Terrific Tina Takes To New Title

03 February 2011

The ICS Group has appointed a new Outbound Department Manager to work directly under MD Mark Menhennet and Sales Director Glenn Harrison.

Tina Hopwood has been appointed to this important role as the company seeks to expand and re-organise and rebrand itself to meet growing demand for its services across a number of sectors.

Tina was previously a stellar performer for various high profile companies including billionaire John Caudwell’s Phones 4u where she grew her department from  6 to 50 staff to cover a huge footprint of 350 retail stores.

Tina said: “Joining the ICS Group at this particular time in its history is one of the most exciting challenges I can imagine. They have big plans – and so do I. I’m really looking forward to this new role.”

Tina added “The Company’s reputation for innovation and service is an enviable one within the industry and I hope I can play my part to build on and enhance both the range of its operations, and its reputation across all the markets in which it operates, now and in the future.”

Tina will be responsible for nurturing existing client relationships and fostering new business associations and opportunities, while ensuring the customary high standards at ICS are maintained. Tina will also play a key role in physically facilitating the Company’s plans for growth.

“I’ll be getting hands-on with clients and all our teams – from Team Leaders to Agents so that we can implement our “continuous improvement” plans, and I’ll also be handpicking new Agents to join us that can hit the ground running and deliver first time, every time just like our current teams do.” said Tina.

Tina’s appointment is the latest development in the ICS Group strategy to strengthen its position and consolidate the new brand identities at Answer-4u, Answer-4u Corporate, Telemarketing-4u and Numbers-4u.

Mark Menhennet, Managing Director of ICS, said “I’m really delighted to welcome Tina to the ICS management team. As a successful manager of some repute in our industry she comes to us with a very solid record of achievement – and she will really help us to hit our new targets for growing the business.”

Fellow Director, Glenn Harrison added “This is a time of rapid change and growth for us and I’ve no doubt that Tina will make a very significant contribution to our plans to develop and expand the ICS Group. We’re all very excited about the future!”

© Copywrite Guru 2011

A Healthy Partnership

04 February 2011

HBJ Gateley Wareing are one of the top law firms in the country. In fact their recent client survey results showed 96% of their clients thought they were “excellent” or “very good” – so given their reputation for doing things the right way it will come as no great shock to find out that they are ICS Group clients too!

“We work with all kinds of professionals, from architects and accountants, to small solicitors and major law firms like Gateley Wareing” said ICS Director Glenn Harrison. “We give each client our total dedication – but now and again there is a project that truly fires our imagination, and Fit For Work really caught our attention.”

HBJ Gateley Wareing’s Nottingham office teamed up with Dame Carol Black (the National Director for Health and Work) to run the pilot of the Fit For Work Service, designed to tackle health issues in the workplace under a joint initiative with the Department of Health and the Department of Work and Pensions.

Underlining the importance of the initiative, Clive Day, a solicitor with the firm, said “The direct and indirect cost of ill health to the economy is estimated at £14bn each year.”

The scheme is free – and gives employers and employees alike access to support and advice. It is organised in three tiers: “Working for Health” – providing support for small and medium businesses; “Support for Work” – which provides dedicated help to those off work or struggling to stay in work; and “Work Survival” – offering work-shops and courses for workers, including Stress Management.

To give the scheme the very best chance of success Rachel Salmon, from Fit For Work, and Clive Day from HBJ instructed ICS to help them bring it to the attention of Nottinghamshire business people – and then they visited the ICS Nottingham Headquarters on numerous occasions to help fine-tune the campaign.

This meant that ICS became part of the team that made the pilot such a great success as Rachel, Clive and the ICS team worked closely refining the process, analysing progress,  meeting the ICS Agents hard at work on the campaign and listening to the actual calls to give constructive feedback.

The initial target for ICS was to generate 5-10 appointments with local businesses – but the team smashed this target “out of the park” booking 34 meetings during the trial period.

Due to the success of the trial, there has been a full roll-out and to date in just 6 weeks the ICS team has made 105 appointments for Fit For Work and HBJ.

“Not surprisingly,” says Glenn “given these results, the feedback from HBJ and from Fit For Work has been very positive indeed. They are really happy with the campaign so far – and in particular, not just with the number of appointments, but also the quality of the appointments and the reporting from the campaign.”

Clive hoped to do even more for local businesses. “We know we can identify productivity improvements and equip firms to better manage absences.” said Clive.

“The scheme runs until March,” said Glenn “so we’re going all-out to benefit as many people as possible!”

© Copywrite Guru 2011

New Spin On Hygeine

03 February 2011

As “Suppliers of the world’s finest commercial laundry equipment”, JLA have an enviable reputation as the best in their business.

So it should come as no surprise that when they wanted a partner to help them with some very important research they chose Telemarketing-4u and the ICS Group.

You might think that the last place you’d find viruses and germs would be on crisp, freshly laundered hospital bed sheets – but you’d be wrong! Unless the sheets have been treated with a revolutionary new treatment developed by long-standing Telemarketing-4u clients, JLA.

Traditional washing machines in care homes and hospitals use high temperature washing combined with detergent to clean bed sheets, uniforms, mops and cleaning cloths  – but research carried out on JLA’s behalf by Telemarketing-4u has proved that often, instead of removing infectious bacteria and spores, these procedures can actually help to spread disease!

Obviously, these findings are of particular concern amongst those caring for the elderly and frail. However, the need to control so-called “superbugs” like Clostridium difficile (C. diff) and other dangerous bacteria means the technology could literally be a life-saver!

The figures are frightening. Last year almost 36,000 NHS patients suffered through C. diff infection and, tragically, nearly 6,000 lost their lives.

“The research carried out at ICS for us shows conclusively that our OTEX system is the best possible defence against infections from C. diff” said Dick Cardis, Business Development Director, JLA. “In tests, we proved that mops washed as recommended in official guidelines still contained up 150,000 colonies of C. diff spores. But after treatment with OTEX microbiologists confirmed they had all been destroyed!”

The part played by Telemarketing-4u in establishing the credentials of the new OTEX system might be easy to overlook in the light of such momentous results – but Mr Cardis said “Each campaign that Telemarketing-4u complete on our behalf is conducted with the highest level of professionalism and they have in every instance exceeded our expectations with the results that have been generated.”

He went on to say “We commissioned this research to establish if there was any drop in infection among residents, and were staggered to find more than half had seen a tangible difference, even without looking for it. And then staggered again to find the drop in sickness levels even among perfectly fit, healthy people.

The close working relationship we’ve had with Telemarketing-4u from the beginning has meant we’ve used their services now on multiple campaigns.”

At Telemarketing-4u, director Glenn Harrison said “We’re always proud of our work for our clients – but when we help to achieve such a major breakthrough   … well, it’s just so rewarding. Everyone at ICS is just delighted with this!”

The OTEX system from JLA is a Level 1 (“Gold Standard”) product – one of only 10 such awards yet made by the Dept. of Health. It is the result of an exhaustive £3m development campaign – and it even has green credentials as it eliminates bacteria at low temperatures.

“It seems fair to say, at the very least, that JLA is a company that believes in keeping the very highest of quality standards.” said Glenn, “And we’re delighted to be ‘part of the team’.”

£2M– Just A Good Start!

03 February 2011

Just over 6 years ago Glenn and Helen Harrison, together with Mark and Sarah Menhennet along with David Chapman set up a new business. They called their new venture ICS – which stands for Integrated Communication Services.

Starting a new business takes courage, but it’s nothing remarkable in itself. According to Barclays, over 400,000 people a year take this plunge in the UK alone, and the majority end up unsuccessful. ICS, however, has been different – very different.

Because the extraordinary skill, talent, drive and dedication that Glenn and his ICS Group colleagues have brought to the business has seen turnover shoot to over £2,000,000 last year!

“We knew what we wanted to achieve and we went for it – one hundred per cent!” says Glenn. “We knew that if we gave clients exactly what they wanted, then the results would speak for themselves.”

Now the company is looking to continue to expand, and has set a new target for the next five years.

Starting with a move to impressive new premises in Talbot Street in the very centre of Nottingham, the Directors have plotted a thorough review and development policy to meet the new target. The new office is the former head office of the Experian organisation. Quite fitting, really, when you consider how quickly the capital of ICS is rising!

From their gleaming new headquarters Glenn has overseen a complete re-imagining of the ICS business into 4 separate new brands – Answer-4u; Answer-4u Corporate (for larger clients); Telemarketing-4u; and Numbers-4u.

The new brands are designed to reflect the company’s status as one of the UK’s leading telecommunications companies. To go with the rebranding, Glenn has, naturally, been hard at work with some of the UK’s leading web designers and copywriters.

“The current ICS design has been around for a while now”, says Rockabox Media director Deric Sydenham. “We used our experience in television and the music industry to give the new designs a really cutting edge look and feel – with a hint of rock n’ roll!”

The rebrand didn’t stop with just a new look. “Glenn hired us to make sure the content of the new sites reflected the spirit that has made ICS such an extraordinary success”, says Brian McKibbin, MD of Copywriteguru.com. “We use ICS ourselves, so our job was simply to put into words the genuine enthusiasm and dedication that we’ve experienced as clients of the business!”

The new websites are due to go live any day now, starting with the Telemerketing-4u site.

Glenn told us with a smile that “We’re really proud of our company and what we’ve achieved in the past – but we always want to improve and our new brands and websites really show where we are going in the future!”

And that new target, Glenn? “Our target is £10 million in the next 5 years!” says Glenn, with the air of a man whose confidence is well founded.

© copywriteguru.com 2011

ICS Helps Mars

04 February 2011

Mars SnackTime is one of the UK’s leading snack vending operators – in 2010 they sold enough Mars and Twix bars to stretch from London to Sydney!

Their vending machines carry the top 10 UK confectionery brands (all from Mars), and also Walkers crisps, Britvic and Pepsi chilled drinks and Lavazza coffee, which goes some way to explaining why they are one of the market leaders.

However, in business nothing ever stands still – so when they were looking for help to expand the business they naturally found the UK’s Leading Telemarketing Company at Telemarketing-4u.

Helen Taylor says “We looked at all our options and decided that outsourcing the campaign would give us the resources we required.” Having made the decision SnackTime then evaluated various service providers – and one stood out above all the others.

“Telemarketing-4u was able to offer us all that we required. We had a team of dedicated agents that worked solely for us and they generated appointments for two representatives over the trial period”

The team at Telemarketing-4u worked closely with SnackTime and really got to work to assist them with script writing and diary functions. Then working closely both with SnackTime management and the SnackTime Sales Consultant team to make sure that the appointments they generated were the very highest quality.

Lisa Hall, Sales Manager of Telemarketing-4u says “We always go the extra mile for clients whether they are multi-nationals or SMEs – and obviously working for SnackTime was no exception. We really get a genuine kick out of helping our clients get exactly the results that they need!”

With the Telemarketing-4u team hard at work for them the SnackTime Sales Consultants could simply concentrate on making the most of the appointments themselves rather than spend their time in the office generating the sales leads.

In fact the team not only generated really top quality appointments for the SnackTime Sales Consultants, but they also added future value for their client too. Helen Taylor was really pleased that the team also “built a pipeline of potential customers” with “requirements for some time in the future.”

Overall both SnackTime and Telemarketing-4u rated the campaign as a terrific success. Andy Fisher, Sales and Marketing Director says the team fulfilled the brief and produced the required results “…effectively and very efficiently”.

“Telemarketing-4u is always looking to forge lasting associations with clients” says Lisa, “and it’s great to hear such positive feedback.”

Andy agreed saying SnackTime were so impressed that “… we rolled out the campaign on a long term and ongoing basis.”

He added that Mars SnackTime believed it had found the ideal telemarketing company to work with, saying “…we hope to have a great long standing working relationship.”

© copywriteguru.com 2011

There’s no such thing as a free launch…

Well, this one has been pretty cheap, thanks to the good folks at WordPress and BlueHost!

I am in the middle of writing something for a client – which is what prompted me to put this up.

In the article I am describing how they have re-branded and set up some really great new websites and how they’ve worked in collaboration with the web designers and graphic designers and… well… me!

I figured I’d put a wee link to myself in the article after puttin up a quick site.

So – here it is. My first post.

What follows will actually be examples of my copywriting – as this is supposed to be a site for those of you who want to employ my services!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!