ECN’s successful customer acquisitions have fuelled the company’s rapid growth over the past 24 months. In the current financial climate, reducing costs, protecting margins and improving returns are the order of the day.
Companies are actively reducing their operational costs as financial pressures take their toll. Telecommunications providers like ECN are well positioned to provide organisations with better and more cost-effective options. ECN’s comprehensive portfolio of converged voice and data services is backed by its advanced next generation network(NGN). These services are often business critical and as a result, are supported by stringent SLA’s. ECN offers a wide range of high quality and flexible services designed to meet the needs of its diverse customer base
Its core offering is a high-end corporate voice solution that provides reduced tariffs and per second billing for all call types including inter branch, local, long distance, international and F2M. On average ECN saves organisations between 30 percent and 45 percent of their monthly telephone phone bill. In addition, by consolidating voice and data on a single network, ECN enables organisations to reduce their legacy TDM Infrastructure costs.”Corporates are looking to reduce costs and save money, this presents a window of opportunity for us. Call tariffs are inflated and the savings that can be delivered using NGN’s are not being realised. We have been able to deliver real solutions and impressive savings quickly in the corporate space. Adding additional next generation functionality is how we strengthen our relationships and maximise the value delivered,” says Andy Openshaw, ECN chief operating officer.
ECN guarantees high levels of availability for voice services with automated failover to the PSTN in the event of equipment or exchange line failure. ECN’s bilateral interconnects with the incumbent networks enable it to provide exceptionally high quality voice services. ECN’s voice solution eliminates all the quality problems associated with dated premicell based least cost routing solutions such as delay, signal loss and dropped calls.
Customers and Service
ECN’s voice minutes have grown tenfold in the last year. With the massive push of clients onto its network, one of the biggest challenges the company currently faces is to continue servicing these customers at the desired service levels. Openshaw admits to the odd occasionally unhappy customer, “It’s all about identifying and dealing with problems immediately”.
Customers actively running on the ECN network include AON, Clover, Coca-Cola, Discovery, Ernst & Young, DHL, Growthpoint, JD Group’s head-office and stores, The Financial Services Board, Xtrata, plus many SA universities and learning organisations, parastatals and government departments and a significant number of SA based call centre operations. Openshaw points out that a large percentage of these customers have signed up with ECN based purely on referrals and word of mouth from existing customers.