Understanding the challenges
Murray Group is a family run Volkswagen Dealership in Devon. It has three locations in Plymouth and Newton Abbot. Murray Group sells new and used Volkswagen Passenger Cars, VW Commercial Vehicles and Skoda vehicles in addition to offering Service and Parts.
As a Volkswagen (VW) dealership group, the Murray Group is connected to VW headquarters in Germany as well as a multitude of other online resources and relies on access to these systems when supporting customers. Even if the customer is not an existing customer of Murray Group’s, staff need to be able to access the vehicle’s service history in order to provide the best service. In addition, with three branches spread across Devon, employees need to be able to communicate with the rest of the business.
Previously, Murray Group Head Office had an ADSL line. However with only one line, if for some reason the service failed, it meant that the company was unable to get online and was losing business. It was at this point that it began looking at alternatives.
“We had periods when we couldn’t get online at all,” said Mike Davidson, Group IT Manager at Murray VW, “which is hardly ideal when customers are bringing in their cars and you need immediate access to their service history.”
The FluidOne support team examined the issues that were affecting the dealership, and quickly realised that the business had outgrown the current solution. Although Mike examined the options that other providers were offering, the personal support offered by FluidOne made him want to seek a solution from them.
Our Solution
Fibre broadband was not an option for the main office, because the rollout had stopped 200m away from the Head Office site, so FluidOne needed to look at how it could provide a similar service with increased reliability.
FluidOne implemented PureFluid BURST lite4 technology to solve the downtime issue at the main site. Using BURST, FluidOne could ensure that Murray Group had internet access provided by two providers on four lines, which meant that should they have further problems connecting to one service, redundancies were in place to ensure the service did not fail. FluidOne implemented BURST with two lines at the other sites.
At the cutting edge of DSL technology, BURST can achieve download speeds of up to 20 Mb/s, while providing uploads speeds at 2.6 Mb/s. Given that Murray Group was often downloading information from servers based in Germany this solution met their needs in terms of both speed and reliability.
FluidOne Service
“We’ve noticed a dramatic improvement in service reliability since the switch to FluidOne BURST,” Mike Davidson said. “No internet service can have 100% uptime but with multiple lines, each with a different provider, it has meant that the business hasn’t experienced any downtime. We have been able to access the data held in external sites when needed so customers don’t have to come back, or worse go to another dealership.”
As a result of access to information like service history and availability of new cars at all times, customer retention rates have improved. The service offered by the business has become more consistent and reliable.
Mike was pleased with the level of customer service offered by FluidOne, “The team focused on our needs rather than trying to push us towards a specific solution. We trust FluidOne completely to do what is says it will, which is rare in a supplier.” By working together, FluidOne and Murray Group were able to choose the right technology to fit the needs of the business.
