Genzee Ltd

Charis Technology offers expertise in the design and manufacture of measurement and control systems for Industry and Research. They recently moved office and chose to implement our hosted IP Telephone system to save on cost and prepare for future expansion.

Charis Technology is a small electronics company in Kent. They design and manufacture niche market products and systems for the process control industry. The main areas of business are level and foam control but they are also involved in a wide range of measurement and control applications. They are world leaders in the supply of equipment for the control of foam in industrial processes. Most people are familiar with foam produced as part of beer brewing processes, but not many people know that foam is a bi-product in a wide range of industrial processes and can be fatal to some processes. Charis makes equipment to control foam whether it is required or not. It is very much a niche market and requires a flexibility of response, which only a small company can provide to its customers. Customers can be anywhere in the world and involved in anything from vaccine production to road tanker washing.

Charis recently ran out of space in their premises in Maidstone and decided to relocate to a larger factory unit in Chatham. In the old premises, which was shared with other companies, Charis only had two lines available for the telephone and fax. This had become a serious limitation on the business and required improvement as part of the move. The company is run by engineers who are familiar with high technology solutions and who use embedded systems to design their products. So there was a natural openness to adopt new technology to improve the company’s processes.

An investigation was carried out to find a solution which would provide the following facilities which were required as to aid the growth that Charis was experiencing:-

• More lines available
• Low operating costs
• Low initial investment
• Upgrade path for expansion

It became clear quite quickly that a Voice over IP (VoIP) system would meet all of the requirements and also give some unexpected benefits. The ability to port telephone numbers on to an internet service and make them location independent was a surprising bonus. The existing telephone numbers could be kept which was a huge benefit. Also a fax to email service was a very useful way of phasing out the fax machine while maintaining the ability to receive faxes from customers.

Various suppliers were tried in the old premises and Genzee were found to offer the best solution overall. The customer service was really good and the value for money was judged to be the best available. During the initial start-up in the old location some problems were found due to the fact that Charis staff were unfamiliar with the technology and some problems had to be overcome with an incompatibility of the existing broadband router. However nothing seemed to be too much trouble for Genzee and the response was excellent.

The new system was moved to the new factory unit using a new ISP who could offer a fast service. In fact the only real problems were due to the relative unreliability of the broadband service and the poor customer service of the ISP.

The new system has been really successful and given us the ability to make and receive far more telephone calls at the same time. We no longer have to make customers leave messages as there is always a line available. The cost is only a little more than we were paying for two lines and we now have the facility to transfer calls and make internal calls easily. We are more than happy with our new telephone system and our customers are impressed with the new technology.