Saints enlist help of IT veteran to set up cloud-based telephone system and connect with fans

Southampton Football Club has brought its communications firmly into the 21st century thanks to the help of small business owner Andrew Moules.

Andrew, who founded his telecoms consultancy Red Rose Technologies in 2020, worked with Saints to put their system onto the cloud, allowing fans to reach out to the club far more easily.

It all started after a chance interaction over LinkedIn around two years ago with Southampton’s IT director.

“He read a Telecoms Buyers’ Guide I’d written during lockdown and invited me in,” Andrew explained.

“They wanted to work with me because I was independent and a small business that could offer the personal touch.”

Andrew identified four potential suppliers for the club, narrowing down the shortlist to a final candidate who soon got to work updating their setup with the new and improved solution.

“It replaced two traditional systems that couldn’t talk to each other,” said Andrew.

“Now there are very few handsets on desks, resulting in a lot less plastic hardware and the staff can work from anywhere using software driven tools.”

“The new system gives them more statistics, analytics and data-driven insights.

“They can identify trends like busy times and training needs so that they can be more agile, more available to their fans and give a faster, better experience to fans when they contact the club.”

Saints will continue to collaborate with Red Rose Technologies over the coming months, opening communication channels over WhatsApp and starting to experiment with chatbots in an effort to reach more supporters.

Andrew added: “To have a client like Southampton Football Club want to partner with me and trust my knowledge and experience has been fantastic and a real boost for my business too.

“The club has a lovely family feel – everyone was keen to help and welcomed me on board. They were a dream of an account to work with.”

• redrosetechnologies.co.uk