Glen Dimplex

Glen Dimplex Home Appliances is the largest manufacturer of cooking products in the UK and a subsidiary of Glen Dimplex Group, which is the world's largest electrical heating business.

One of the largest employers in Merseyside, Glen Dimplex Home Appliances has a number of homeworkers who require access to various corporate systems via the internet. The company has three types of homeworker: Field Service Managers who manage a fleet of 165 field-based engineers and access databases and receive emails from home; Customer Service Agents who access a CRM database to book engineers for appliances that are faulty and require repair. These workers tend to cover unsocial hours (i.e. Sundays, 6 pm-to-8 pm) when there are a limited number of calls, so working from home makes better use of agents' time. And National/Area Sales Managers who are field-based sales reps spending 1.5 days in their home-office catching up on paperwork and updating their CRM database with records of their activity for the week. They also access the systems in the evening to view large spreadsheets and for those who do not have access to a Blackberry, they access their corporate emails.

Glen Dimplex Home Appliances currently has Seventy homeworkers; Eleven Field Service Managers; Four Customer Service Agents and fifty-five National/Area Sales Managers. Their home broadband connectivity was originally supplied by BT Business. Sharon Parkinson, Communications Manager at Glen Dimplex Home Appliances explains why the company switched.

"We left BT for a couple of reasons. Firstly we wanted to reduce our costs and I am delighted to say that we have saved 50% by joining Timico. Secondly, we needed to improve the level of service we received. When we had issues with BT, the person with the fault had to contact the BT helpdesk. More often than not, they ended up in a queue waiting for a BT agent to become free and this meant they were not doing their job. When they did get through, the BT agent would be located at an outsourced call centre, which made communication difficult and there was no escalation procedure to speed up the repair."

Glen Dimlex Home Appliances switched to Timico's Homeworker Services and is now enjoying a dramatically improved home broadband service for its homeworkers.

"Our overall impression of Timico is that the service we get has exceeded our expectations and is much smoother than what we used to experience with BT," says Sharon Parkinson. "If we have a fault our call is answered quickly and efficiently and the Timico customer service agent knows who we are. When we were with BT, our network manager was always complaining about the service but now he is very happy. Don't get me wrong, we do have issues from time-to-time but they are resolved very quickly and very rarely require my intervention. One of the biggest differences is that we do not need to keep chasing the fault, it is dealt with in entirety by the Timico Helpdesk who keeps all parties updated."

When Glen Dimplex Home Appliances switched from BT Business to Timico Homeworker Services each homeworker's broadband was upgraded to Timico ADSL Max. This meant that most users line speeds increased significantly. Sharon describes the feedback she has received and the additional benefits of being a Timico Homeworker Services customer:

"Everyone noticed the speed change immediately and up to now I have not had a homeworker complain about the service, so that to me speaks volumes. The installation process is smooth and we find that the way Timico breaks down its bills into all the different cost-centres makes it easy for contra charging the correct department.

"On a few occasions we have had a homeworker who stopped working with us ask to keep the Timico service. When this happened we have managed to easily transfer the account into a personal account with Timico for them," concludes Sharon.