Buy As You View Improves Customer Service With £3m Investment In New It Infrastructure

Feb. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- Bridgend based retail and consumer finance company, Buy As You View, is investing in excess of £3m in a complete overhaul of its existing IT infrastructure, across its six regional UK offices, including the Bridgend head office, as part of its ongoing commitment to exceptional service provision for both customers and colleagues.

Chief executive at Buy As You View, Graham Clarke, said:
“This represents one of the most significant investments to our business for the last 35 years.  With an ambitious five year growth plan, it is vital that we have a firm foundation upon which to build, a key corner stone of which is a scaleable and robust state of the art operating system.”

Project implementation commences this month with the introduction of a new back-office platform for accounting and distribution functions.  Subsequent phases will see the introduction of new software for Buy As You View’s Loan Book Management, National Call Centre operation and six regional UK offices.  Additional software around Customer Relationship Management and Service Management will also be in-built to enable further improve the company’s customer offerings, support and service.

Commercial director at Buy AS You View, Andrew Deeley added:
“This investment will see our existing 12 year old system replaced with a completely new one that operates on new generation Microsoft applications and technologies that will streamline and communicate seamlessly across our business.  Which in turn will provide a more transparent, efficient and intelligent level of service for both our staff and our customers.”

Scheduled for completion by mid of 2011, when the old, incumbent IT infrastructure will be totally switched off, the project will be carefully managed at every stage to mitigate disruption to the business and customers.  Working in partnership on this project are Welcom Software, K3 and Microsoft Dynamix.

ENDS



Notes to editors

Buy As You View (BAYV) is a retail and consumer finance company, selling a range of electrical goods and furniture for the home. It provides a coinmeter repayment and credit facility for a personal, convenient and manageable way to finance and plan purchases. Products are bought on a hire-purchase weekly-payment basis with no deposit and no credit checks.

Customers pay weekly for their products through the coinmeter which is linked to their television. Account managers visit customers on a regular basis to empty meters and offer after-sales customer care. BAYV is a responsible lender and, before offering credit, run through a full evaluation of affordability with each customer.

To see how the pay weekly coinmeter system works click here.
BAYV was established in 1972 in South Wales, initially operating out of a single Rhondda valley shop with a direct sales team. The company grew and later expanded throughout the whole of South Wales with an extensive team of account managers servicing customers throughout the region.  In 1999, BAYV embarked upon a UK expansion programme and now operates in the North East, Yorkshire, the Midlands, the North West and Scotland. The business employs 700 staff nationally and its customer base has almost tripled to nearly 100,000.
By offering top quality branded products, first class maintenance and after-sales support, it has become a leading retailer of domestic electrical products.
BAYV strongly supports responsible lending and treating customers fairly wanting to enable its customers to make purchases for their homes without creating additional financial problems. A significant number of BAYV’s new customers are as a result of recommendations from its existing customer base (41%). This is seen as testament to the satisfaction that the products, payment method and service delivered to its customers. It is in the company’s interest not to overburden its customers financially.  BAYV wants its customers' experience of Buy As You View to be positive and for it to be 'the manageable way to buy things for their home'.

BAYV is a forward thinking customer-oriented company with ambitious plans to dominate the sector and become a significant player in the retail and consumer finance market in the UK through controlled profitable growth.
For more details, visit www.bayv.co.uk