Luc Pirard "Secretary and Director of the van Eyck Group",
“Good service and value“
The van Eyck Group has some 160 employees in 14 offices, all of which operate as small businesses. “That’s why we need one telephone policy that is clear and easy to implement and can be rolled ou to all our offices from a central location”, explains Luc Pirard.
Luc Pirard, Secretary and Director of the van Eyck Group.
“ Our telecom costs kept perfectly under control.”
“Variety in indulgence” is the van Eyck Group’s slogan. The company is a trendsetter in the culinary and fine dining sector. They also expect excellent service and value from their own suppliers, which is why they have brought together their mobile phone, fixed-line and internet services under one roof at Mobistar.
The challenge
One clear telecom policy for all offices
“ Our 14 offices are not isolated entities! We’re a single entity, in terms of both costs and staffing, so it’s crucial to have one clear telecom policy. That way everyone, from cook to manager, feels involved in the measures we take and, at the same time, we keep our costs under control. Our previous telecom operator didn’t offer us that. Our employees had to key in a code before dialling a number, so as to indicate whether the call was at their own expense or ours. It wasn’t exactly user-friendly and meant a lot of red tape for us (we had to check all the bills). We never knew what our share of the mobile phone costs was going to be.”
The solution
Budget under control thanks to a maximum billing amount
“Businesses can rely on Mobistar for excellent, personalised services, and that was very important to us. With Invoice Split, we pre-determine the amount we want to pay towards each employee’s mobile phone bill. Should someone make calls exceeding this amount, a bill for the excess will automatically be sent to that person’s home address.”
Savings thanks to telecom services brought together at Mobistar
“Our mobile phone, fixed-line and internet services used to be divided between different telecom operators. In the past two months we’ve brought together these three services at Mobistar. Starting off with one site, we now have a single point of contact and one bill for all three services. Mobistar promises big savings, and that’s something we’re really looking forward to, as it means that later on we’ll be able to apply this convergence to all our sites. Then all our staff from the different offices will be able to call and text each other free of charge.”
The collaboration
A good marriage
“Mobistar’s services are tailored to each business, more so than the services offered
by other operators. Cost isn’t the only factor – the service is important too. We have
60 mobile phone subscriptions, so you need an account manager who can solve any
problems that may arise. If I had to do all that myself, it would take up a lot of my time and
energy, so to me the excellent administrative support offered by Mobistar is such an asset.
We can always call on at least three people whom we know very well – at Mobistar itself
or at BAG Van Looy, which has long been an exclusive partner of Mobistar and has
a very good reputation. There’s strong mutual trust. We signed a three-year contract
with Mobistar and have now extended it for a further two years.”
The result
Less admin and lower costs
“Thanks to Invoice Split, our share of the employees’ mobile phone bills is never greater than the pre-agreed amount. We don’t have to check all the mobile phone bills any more either. That saves us a lot of admin and it all runs very smoothly. There are also benefits for the entire staff: they don’t pay any subscription charges and can enjoy the advantageous business rates for their private calls. And we, as a company, have control over our costs. We know beforehand almost the exact amount of our monthly mobile phone costs. At the start of the collaboration with Mobistar, we very quickly noticed a 30 % drop in our mobile call costs.”