To help Smiffys manage its inbound and outbound
calls, Timico enhanced the Avaya telephony platform by
integrating it with a multi-media Contact Centre solution
– the Enghouse Interactive Communications Center
(EICC). This allows managers to monitor a whole range of
things – from how long it takes for a call to be answered to
compiling data for sales reports.
Smiffys have plans to roll out other system features in
the future through the integration of EICC with its CRM
system. Personal touches, such as greeting customers by
name, can be implemented – as the system recognises
the caller’s number from previous correspondence and
pulls up order histories and other important data. With a
company-wide drive towards excellent customer service,
these extra touches really make the difference, solidifying
Smiffys’ reputation as a big business which has still
retained its family values.
“Timico’s communication is great. They’re always at the
end of the phone if we need to talk through something and
the solution we’ve rolled out is perfect for seasonal peaks
in calls and for when we expand the business further. We
also have the option to log on to the system ourselves and
make minor changes – which makes things much more
efficient and flexible” concluded Michael.