Centrix provide emergency service for General Healthcare

As existing customers of Centrix will already know, we really do try our hardest to deliver the best service and support in the industry, however even we were surprised by our swift response to a major problem for one of our largest customers, General Healthcare Group (GHG).

Centrix have been supplying GHG and their subsidiary, BMI Healthcare (see December 2001 on the 'What's New' section), with Avaya Definity switches for some time with the usual 4-6 week lead-time expected of such a complicated installation. However, early on a Sunday morning in February, Centrix were set a tall order even by their standards. Richard Burbage, Sales & Marketing Director explains…..

"It was about 9.30am on a Sunday morning and I was driving up to Islington to prepare for an exhibition at the Business Design Centre that we were exhibiting at for the next two days, when I received a call from Ralph Spilsbury of GHG. He quickly explained that this was the weekend of the move of their existing Siemens iSDX system from their head office at Euston Road, London to their new premises in Chiltern Street and that things were not going smoothly; the Siemens engineer was not able to get the iSDX to work on the new ISDN 30 that had been installed in Chiltern Street. We were aware of the ISDN 30 circuit because a couple of weeks earlier we had brought the circuit into service from BT so the customer knew that the DDI range was valid for printing of stationary. It was quickly apparent that the BT ISDN 30 circuit in situ was using the latest I.421 protocol and that the Siemens iSDX was still working on DASS, a much older proprietary UK standard for ISDN 30. It was pretty much like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole ! It was at this point that Ralph asked for our assistance in rectifying the situation as the site needed to be up and running by the Monday morning."

Ralph Spilsbury, Corporate Purchasing Manager for GHG picks up the story. "It was very much at the last minute we discovered that, despite our best efforts to ensure the move was a success, potentially we were going to get to the Monday morning without a working telephone system. I telephoned Centrix for their assistance thinking that they could magic a solution out of thin air, or at least get the ISDN 30 circuit changed to DASS, or if not to upgrade the iSDX to accept I.421. However, both of these options would've resulted in at least a week delay, which would not have been acceptable. I jokingly asked Richard if there was any chance of an engineer installing a new Avaya Definity into Chiltern Street that same Sunday to be met with the reply 'I'll see what I can do, give me 10 minutes'. Sure enough, to his word, Richard rang back and said that Andy Jamieson, one of their Definity engineers that knows the GHG account very well, could indeed install a new Definity that very same afternoon. I'm pleased to say that by the Sunday evening we had a fully working telephone system. The only problem now is that when Centrix tell us there will be a 4-6 week lead-time we just know that isn't always the case !".

The addition of another Avaya Definity into the General Healthcare Group now brings the total number of Definity in their network to 32.

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