Managed IT services company GCI makes third acquisition this year with Packet Media

Managed IT services provider GCI has acquired Stoke-on-Trent based Packet Media for an undisclosed sum. This is GCI’s third acquisition this year and follows the purchase of Outsourcery’s assets in June.

GCI has presence in Lincoln, Derby and Shrewsbury.

Mike Constantine, chief Technology Officer at GCI, said Packet Media will strengthen its capabilities: “what we are particularly excited about is its enterprise-grade SMS messaging platform and its associated Management Information (MI) reporting capability.

“This new GCI SMS messaging service will fill an important gap in our portfolio and helps us to differentiate our proposition – particularly for the multi-touch contact centre environment.

“The capability blends nicely with our other core cloud and unified communications (UC) services, including Skype for Business, Azure and PCI DSS.

“Simply put, it means that we have a compelling contact centre solution which provides the full spectrum of services – network, CRM database management (Azure), telephony (Skype), payment card security (PCI DSS) and efficient customer communications straight to your smartphone (SMS).”

Julian Gallimore, managing director at Stoke-on-Trent-based Packet Media, added: “While emails now clutter inboxes (many unopened), SMS messages are on average viewed within three minutes of receipt. Response rates, too, are far better – it takes an average person 90 minutes to respond to email, but only 90 seconds to respond to text.

“We are not at all surprised to note that a recent white paper, by Portio Research, found that ‘Application to Person (A2P) connects more people than any other platform in human history, making SMS the ideal mechanism for businesses to use to communicate with their customers’.

“We believe the deployment opportunities are endless: from patient prescription reminders, to service renewal notices, to sales and marketing messaging – all fully trackable and MI reportable.”

The new SMS service will provide significant sales opportunities in a sector that GCI is already well-engaged with.

Julian Gallimore concluded: “It’s also a sector that is continually looking for new ways to improve its customer service experience while simultaneously reducing costs. The timing for GCI’s new SMS service and the enhancements we are developing to differentiate it further could not be better.”