Menzies balances the books with unified communications technology

An award-winning firm, Menzies won ‘National Firm of the Year’ at the 2016 British Accountancy Awards and ‘Best Tax Team’ at the 2017 Tolley Taxation Awards. 

MENZIES offers a full range of services – tax, corporate finance, audit & compliance and business recovery, as well as strategic consultancy, outsourced HR & FD support, franchising and business valuations. 

The Challenge

As a large organisation with multiple offices spread across the country, Menzies faced a number of logistical and economic challenges arising from staff regularly travelling between different locations for various internal meetings and appointments. Although the output of meetings was usually valuable, the disruption caused by staff trying to attend was often disproportionate, while the company incurred high costs for travel expenditure.  

In addition to this, Menzies has been actively expanding its client base, attracting new business from across the UK and overseas. It had experimented with standard telephone conferencing and unified communications (UC) solutions in the past, but the poor sound quality and complex operating interface made these often unreliable and ineffective, and therefore unsuitable for client interactions.

Menzies was keen to address these issues by investing in an effective platform that would enable instant, high-quality video and audio communications between colleagues and clients, wherever they were located.

The Solution

Menzies consulted a range of different providers and selected StarLeaf based on the quality of their product range and the competitive pricing of their solution. Graham Seddon, partner at Menzies, spoke about the selection process and implementation of the StarLeaf system:

“When starting the procurement process, StarLeaf had two key advantages over their competition - firstly, the user interface is very intuitive and easy to use, which meant that all staff can quickly learn how to set up a call with minimal training. Secondly, the audio and visual quality of the platform was far superior to the other video conferencing solutions that we tested. We have trialled systems in the past where the video has frozen, and the audio has cut out, which is far from ideal when communicating with important clients.”

StarLeaf’s GT Mini was promptly installed across all seven offices within a two-week period and StarLeaf organised a live-video training session to a group of Menzies staff, who could then help their colleagues to use the system effectively. The StarLeaf app was installed on staff tablets and mobile phones to enable messaging, voice and video calls, and means all employees can join video conference calls remotely through the StarLeaf cloud, for seamless communication between colleagues and clients at home or abroad.

The Results

Graham explained how the StarLeaf system has benefitted the business: “With StarLeaf we can interact with clients and colleagues in different offices, without the time and expense of travelling, as the incredible video and voice quality means that everyone feels as if they are in same room. Since the system was installed we have noticed a significant reduction in travel expenditure, and our staff now have more time to devote to support their clients. The flexibility of the StarLeaf app has also given our staff much more freedom in how they work, enabling them to stay in touch with colleagues whether they are on the move, working from home or from the office.”

By offering a reliable and effective face-to-face communication platform, through which meetings can be easily set up and rescheduled to accommodate clients, Menzies could significantly improve their customer service while simultaneously reducing associated travel and accommodation expenses, giving the company an edge over its competitors.

Graham concluded: “The StarLeaf video meeting room system and mobile app is the future of communication for our business. It is improving the efficiency with which we operate, reducing key overheard costs and enabling us to move towards a more flexible, client-focused way of working. In our business, providing the highest levels of service to our clients is how we set ourselves apart from the competition, and StarLeaf’s communication solution is playing a key role in enabling us to do this and ensuring we retain clients. The easy-to-use interface, high quality video and audio service and flexibility that StarLeaf offers, combined with outstanding customer service, has assured us that we have selected the best provider.”