Over the past nine months, our Project Manager Connor Smith has led a structured procurement and implementation process, moving us from research and review into full deployment of our new contact centre platform. This marks a significant step forward in how we support both clients and colleagues.
Following detailed demonstrations, scoring and board review, we selected Zoho as our preferred partner. While commercial value formed part of the evaluation, the decision was ultimately driven by capability, scalability and long-term potential across the wider business. Protecting ourselves operationally and commercially was central to the process, ensuring we moved forward with confidence.
We began with Zoho Desk as a replacement for our legacy ticketing system, transitioning Customer Service onto a modern omni-channel environment. The rollout has been phased to manage operational capacity and ensure a smooth transition, with early implementations helping to shape the wider deployment plan.
The impact is already positive. The new platform provides improved visibility across conversations, stronger reporting, embedded AI support for ticket summaries and sentiment insight, and native customer satisfaction scoring. Together, this gives us clearer performance oversight, more consistency in handling enquiries and greater opportunity to enhance the service experience across all clients.
Zoho Desk has enabled us to resolve customer queries faster and empowered our customer service team to provide an even better experience.
Connor Smith, Project Manager, ESco
Alongside Desk, we are progressing with Zoho TeamInbox as a replacement for Front – the shared inbox system used by our Client Management Department to manage daily email communication with clients. Moving this into the same ecosystem strengthens collaboration between teams and creates a more connected view of client interactions.
We are also developing Zoho CRM as a centralised repository for client information, documentation and contact management, with additional tools such as Forms and Survey being introduced where appropriate.
The original scope also included intranet considerations, which will now be explored in the secondary phase, ensuring the contact centre foundation is fully embedded before expanding further.
This has been a carefully staged procurement and implementation process, balancing ambition with operational reality. Moving to a unified platform positions us to deliver greater consistency, clearer insight and a more connected service model as we continue to grow.
This steady transformation and stronger service is built for what’s next. If you have any questions about this new contact centre and what that means for your customers, please do not hesitate to get in touch with your Client Relationship Manager.
