Pink Connect Blog

Archive for the ‘Local’ Category

The Inspire Team with some of its business sponsors (Pink Connect, Inspired Change, Repro Arts) at the Norwich B2B Exhibition - All Photos courtesy of Antonella Muscat Photography

The Inspire Discovery Centre in Norwich has  been through some tough times of late with three break-ins only months apart and running costs which have been spiralling out of control.

The centre, which is based in St Michael’s Church, Oak Street, was spared the axe in 2008 and despite increasing visitor numbers year on year now finds itself struggling to survive once more.

Bosses at the centre have recently organised two events to try and generate awareness for the centre. The first (pictured above) was a stand at the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce B2B exhibition which was an outstanding success. The second was labelled a “Save Our Science” (SOS) meeting at the Forum in Norwich  to give businesses and other interested parties the chance to suggest some new ideas to keep the centre running.

Shell Fearn, centre manager, said: “We called for this meeting as although we’ve been working very hard for two years to maintain the

presence of Inspire and we’re proud 
of what we’ve achieved we’re still heavily reliant 
on the financial support of one individual. We only have one funder who very generously puts his hand in his pocket once a year to give us a top up of funding, but we can’t rely on that. This is not fair either to that individual, our chairman trustee, or to the centre.”

“We’re looking to the businesses and community of Norwich and the wider area to offer us support and ideas to help us build a stable network to aid Inspire.”

Danny Snelling, managing director of Norwich telecoms  firm Pink Connect has been very keen to help out in what ever way possible. Mr Snelling, who has two young boys himself that absolutely love the centre, has already donated a new phone system which has dramatically improved their call handling and saved them over £500 a year on their phone and broadband bills. Pink Connect also has a commercial power brokering team that are now looking to save them over £6000 on their gas and electricity aswell.

A spokesperson for the Centre said the following today “There have been a lot of kind people offering to help out the centre in these rough times and Danny Snelling from Pink Connect is one of them. He has been really supportive of the centre and has helped with our phone system as well as looking at our current bills in order to save Inspire money. As well as this help, he has been ever present to offer words of advice and offer assistance whenever he could.’

If you can help Inspire or have any ideas about how to keep it running call 01603 612612 or email michelle@inspirediscoverycentre.com

Or if you know any local charities like Inspire who could benefit by saving some serious money please give Danny a call on Norwich 01603 510710 who would be happy to take a look.

Norwich A47 in the Snow

The current heavy snowfall has made it difficult for many organisations to operate as normal. Whilst employees struggle to access their workplace, desk phones are ringing unanswered as customers and suppliers try to place orders, reschedule appointments or seek customer service. As a result, business profit can suffer heavily.

There is one local business however who’s profits have certainly not suffered. Norwich based business telecoms company Pink Connect have been inundated with calls from companies wanting to set up their employees who are stranded at home as remote workers.

Whatever the weather, Pink Connect has a solution that means those calls will be answered, even if no one makes it into the workplace!

Danny Snelling, Director of the firm said “We have given our customers an easy to use web page which enables complete control of where your numbers ring and for how long. It even allows one number to ring at multiple locations so you can share the answering between those who’ve made it into the office and those remote workers who are snowed under.”

There is also access to a host of extra features which come in handy in times like these such as the ability to send calls to a recorded announcement giving advice or information, network based call queuing to deal with excessive demand and secure access to office IT networks.

One group of companies to benifit from this treatment is The Website Design Centre who has branches in Norwich, Attleborough, Gt Yarmouth, London, Birmingham and Pontypridd. They have been plagued with staff not being able to get in. Director for the firm Daniel Arpels commented “Pink Connect really did come to our rescue and have allowed us to carry on regardless of who makes it into the office”.

With travel chaos, school closures and workplace inaccessibility so widespread – there has never been a better time to look into the option to have employees working from home. Less travel also means you’re doing your bit for the environment and it will surely come in handy when this cold weather turns into staff illnesses.

If you’d like to find out more on this very helpful and inexpensive service call Pink Connect today on 01603 510710.

Andy Moore (Pink Connect Bristol) has words of encouragement for us all – especially on these dark, cold mornings:

“I have been networking like mad over the last 3 weeks. Last week I did 4 consecutive morning meetings!  By the last one I was ready to turn the alarm off, roll over and go back to sleep.

However as I was substituting at a different BNI group I had to be there and I am glad I made the effort.

I had only been there a few minutes when the owner of a local business asked me if I could help her sort out her telecoms.  Obviously I was happy to do this & within an hour of arriving back at my office I received a call asking for an appointment on Monday.

On Monday I got hold of copies of all of their phone bills and made further enquiries with the incumbent supplier including getting a £300 overcharge credited back!

We are now going to provide her with 2 broadband connections and 5 lines.

I am so glad that I dragged myself out of bed because you just never know who might be wanting our services. Bring on those morning sessions!”

Editor’s note: The phrase “the early bird catches the worm” means success comes to those who prepare well and put in effort. It was first recorded in John Ray’s A collection of English proverbs 1670, 1678: “The early bird catcheth the worm.”

Pink Connect is delighted to announce new offices opening in Stockport (Manchester) and Edinburgh.

We warmly welcome Ki Yu and Lars Nielsen who will be running these first northern franchises which brings the total of Pink Connect offices across the UK to 14 – with many more anticipated!

Ki (Stockport)

Lars (Edinburgh)

As it heads towards that time of week when our roads and our broadband clog up with sheer weight of traffic and everything runs slow, Raj Deokar (Pink Connect Northampton) has some words of advice on how to improve your broadband connection speed.

There are many factors that affect speed of broadband. Some of the key ones are:

Read the rest of this entry »

Keith Deakin, Director of Pink Connect (Derby) illustrates the circularity of business and how much service matters.

“In my previous career in IT, Joseph Lamy, MD Index Computers, used to be my main supplier of computer consumables. I have known Joseph for a long time and transferred my business to him many years ago when he decided to set up his own office

Keith Deakin & Joseph Lamy

consumables business after the company he worked for stopped trading.

Joseph says that, along with a few other loyal customers, we helped him get his business off the ground.

In IT there were always times when things ran out or something new was needed in a hurry and Joseph always managed to get us out a hole even if it meant he had to deliver it in person.

When I started my Pink Connect franchise just over a year ago, Joseph was the first person I approached to help reduce the cost of telecommunications for his business.

So Joseph became a Pink customer and I intend to provide him with the same level of service as he has given me for many years!”

Peter Weeks of Metaphor Consulting said, “I work from home and my mobile was getting poor reception so I asked Andy Moore of Pink Connect to help.  Andy did the research and he recommended a new package better suited to my needs on a different network. Changing networks isn’t a big thing but there are still some hoops you have to jump through. Andy was very helpful, nothing was too much trouble, it all went through easily and my new package is cost-effective.  I’d recommend Andy for telephone questions every time.”

John, one of the partners at Heritage Investments, has recently had these good things to say about Pink Connect:

“I met Stuart from Pink Connect at a business networking meeting and asked him to contact me as we were having problems with our telephone service provider.  Following a review of our system we were given good advice on how to improve the system.

It was a relief to deal with a company that took a genuine interest in our issues and gave us the time we needed to understand how the new phones we bought from Pink Connect worked. When an issue did occur they worked with us to rectify the problem quickly.

Over the past three months we have been able to build up a relationship with the staff at Pink Connect and can recommend the advantage of using a reliable local provider who is easy to contact.”

Put simply Pink Connect just provided their usual high quality broadband on another line and then used a clever box of tricks to combine the two supplies together to make one super efficient service.

Russell Taylor Director at the firm said the following….

“We approached Danny Snelling, who is the director at Pink Connect (Norfolk), to discuss the possibility of faster and more reliable broadband as we noticed our BT line was sluggish at certain times of the day, this was interfering with normal day to day operations.

As a firm of Independent Financial Advisers we keep an active eye on what the Pension and investment markets are doing and our systems can be quite demanding on the broadband, so it was time to discuss options, without ‘breaking the bank’ (no pun intended).

Broadband is definitely quicker and more consistent, especially when backups are running in busy times, so we are very pleased.”

If you’d like to speed up your broadband, no matter where you are, give Pink Connect a call for a no hassle discussion on what we can do for you.

Pink Connect (Norfolk) Ltd 01603 510710