Star Services

In challenging economic times, more and more business are looking hard at their costs. For many companies, telecommunications is at the heart of their operations, and it pays to keep them under review. Star Services found that it’s possibe to both save costs and improve service to customers.

Star Services is the leading supplier of catering, refrigeration and laundry equipment, crockery and cookware on the Island. In addition to supplying equipment, Star Services also provides a fitting service, including completely new installations or refurbishments of catering and laundry facilities, at many of hotels, cafés, restaurants, nursing homes, and offices throughout the Island.

The company also offers a 24 hour service and maintenance service covering gas, plumbing, and electrical work, and has a small team of engineers who are fully trained in the repair of most makes of commercial catering, laundry and floor care equipment.

The company’s vans are a familiar sight, as they travel to every part of the Island to supply or work on customers’ equipment.

Keeping in touch with base at the Isle of Man Business Park, Braddan is vital as the engineers go from job to job, or are alerted to an urgent job, or even an emergency.

Groups Call Free

After undertaking a review of telecoms costs, Star Services has taken advantage of Manx Telecom’s “Groups Call Free” plan whereby combining fixed line and mobile phones onto one bill means that all calls between all phones on that account – fixed and mobile – are free.

Initially, the company combined all its mobiles onto the one account using mobiles based at its headquarters to coordinate the work of the service team. Combining all their mobiles onto the one account meant that they made an immediate saving of 20% on call charges.

Converged

Later, when Manx Telecom enabled both mobile and fixed lines to be “converged”, Star services combined all the company’s phones onto one account, effectively creating its own telecommunications network over which all calls made between headquarters and mobiles, and between mobiles, were free. This reduced the company’s telecoms costs by a further 15%.

Commenting, Nigel Cannell, managing director of Star Services, said, “We saw immediate and dramatic cost savings when we combined all our mobiles onto one account, and combining the fixed lines has also made a huge difference, not only in savings, but in the way we work. Our engineers have to work on a very wide range of equipment and it’s impossible for them to have all the necessary information at their fingertips, this often means long telephone calls to access data, or to consult other engineers. Now that we effectively have our own free telephone network between our fixed lines and mobiles – we don’t need to consider our telecommunications costs, just concentrate on customer service”.

Commenting on the uptake of the “groups call free” service, Richard Skinner, Manx Telecom Account Manager, said, “Many small to medium sized businesses put a lot of effort into looking at a range of costs, especially energy costs, but there are significant savings to be had by being on the right calling plan. For businesses with several locations, or a large number of mobile phones, the savings can be very significant. At Manx Telecom we are only too happy to help any company review its communications needs and advise them, not just about the right technology, but also the right cost plan."