BDR Group was founded in 1991 and is an award[1]winning communications and IT reseller. In 2017, they met Fidelity Energy at Comms Dealer’s Margin in Voice & Data event and were immediately impressed upon seeing a demonstration of the portal and services.
“We have seen substantial growth and have completely transformed from when we first partnered with Fidelity Energy. Originally, we had a headcount of around 50 staff, which has now grown to over 250 employees. In the last couple of years, we have expanded further with acquisitions, including TFM, ACR, Boffins, Integratech, and more,” explains Ryan Fenwick, Group Sales Manager.
“That has increased our scope of opportunities, market areas, and customer sizes, offering a huge variety of products. Five years ago, we were a telecommunications company. Now, we offer security, CCTV and IT, as well as energy. It is going from strength to strength.” Early in the partnership with Fidelity Energy, BDR was hugely successful in securing a £3 million green energy contract with one of the largest household names in retail. Ryan explains how the partnership has progressed, “It took a while for everyone to fully grasp the energy offering as it is something completely different from what we are used to discussing with clients. However, the training and ongoing support is excellent. When we were able to help such a large customer, we realised the potential of the partnership and saw the real value. Fidelity Energy went above and beyond to ensure we were supported with every step of the deal, which definitely had a positive effect on building trust with the customer. This success has resulted in contract renegotiation for all of their UK sites, and our long-term partnership continues to grow.
Many of our customers are aware of what is currently happening within the energy market, but they still seek expert advice. The trust built between BDR and Fidelity Energy comes into its own when supporting our customers.
Fidelity Energy has often communicated directly with the customer to answer any questions. This demonstrates to our customers that there is a trusted expert handling their energy and puts them at ease. Many customers have then trusted us to look at other projects where we can assist them, based on their positive experience with energy provision.
Recently, we had an opportunity for energy provision at a group of schools, but we did not have the background knowledge in education. The Fidelity Energy team went to site visits, met with the customer directly, and acted on behalf of BDR. They used their expertise to handle any questions that we would not have been able to answer and provide the information needed to reassure the customer. This built trust with BDR and even led to referrals to other colleges and schools.”
On moving forward and progressing the energy opportunity, Ryan said, “Energy is something we are going to build on. We have had our trial period to see if energy is going to work, and we know how successful it can be in terms of generating revenue, as well as creating or solidifying existing customer relationships. We have promoted a member of staff to Head of Energy and have invested in an energy-dedicated team. We have also been working hard on creating and building a standalone energy website, Switch My Provider. We will look to target BDR customers and new customers, redirecting them to the website where they can fill in a form or upload their bill and even get a quote on installing a Voltage Optimisation unit.
The next steps will be to start delivering more marketing campaigns to potential new clients and sending out energy reports to our existing base. It is a fantastic product for our salespeople, as historically the lead time is around three to six months. However, with energy, you can achieve some quick wins.
The Fidelity Energy offering has been worth the time we invested, and they are now one of our key partners. They are a great group of people to work with, and it is a highly profitable product.
With energy being such a hot topic now, our customers are interested in engaging with people who know what they are talking about and can be trusted to offer them honest support and advice.” Ryan Fenwick, Group Sales Manager, BDR Group