CloudVoIP, Chorley New Road, Bolton

TWO Bolton business men are celebrating three years of success for their start-up venture which offers state-of-the-art telecoms services to SME’s across the UK.

Mark Lee and Paul Towler had the idea of CloudVoIP whilst growing their own IT Support business in Bolton.

Mark, 30, said: “We had worked in IT for a local retail support centre in Bolton for a number of years, however, due to that company restructuring we found ourselves out of work and decided we should brave going alone and start up our own helpdesk support.”

That initial move meant they very quickly needed to find a system to cope with the demand on the services they were providing.

Paul, 35, said: “When we found some office space in Bolton we needed to ensure we had a state of the art telecoms service to offer our helpdesk clients unrivalled support.

“However, we quickly found that very few companies are willing to look at a small business like ours, or require a massive cost outlay at the beginning, so we thought let’s look at doing it ourselves.”

That led them to start CloudVoIP as an alternative to the larger companies, and specialise in working with the SME community.

Mark said: “We found as an SME the major providers would not offer us the full services due to the size of the company, however with CloudVoip we are the opposite and we work with every size of business from sole traders and homeworkers to larger limited companies, with all of our services offered to everyone.”

CloudVoip is a telephone service that quite simply works via plugging a phone into your broadband and using the “cloud” as a telephone exchange. All the services you would find on a traditional switchboard are available like, Auto Attendant, Voice Mail, Conference Calling, call transfer, multiple lines and extensions, and at a fraction of the cost.

Paul said: “We allow the system to grow with you at your pace, you can have a new number (or use an existing one) and a phone with all the features from £9.99pm and be up and running in a day, no initial outlay and no contracts other than 30 days’ notice, plus we offer free calls.”

Three years on and CloudVoip can now boast clients across the UK and includes retailers, homeworkers, recruitment agencies and restaurants amongst others.

Every week, we will shine a spotlight on a business in Bolton. Just write us an article of no more than 400 words on YOUR business. What is special about it? How long has it been running? Is it successful? Tell us what makes it great and stand out from the rest, along with a picture of yourself and your staff. Please send all copy and pictures to craig.archer@nqnw.co.uk.