How VoIPstudio connected a globally distributed Homes&Rooms team

Industry

Hospitality & tourism

Company Size

10-50 Employees

Headquarters

Hampshire, United Kingdom

Founded

2011

About

Homes and Rooms provided innovative software-as-a-service solutions for independent vacation rental owners. The service, accessed through the website homesandrooms.com, made managing a vacation property easier, freeing up owner’s time, while increasing their reservations and revenues. The company was founded by Barry Sacks who himself run a successful vacation rental business. Barry has a background in technology and software innovation and used these skills to automate his own rental business.

The Challenge

Homes and Rooms operated a core development team from a UK office, supported by a wider distributed workforce based around the world. The team had a shared passion for travel, and several members, including CEO Barry Sacks, also managed their own vacation rental properties. This naturally involved frequent travel and a need for mobile working capabilities.

The company also maintained a core customer support team, which was expected to scale rapidly following a successful launch. Barry planned for this team to consist largely of remote workers based across different regions, positioned close to customers.

From the outset, the company required a communications solution that was both cost-effective and feature-rich, yet flexible enough to grow incrementally alongside the business.

The Solution

Barry had previously worked in software and technology. He had even worked as an interim Chief Technology Officer setting up multi-million pound call centres for a financial services organisation. He was, he says, well aware of the benefits of VoIP and knew the kind of features and services he needed.

The Home and Rooms team checked out a wide range of providers, determined to find the right solutions from the start.

Everything we have built and the way we have organised ourselves is as a virtual organisation. We needed to remove any reliance on a fixed point of presence. We are out and about, hopefully spending more time with our customers than in the office. So to have a system that can transfer calls seamlessly from mobile to laptop to fixed phone was important to us. A number of services we looked at can provide that, but VoIPstudio offered it in a more flexible way.

Barry was particularly impressed by VoIPstudio’s online management tools and the platform’s genuine scalability. The startup plans offered full functionality from the outset, unlike many other providers whose key features were only available in higher-cost tiers. This ability to scale services incrementally in line with business growth was a crucial factor in the decision-making process.

VoIPstudio also stood out for its exceptional customer service, from initial inquiries through the system setup. The flexibility of the platform extended even to the provisioning of contiguous extension numbers, allowing the company to plan for future growth without needing to pay for all user licenses upfront. This approach provided both operational efficiency and cost control during the early stages of the business.

Our VoIPstudio service gives the external world the impression of a very cohesive organisation.

Customers have access to our people through one office number and calls can be seamlessly transferred to the right person. The reality, though, is that we are a very distributed mobile workforce that could be operating anywhere in the world.

The Impact

Homes and Rooms established a truly scalable telecoms platform with VoIPstudio, one that supported rapid growth as the business expanded. The company operated with a central office number that could be routed seamlessly to the appropriate team member, regardless of their location.

The solution proved to be highly cost-effective, a critical factor for the startup stage of the business. It delivered exceptional call quality and offered the convenience of receiving UK-based calls on any device, whether a laptop or mobile, even while team members were travelling abroad.

It is very cost-effective and that is important as a start up. The call quality is exceptionally high and the whole service is immensely convenient. When I’m in Florida visiting my own properties, I can take a call made to the UK local number on my laptop or mobile, whichever device I have open in front of me

Most importantly, the system provided peace of mind. In the fast-paced environment of launching a new company, where multiple systems and processes must be built simultaneously, having a reliable, future-ready communications platform in place allowed the team to focus energy elsewhere, knowing their telephony needs were fully covered.