Handrail Design
Bespoke CRM
Background
Handrail Design (handraildesign.co.uk) are the premier architectural handrail and balustrade experts in the UK. They have pioneered their industry over the past two decades with innovation and modular design solutions, which has seen their products in landmark buildings across the central London skyline, as well as across the United Kingdom.
As one of our earliest clients having worked with us on the current and previous versions of their website, we were approached by Handrail Design for advice on their ageing database system called Telemagic.
Telemagic started life as a contacts database at the very inception of Handrail Design, and has grown into a large system which has tracked the progress of their projects over the years.
The Brief
Telemagic had a cult following right up until the day it ceased to exist, with many faithful users standing by its flexibility and continuing to use it over 10 years beyond its last update.
As with all software and the rapid advancement of technology and systems, Telemagic was on its last legs, with Handrail Design’s IT company warning that the software was becoming impossible to install on new systems.
Our brief was to design a new system which would handle all of the functionality currently used in Telemagic, improve working practices where possible, and provide a bespoke CRM for the business with flexibility to add new customer features in the future.
The Result
We analysed the day to day working practises of the business and reviewed their database, which was the result of 25+ years of working. Due to the lack of updates to the system in the last 10-12 years, the quality of the database had fallen behind for many years. Upon further analysis, the system hadn’t been correctly linked from the point in time where the system became more than a contacts database.
We normalised the data and brought it forward to today’s standards of database structuring.
We designed a custom interface, fusing today’s web-based standards with the familiarity of the Telemagic system, so as not to lose the internal working methodology which has been meticulously crafted by it’s owner Howard Cochrane, who has an incredible eye for detail.
Our bespoke system has saved their data whilst Telematic had taken its last breath, and implemented a new refreshing internal system, which has already seen several further features and enhancements to date.
