First Response Finance

Driving customer experience and operational efficiency

The Client

First Response Finance is a dealer-led vehicle finance company specialising in the sub-prime market.

With 280 employees and a £50 million turnover, the business helps customers secure hire purchase agreements for cars, vans and bikes. Most interactions happen through its call centre, though online engagement via a secure portal is growing.

The quality and reliability of our voice and data communications are incomparable to our last supplier. We have saved roughly £9,000 per year by using a cloud-based hosted environment and not having to invest capital on IT infrastructure.

First Response Team

The Challenge

The company’s legacy IT network was no longer fit for purpose. Call quality issues and frequent outages, sometimes lasting an hour, had become routine. As a business that relies heavily on phone systems to connect with dealerships and customers, this instability was unsustainable. First Response Finance needed a reliable, scalable solution to support its voice and data communications and prepare for future cloud migration.

The Solution

We began by deploying an MPLS private WAN, linking each location with primary and backup connections for resilience. This connected into our data centre hub and included centralised internet breakout via N4Protect+, our advanced firewall with DDoS mitigation and reporting.

Initially, First Response Finance continued using its legacy PBX system over the new WAN, but the long-term goal was clear. They wanted to move to a cloud-based unified communications platform. Before that, we migrated their IT infrastructure to the cloud using N4Cloud, which is our combined virtualisation, storage and backup platform. This delivered enterprise-grade resiliency without the need for capital investment.

Once the cloud migration was complete, we transitioned the business to Cisco’s cloud-based unified communications environment. We also upgraded their contact centre and Quality Management Suite, and introduced cost-saving SIP Trunks. The entire solution is now hosted and managed by us.

James Styles, IT Infrastructure Team Leader at First Response Finance, said “N4Cloud provided us with a combined virtualisation, storage, and backup platform — delivering enterprise-grade resiliency without the need for any outlay on IT infrastructure.” “For me, personally, Node4’s technical knowledge and experience are unsurpassed.”

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Unified Communications

Cloud Migration

Call Centre

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The Results

When COVID-19 hit, First Response Finance needed to act fast. Within four days of the first lockdown, we helped them move all 280 call centre staff to remote working with no disruption to customers or employees.

Darren Green, Head of IT, explained that “Node4’s technology gave us the ability to stand closely with our car dealers and support their businesses during an uncertain 12 months for the industry.” “It’s been business as usual, and the tech hasn’t creaked at any point.”

Remote working has been so successful that staff now have the flexibility to choose how they return to the office. The company also saved around £9,000 per year by switching to a cloud-hosted environment and avoiding capital expenditure on infrastructure.

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The Node4 Difference

We’re proud to support First Response Finance with a robust, scalable and cost-effective communications platform. Our local presence in Derby and national reach meant we could deliver quickly and confidently.

Darren Green added, “We always try and support local businesses and use their services where we can – we’re based in Nottingham and Node4 is a Derby-based business with a significant national presence. This makes their success with us doubly pleasing as we’re able to fully endorse a local business and encourage others, further afield, to try their services for themselves.”