“MPS provides us with honest and independent advice, competitive pricing and great service, I am always happy to recommend them.”
Expansion and the acquisition of new businesses resulted in Kellaway using communication services from multiple suppliers, with varying levels of cost, service and support.
Kellaway Building Supplies are the largest independent builders merchant in Bristol, with 10 branches serving Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. The Kellaway Group has a further 10 different branches consisting of Avonside Insulation Supplies serving Bristol and Stoke on Trent, MPH Ltd with branches in Poole, Ferndown, Torquay and Telford, Bristol Tile Company and Joseph Griggs & Co Ltd. Kellaway’s mission is to be ‘The merchant of choice for customers, suppliers and staff.’
Expansion and the acquisition of new businesses resulted in Kellaway using communication services from multiple suppliers, with varying levels of cost, service and support. Having asked previous suppliers to provide cost centre breakdowns without success, Systems Manager Barry Edbrooke was tasked with addressing this issue and improving internal communications.
Having an existing relationship with MPS, which began with ADV Maincom, a business MPS aquired in 2006, Barry Edbrooke approached MPS and a number of other providers to provide analysis of all telephone systems and fixed line services.
MPS carried out a detailed audit of all phone systems, telephone lines, calls and internet access circuits and were able to identify opportunities to eliminate waste and duplication, thus delivering cost savings. MPS were able to consolidate all of Kellaway’s service and support contracts, with the exception of a few services which were in contract with other suppliers. Commenting on the proposal from MPS, Systems Manager Barry Edbrooke said, “MPS provided us with honest and independent advice, pointing out where it was not in our interest or not possible to move services. They proposed what was best for our business and didn’t just try and migrate all services regardless of our needs. We were happy with the pricing and service and agreed to put all applicable business with MPS.”
Commenting on the impact of consolidating services with MPS Barry said, “Our billing is much simpler with MPS. They provide us with an easy to understand cost centre breakdown by branch, which is further analysed by service type. Our previous bills from BT were a nightmare, not itemised and difficult to understand. Our purchase ledger team is much happier with a single bill from MPS rather than bills from multiple suppliers and we have reduced our costs. Some of our existing suppliers offered us preferential rates to remain with them but they were still more expensive than MPS.”
Talking about the transition to MPS Barry said, “The transition to MPS went very smoothly. They provided us with advice about our existing contracts, commissioned new lines and broadband circuits before switching any existing services off and commissioned services out of hours where necessary.”
Barry continued, “Fault logging is much simpler with MPS. Their engineers are easy to get hold of and they manage problems from start to finish. They deal with third party network providers on our behalf, making my job much easier. We have periodic reviews with our MPS account manager to discuss any changes in our business requirements” Barry went on to say, “When one of our new broadband routers was delivered to the wrong address on the day of installation, the MPS engineer simply installed another router that he had with him and he then came back to swap it to the correct one when ours arrived. That’s great service.”
Summing up his experience of partnering with MPS Barry said, “It has been a good experience. MPS have been very professional providing independent advice, competitive pricing and good service. Their values appear to be in line with our own in wanting to be the supplier of choice for our communications. Kellaway belong to the National Buying Group and I am always happy to recommend MPS for reliable communications services.”