Peter Taylor Associates Limited

About Peter Taylor Associates

PTAL was founded in 1978 and are a well established team Architects, Designers and Technologists. Their success down to 40 years of repeat and new business from the UK’s top Clients where they have maintained strong relationships with their clients and the local community. PTAL approached Focus Group to helped them overcome a major telephony challenge. When the phone system at its regional office failed, Peter Taylor Associates Limited needed to get a new system up-and-running in a matter of days.

The Challenge

Peter Taylor Associates Limited (PTAL) is a well-established architecture practice that serves both the private and public sectors.

Founded in 1978, the company operates from regional offices located in London, Birmingham and East Sussex and is proud of its reputation for providing services that meet - and exceed - client expectations.

As a leading designer of residential and mixed-use schemes, the practice offers pre- and post-planning architectural services and is frequently engaged in complex projects that require intense liaison with design and build contractors. So, when a major power surge took down an ageing telephony system at its East Sussex office in Uckfield, the disruption to office communications proved devastating, as Will Taylor, Company Secretary at PTAL explains:

"The implications of the loss of our phone system were significant. We had to divert our main phone line to office mobiles, which were ringing off the hook. The limitations of our digital telephone system meant we weren't able to route inbound calls to our other sites - as a result, the pressure was well and truly on to maintain open lines of communications with clients and off-site project teams."

Keen to resolve their communications conundrum fast, PTAL called on Focus Group to come up with a solution.

The Solution

The Results

"From my perspective, what's truly impressive about Focus Group is how they were able to get us out of a communications blackhole in an incredibly fast timescale. When something like this happens, you need to be confident you're working with a partner that is more than motivated to resolve issues fast," explains Will.

The Uckfield office is already reaping the rewards of its telephony update and has initiated a series of advanced call-handling hunt groups to optimise the management of incoming calls.

"It's made an enormous difference to how we answer calls. In a fast-paced business like ours, callers want to talk to people first so they can get decisions in motion without delay."

For the future, plans are already in hand to network the company's Uckfield, London and then its Birmingham offices - a step that will give PTAL even greater communications flexibility. Evaluating how this will advance the company's responsiveness, Will says that it's "when working on projects, it's important that internal communications within PTAL are as easy and practical as they can be to ensure everyone is working together towards the same goal."