About Trent & Dove Housing
Trent & Dove Housing offers well maintained, affordable homes across East Staffordshire, South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire. This includes 6,000 properties, ranging from sheltered accommodation to family homes and everything in between.
Trent & Dove housing are driven to make a difference in people’s lives and reduce homelessness in the region. Their aspiration is to be an organisation of over 10,000 homes by 2022. By providing affordable homes and a wide range of supporting services they enable people and communities to thrive and enjoy life.
The housing association identified a need for improved reporting from its telephony system to ensure the organisation delivers the services that it offers to its clients. This included peak-time staffing of phones, extended service hours, outbound calling and ‘first point of contact’ resolution. In addition, a new LAN solution was required by Trent & Dove Housing, to both support the communication solution and protect against system failures that would result in SLA failures for the housing association.
The Solution
Amillan implemented Unified Communications and Contact Centre platform with a total of 213 users and 20 contact centre agents, and a replacement LAN solution to support it. The Unified Communications solution provides a call distribution system operating across all sites by routing calls to the first available qualified staff member in the shortest time.
Amillan also replaced Trent & Dove Housing’s multiple telephony systems with a single solution distributed across all sites, which provided a platform to support hot-desking, home working, remote contact centre agents, audio and video conferencing. The solution also gave the housing association a single, centralised management system for their communication platform.
The LAN solution provided abundant network bandwidth for voice, data and UC, with the additional requirement to support video over IP. Amillan designed and implemented a network that is resilient so in the event of an appliance failure, the fibre route will be maintained, and Trent & Dove Housing’s SLAs will not be affected.
After just three months of the system going live, Trent & Dove Housing reported a 50% reduction in time taken to answer calls; from 45 seconds to just 22 seconds. In addition, the average call length was reduced by 25%, helping Trent & Dove achieve their objective of faster call resolution. This improvement in answering time also reduced the abandoned call rate from 25% previously, to 8% on the new solution.
Amillan’s solution also provided a reduction in costs for Trent & Dove Housing. With the single system replacing multiple legacy systems, the ongoing maintenance costs were greatly reduced. The rationalised solution provided Trent & Dove Housing with a central management system which reduced operational costs and simplified the administration of the communications system.
“We selected Amillan’s solution on the basis of the wealth of features the solution provides, which we felt would increase our levels of customer service and boost the productivity of our staff.”
Unified Communications – James Cropper
By Amillan Limited, Your Trusted Managed Services Provider
James Cropper is a globally recognised manufacturer of advanced materials and specialist paper products, based in the UK with operations spanning over 50 countries. With a strong reputation for innovation, sustainability, and quality, the business supports sectors ranging from luxury packaging to aerospace composites. Amillan has extensive experience working in the manufacturing vertical, with a deep understanding of the sector’s specific communication challenges and operational requirements.
The Challenge
As James Cropper continued its innovation-led growth strategy, the company required a robust and flexible communications platform that could support collaboration across multiple global locations. Their legacy systems
lacked scalability and did not offer the level of integration or visibility needed to support modern workflows—particularly in support of their R&D and international client engagement teams.
The Solution
Amillan delivered a comprehensive, fully managed Unified Communications and infrastructure solution designed to meet James Cropperʼs multi-site, high-security, and safety-critical requirements. The deployment combined state-of-the-art IP telephony, collaboration tools, mobility services, and resilient data networking into a single, integrated environment. A cornerstone of the project was the consultative design and deployment of James Cropperʼs LAN and WLAN infrastructure. During the pre-consultative exercise, Amillan carried out a full wireless profile of the busy manufacturing site, identifying potential sources of interference and developing a bespoke design tailored to the operational environment.
This approach ensured that the deployed solution could:
Amillan successfully implemented a new enterprise data networking solution at the main UK campus, delivered on time and within budget. Building on this success, Amillan supported the expansion of the LAN and WLAN infrastructure to remote sites worldwide, creating a consistent, secure, and scalable global network environment.
Key Elements of the Solution
Data Network Infrastructure
This approach ensured that the deployed solution could:
Amillan successfully implemented a new enterprise data networking solution at the main UK campus, delivered on time and within budget. Building on this success, Amillan supported the expansion of the LAN and WLAN infrastructure to remote sites worldwide, creating a consistent, secure, and scalable global network environment.
Cabling Infrastructure
A high-availability telephony core was deployed using a virtualised architecture, providing redundancy, scalability, and future-proofing for James Cropperʼs expanding global operations.
Resilient Virtualised Unified Communications Platform
A high-availability telephony core was deployed using a virtualised architecture, providing redundancy, scalability, and future-proofing for James Cropperʼs expanding global operations.
Full IP Telephony Across All Locations
Modern IP handsets and soft clients replaced the legacy systems, delivering consistent call quality, centralised management, and the flexibility to adapt to different working environments.
UCaaS and CPaaS With Microsoft Teams Integration
A UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) platform was deployed as a softphone and a CPaaS ( Collaboration Platform as a Service), offering presence, instant messaging, audio, and video capabilities. Partial integration with Microsoft Teams ensured a seamless user experience for employees already working within the Microsoft 365 environment.
Full-Site DECT Coverage
Wireless DECT infrastructure provided robust site-wide mobility, enabling employees to stay connected across manufacturing floors, warehouses, and office spaces with guaranteed voice quality.
Man-Down Services For Lone Workers and Hazardous Areas
Specialist DECT handsets with man-down functionality were introduced to safeguard lone workers and staff operating in potentially dangerous areas, automatically triggering alerts in the event of falls or inactivity.
Deployment and Support
Amillan carried out a full network readiness assessment before implementation, ensuring the infrastructure could support the increased demands of voice, video, and mobility services. Post-deployment, Amillan provided comprehensive user training and continues to deliver 24/7 proactive monitoring and support, giving James Cropper centralised visibility, operational resilience, and peace of mind.
Benefits Delivered
Customer Testimonials
“The support from Amillan has transformed the way we collaborate across global teams. Their understanding of our sector and proactive support model has been key to the smooth rollout and ongoing success of our communications strategy”
— Quote from Alistair Belshaw, IT infrastructure & Security Manager, James Cropper
“Working with an innovation-led manufacturer like James Cropper is a perfect fit for our approach. Our goal was to deliver a secure, scalable platform that supports their collaborative workflows and future growth.”
— Quote from Darren Greally, Account, Sales Director, Amillan
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