With their strong local reputation down to word-of-mouth, Callwise have taken the complexity out of phone systems and given them a much-needed modern upgrade – especially timely in the current climate of employees working from home. unLTD’s Sasha Mossman spoke to Peter Kelly to find out more
Tell me a bit about the business.
Callwise provide phone systems for offices, businesses and start-ups – anybody who needs a phoneline really – both in and around the UK and internationally.
The kind of phone systems we supply include desk-phones with extensions, we give customers all kinds of options such as allowing them to queue customers (your typical press 1 for sales, press 2 for support kind of scenario), transfer calls, record calls and more. Really, we do everything you’d expect an office phone system to do, and more!
What’s unique about us, is that we write and have written it all from scratch – which is something we’re extremely proud of. We have our own software, our own brand but we’re not particularly sales-y.
We operate within The Cloud, as opposed to many other businesses whose software is installed on site – all you need with Callwise is an internet connection for it to work.
This is a great benefit, especially in the current climate, to those working from home as all they need is an internet connection, wherever they are in the world.
How has it developed over the years?
The vast majority of our business has been driven by customer demand and word-of-mouth.
When we created Callwise we all had a similar telecoms background. I was working as a consultant after being CTO at a telecoms company and I had a customer who had a specific need for their phone system that they needed to be deployed in the UK, the US and Australia – and they couldn’t find an off-the-shelf solution that didn’t cost in the six-plus figure sums. They asked us to write it, which we did, and Callwise was born.
That was back in 2015, and we’ve grown since then, mainly through word of mouth and customer demand – we develop new features as they are requested, and we’ve got quite a comprehensive offering to be able to show potential customers now.
What projects, products, or services have been particularly successful?
We’re good at surprising people! Some new customers have this fixed opinion about phone systems – thinking they’re expensive or difficult to set up and manage.
They see phone systems as something that’s stuck in the past and never updated, but when we come in we’re able to show them that there’s no problem – everything’s internet-led and all they need to do is plug a phone into their home or office router, or install an app on their computer or mobile phone. It just works like a modern internet-based app would.
I think that’s where we’ve been most successful really, by entering these older, more-established businesses and updating their viewpoints on what a phone system is all about.
What are the key milestone achievements in recent years?
Our first customer was a big milestone, and the fact we’ve had so many subsequently has been brilliant.
We had a customer recently who has a very high-volume operation and is constantly using their phone systems to move backwards and forwards and transfer calls. To see them using our system in action – which we don’t often see! – on that big a scale, felt fantastic.
What sort of feedback do you get from staff about the company culture and workplace environment?
There’s just the three of us, to be fair! However, as a team we work extremely well together. We’re just as chilled out as we can be really, which is all we want.
What are your plans for the future to drive further success?
One major plan is that we’re trying to expand the business into the United States in the near future, especially with the resellers over there – it has a lot of potential.
We’re trying to get more exposure that isn’t via word-of-mouth. Although it’s a fantastic way to attract customers, most of our work comes from referrals and we’d like to look more into alternative ways of marketing ourselves.
Driving more local growth is one of our key aims in the next few years.
