Multi-site and multi-brand recruitment telephony
Recruitment groups rarely trade under one name. There is the flagship brand, the specialist one acquired three years ago, the contract division that kept its own identity, and an office in another city that has always done things its own way. Telephony has to serve all of that without turning into four separate systems nobody can report across. That is a design problem, and it is solvable.
- Separate caller identity, greetings and routing for each trading name
- Per brandSeparate caller identity, greetings and routing for each trading name
- Single administration and one consolidated view for the group
- One platformSingle administration and one consolidated view for the group
- Offices, home workers and hybrid desks behave identically
- Any siteOffices, home workers and hybrid desks behave identically
- Each brand answers and presents as itself, with its own numbers, greetings and hours.
- Consultants and managers transfer, cover and collaborate across brands as one business.
- Group-level reporting plus per-brand and per-site views for the people running each P&L.
- Central administration, so provisioning a new consultant takes minutes regardless of which brand they join.
Keeping brands separate where it matters
The outside world should see distinct businesses. The inside should behave as one. These are the specific things we separate.
- Outbound caller identity per brand, so a candidate sees the brand they applied to.
- Inbound greetings, hold messages, menus and opening hours per brand.
- Number ranges per brand, documented and portable.
- Reporting boundaries, so each brand’s director sees their own desks without noise from the rest of the group.
- Recording scope and retention per brand where policies genuinely differ.
- Optional restrictions on which recordings a brand’s managers can access.
Working as one group where that matters
The usual failure in multi-brand groups is that the brands cannot help each other. Shared platform, shared behaviour.
- Internal calling and presence across every brand and site, so nobody is ringing a colleague on a mobile.
- Transfers between brands without going back out to the public network.
- Cross-brand cover on inbound calls, so a client ringing at 8am reaches whoever is in, not a voicemail.
- Overflow routing between sites, which quietly fixes the rota problem every multi-site agency has.
- One administration console — new starters, leavers and desk moves handled centrally.
- One bill, with cost allocation per brand or cost centre for your finance team.
Want this looked at on your own setup?
A review is free, there is no obligation, and you keep the written summary either way.
The multi-site problems nobody puts in the brief
Recurring issues we find when we audit a group with several offices.
- Usual cause
- No overflow routing between sites
- What we change
- Time and availability based routing across sites
- Usual cause
- Growth by acquisition, never rationalised
- What we change
- One platform, migration phased around existing contract end dates
- Usual cause
- Different systems, different metrics, manual consolidation
- What we change
- Single platform with group, brand, site and consultant views
- Usual cause
- Inherited estates nobody audited
- What we change
- Full number inventory, then consolidation and porting
- Usual cause
- Local admin, no standard build
- What we change
- Central provisioning from a standard template per desk type
- Usual cause
- On-premises hardware per office
- What we change
- Cloud platform with instant re-routing and home working as a fallback
Acquisitive groups
If you buy agencies, telephony is one of the first things that has to be absorbed and one of the last things anyone plans for.
- A repeatable onboarding pattern: audit the target’s lines, numbers and contracts, then bring them onto the group platform when their notice period allows.
- Numbers ported rather than re-advertised, so the acquired brand’s existing enquiries keep arriving.
- The acquired brand can retain its identity externally on day one while joining group reporting immediately.
- Recording and access policy aligned to the group standard as part of onboarding rather than years later.
Multi-brand design decisions to make
- Which brands need distinct outbound caller identity.
- Which brands share inbound cover, and at what times.
- Reporting boundaries between brands, and who sees group-level data.
- Whether recording policy is uniform across the group.
- How costs are allocated between brands or cost centres.
- Who holds central administration rights, and what local admins can change.
Frequently asked questions
Can each brand keep its own numbers and greetings?
Yes. Numbers, greetings, menus, hold messages and opening hours are all configured per brand, so externally they are separate businesses. Internally they share one platform, one admin console and one set of reports.
Can we stop one brand’s managers seeing another brand’s calls?
Yes. Reporting and recording access are role-based and can be scoped by brand, site or desk.
We grew by acquisition and every office is different. Where do we start?
With an audit. Until every line, number, contract end date and notice period is on one page, any plan is guesswork. The audit usually pays for itself in identifying services being billed for that nobody uses.
Does one platform mean one bill?
Yes, with cost allocation per brand or cost centre so your finance team can still report by entity.
Related recruitment guides
Bring your group onto one platform
We will audit every site, brand, number and contract, then design a migration that respects your existing end dates.
- Full audit of every line, number and contract you hold
- Honest view of what your CRM will and will not integrate with
- The call data you are not currently seeing, including missed inbound
- A written summary — yours to keep either way