From Chew Stoke workshops to county and national commendations: Gradwell dot com’s VoIP clients excel at Somerset Business Awards 2008 and benefit from low-cost telephony charges.

Gradwell dot com, the UK’s leading VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) operator for the SME (small-to-medium enterprise) business sector, is pleased to have provided the “engine for growth” for 3 clients who took home significant accolades from this year’s Somerset Business Awards, organised by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Prizes at the FSB event were announced earlier in October, going - in the competition’s e-Business category - to National Pages and TelePA who, respectively, claimed first and second prize.

National Pages
Launched only this year, National Pages provides a search engine for businesses, to increase businesses’ “visibility” through enhanced viewing of online advertising.

The company’s Gold service, for example, offers customers a self-managed micro-website. “We also offer businesses the chance to show video clips about what they can do for customers,” explains the company’s Nigel Finch.

TelePA
TelePA uses 21st century solutions to provide professional business support services that are affordable.

Clients subscribe to TelePA services for as little as £0.30 per hour, with additional “pay as you go” upgrades if required.

The company acts as a trusted ambassador: management of phone lines, “gatekeeper” screening and the organisation of diaries and events are all services that are included.

“Using the VoIP service from Gradwell has allowed TelePA to adopt a “flexible working” business model,” explains the company’s Judith Ludovino. “Our skilled PAs can work from home, putting in the hours that suit them.”

Driving Ambition
In the 2008 award’s service excellence category, another Gradwell client, Driving Ambition, was thrilled to achieve runner-up status.

The company’s MD, Sandra Pennyfather, says: “We are committed to offering the highest levels of customer service. For example, a 17-year old learner driver can expect the same level of service from Driving Ambition as a corporate client whose revenue might be millions each year.

“All telephone calls to Driving Ambition are answered personally during office hours and all calls are dealt with as appropriate for the client - a professional approach, for instance, when the learner already has a substantial career,  or a sympathetic, friendly ear if the customer requires assurance and advice.”

Commenting on his clients’ success, Peter Gradwell – MD of Gradwell dot com – comments: “It gives us great satisfaction that the 2008 business awards in Somerset feature no fewer than 3 of our clients.”

“We started-out 10 years ago, and rented very small premises in Chew Stoke, near Chew Magna. Now we have clients worldwide - all seeking a reliable, good value feature-rich telephony service backed by excellent customer care.

“It just goes to show what can be achieved.”

We are going to be replacing the servers that host your website as part of our PHP4 web hosting cluster on the evening of 25th November 2008. As well as physical replacement, we are also changing the software we use, moving from FreeBSD to Centos Linux.

These changes will mean your website runs ontop of our “cloud computing” platform, built using VMWare, and as such we will be able to maintain our web servers, add new features and greater capacity more quickly in the future.

You should be aware that development for the PHP4 web language has now been officially ceased by the PHP community, and that we also now offer customers a new PHP5 web hosting cluster to use. Please contact the support team if you’re interested in migrating.

The new server cluster has been built with the following characteristics:

• CentOS 5.2
• Apache 2.2.9 + mpm-itk
• mod_php 4.4.9
• Perl 5.8.8 via CGI
• mod_perl 2.0.4
• Python 2.4.3 via CGI

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

Whilst we expect the majority of web sites to continue working without any issues, it is important, because of the software changes, that you test your website as soon as possible to see if there are any problems that need to be addressed. To test your website on our new PHP 4 servers, you can take advantage of our test system by pointing your browser to http://www.yourdomain.com.v-web-php4.gradwell.net.

We will be switching off our current FreeBSD PHP 4 servers late on Tuesday 25th November 2008. Apart from ensuring compatibility, you do not need to make any changes to your site or DNS and there will only be a brief period of downtime to your website.

TranslateMedia is the lifeblood of companies working in a range of different countries beyond the UK requiring detailed translations of documents. It was founded in response to a growing demand for an up-to-date service-orientated agency that can respond speedily and with innovation.

TranslateMedia builds and maintains customised corporate translation service web portals. It has 950 translators in its network covering 52 languages used in industry sectors such as law, health, finance and media/marketing. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you fascinated by new technology? Can you explain how it solves peoples everyday problems? Can you extend an existing relationship? Can you close a deal?

Gradwell dot com Limited is a rapidly growing Internet Services Provider who focuses on VoIP (www.gradwell.com/voip/), email and web service solutions. We are a pioneer in the exciting new world of Internet telephony and this section of our business is growing rapidly.

We have won a number of awards in 2004 and 2005 in various DTI schemes including “Best use of Broadband” for our VoIP product and “Best Teleworking Company” and “Best Online Customer Service” for both of which we were highly commended. 2006 and 2007 have been equally exciting and we are continuing to double every year in terms of customer base, financial turn over and staff. We are a team of 30 with annualised turnover of £2.4 million.

We are looking for new graduate with great communication skills to work with our existing customer database to review customers requirements, understand their businesses and look for opportunities where our other products can help them cut costs and improve their business. We have over 7000 customers and sell a relatively low value product, so we focus on volume and efficiency.

Prior experience of the Internet, IT and Telecoms Sectors will be highly beneficial as our core business is selling outsourced telecoms, email and web hosting services to IT consultants, designers, media agencies and other small and medium sized technology based businesses.

About the job

The key activities of this role are:

• Proactively making contact via telephone and email to our existing customer base (7000) to ensure customers are fully satisfied.
• Increasing the number of products sold per customer and the average revenue per customer
  Identify opportunities for cross and up-selling upgrades to existing services and of course, new services.
• Gathering additional intelligence on our customer base. If opportunities to help customers arise, you will ensure they are swiftly passed to the relevant service team.

You will be well organised, enthusiastic about new technology, eager to learn, good at asking questions to solve problems and have good written and spoken English with a clear telephone manner.
We sell a high volume of relatively low value products and services (e.g. £200) to UK Micro and SME businesses. As a result, your efficient and structured approach to the sales process will be essential to meet your commission targets. We use the Netsuite CRM system (www.netsuite.com).

The position is available on a full or part time basis:

• Part time, at £7.40 per hour (min 15 hours a week, between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday), plus commission.
• Full time, Basic Salary of £13,500 to £15,000 per year plus commission (OTE 30k). We also offer a range of benefits (including free parking in Bath, telephony and internet services).

The position is based at our Bath offices in Cheltenham St, Bath, reporting to our Sales Manager. You will receive 24 days holiday per year (pro-rated if part time).

Application Details

For more information, please view our website at http://www.gradwell.com or contact Derek Swindell (derek@gradwell.net, 01225 800 800).
Please apply via email to Derek Swindell, or post to: gradwell dot com Limited, 26 Cheltenham St, Bath, BA2 3EX.
Our offices are located on the Lower Bristol Road in Bath, a 10 min walk from the train station, next to the Green Park Tavern.
We are continually expanding our sales team, so if you are interested in working with us, please get in contact.

No Agencies please.