Case Study: Howdens Joinery improves remote working and call handling with Redcentric

Howdens Joinery - Customer Case Study

Howdens Joinery, the UK’s number one trade kitchen supplier, faced a sudden need to support unprecedented remote working during Covid-19 after closing offices, manufacturing sites, and more than 700 depots. With thousands of daily calls and a fast-changing operating model, the business needed Redcentric’s help to keep staff reachable, maintain customer service, and manage call traffic across its depot network.

Redcentric implemented remote-working telephony, including Unity Collaborate softphones so employees could make and receive calls on their usual business numbers from any device, and enabled IVR-based call routing to direct callers to the right team. Redcentric also used Akixi call reporting to monitor volumes and missed calls, helping Howdens reroute traffic as depots reopened. The result was more than 5% of calls diverted from depots, over 35 hours of talk-time saved per day across the estate, and stronger continuity, agility, and insight during the pandemic.

Howdens Joinery

Mark Witcomb

Director of IS Infrastructure & Service Delivery