Thomas Mawer & Son

Established since 1864, Lincoln-based Thomas Mawer & Son Limited is an independent firm of Auctioneers and Licensed Trade Valuers. One of the leading auction houses in the East Midlands, the company handles sales by auction of antiques, works of art, collectors' items and general house contents. Bids can be made by customers who personally visit the auction house or remotely by telephone or email.

Clinton Slingsby, the Auctioneer at Thomas Mawer & Son, explains how critical telephone and internet services are to a modern auction house: "Just as the advent of the telephone transformed auctions by enabling remote bidding, the internet has transformed auctioneering into a global business. Our customers are able to view and search for items in our online catalogue from anywhere in the world and at any time of day or night. This means that the telephone and internet are critical to our business and as such, need to be as robust as possible as well as having reliable technical support to get us back online if we lose connectivity."

Like most small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, Thomas Mawer & Son relied on BT for its telecommunications and internet services. However, it was not a happy relationship.

"Whenever we had a fault on our line we got no service from BT and I always thought it just had to be that way," continues Clinton Slingsby. "Then I started to learn that there were alternatives to BT and when I heard about Timico offering a communications service that was specifically tailored for small businesses I jumped at the chance to see what they could do for us."

Thomas Mawer & Sons now uses Timico for all its fixed line and mobile phones as well as the internet and has found Timico's service impressive.

"We knew Timico cared right from the start when, during the initial data transfer, our email went down and a Timico person turned up on our doorstep to personally spend half a day sorting it out. More recently, the broadband line went down, which was a problem with BT in the exchange, but BT fixed it promptly because Timico was able to communicate with them whereas in the past, we could never get through or only after several hours of recorded messages. We also really appreciate Timico's one monthly bill which itemises our fixed line, mobile and internet usage because it save a considerable amount of time and has brought our administration costs down.

"Being a Timico customer means getting a proper service like we used to get from BT thirty years ago," concluded Clinton Slingsby.