Top 20 AM100 group JCT600 has invested over £1 million in a new cloud-based communications system to further improve its level of customer experience and legislative compliance.

The solution – powered by Halifax-headquartered Vapour Cloud in partnership with Leeds-based pure technology group (PTG) – will see JCT600 move to voice technology.

JCT600 has 50 locations across the north of England and represents 21 franchises, with an annual turnover of over £1 billion.

The decision to upgrade was made after the group’s legacy phone systems “started to hold the group back”.

Chris Gensmantel, JCT600’s group IT manager, said: “In so many parts of our business, we excel in terms of state-of-the-art, technology-driven customer service, but our historic on-premise telephony would have undoubtedly started to hold us back.

“Vapour’s solution will allow us to streamline our systems and processes, while integrating voice into the other exciting technologies we’ve implemented throughout JCT.”

Vapour and PTG recommended Avaya’s ACS Select solution to improve the quality of dialogue between colleagues and customers and to ensure Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI) compliance for call recorded card payments.

The project precedes PTG’s project to design, deploy and support a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) within the Microsoft Cloud, to modernise the IT and data management for JCT600.

The 12-month project which commenced last summer is now nearing completion with all dealerships soon to be utilising the new cloud-based telephony platform.

The new functionality has been delivered for the same cost as the incumbent solution, with the £1m spend spread over the next five years.

Tim Mercer, Vapour chief executive, said JCT600’s phone systems were previously updated on a site-by-site basis, as necessary.

However, this staggered telecoms investment resulted in inconsistencies when it came to the technology utilised and the potential level of service delivered.

Mercer said: “If left unaddressed, this could have started to impact upon the qualities that the brand is renowned for.” 

Mercer said Vapour’s cloud-based technology will now also safeguard JCT600 from breaching evolving data protection laws. 

Sales executives within JCT600 are deskless, but this can make it difficult to contact a salesperson if they’re out on the forecourt.

An app on sales executives’ smartphones can forward calls from their DDI and record calls to ensure legislative compliance.