Barking from Dagenham
GBThe UK telecoms industry is sleazy - Simwood is not The UK telecoms industry is sleazy, as a customer you are regularly subjected to an onslaught of salesdroids with greasy hair whose sole role in life is to sign you up as a customer and then promptly forget about you the minute your signature is dry on the paper. It is an industry better known for Customer Disservice through its distinct lack of any form of post-sales support. Meanwhile the less that is said about the industry's glorious lord and master OFCOM the better, oy vey. Then in a cattle shed, in a manger bed a boy was born, "Jesus" said the surprised relatives, but alas it was only Simon Woodhead. Simon then established a company which - having declined to use the expensive services of a brand consultant - he decided to christen Simwood. Before we move onto the latter, we need to briefly pay homage to the former. Simon comes from the school of speaking one's mind. Which in the UK telecoms industry is a much needed characteristic. If you have not read his sermons delivered via missives on the Simwood blog, I urge you to do so. They do a sterling role of outlining both the horrors of the UK telecoms industry and what passes for its regulation. It also explains the how's and why's of how Simwood does things and its approach to life. Which brings us to Simwood. I've been a customer forever. The point about Simwood is its small, agile. They are different from pretty much any telecoms operator out there, not for the sake of being different but because they are driven by a desire to do things better - or even just do things right in the first place in some instances. Customer Service at Simwood is second to none. You speak to human beings, not monkeys reading off a script. They are in-country not in far-flung regions of the globe. The API is one of the best I've seen. You can genuinely manage your entire account from start to finish via the API which is well documented and well supported. In many years I've only found one bug in it, and when I reported it, that bug was squashed within 24 hours. Simwood also does not milk its customers. I refer you to Simon's posts on UK Origin Charging as just one example to support the forgoing statement. Yes Simwood has now grown to the point where it has three distinct operations, Wholesale, Partner and Direct. But my underlying sentiment would be the same regardless, i.e. whichever of the three is best suited to your business, I genuinely think you would be hard pushed to find a better telecoms company in the UK market.
Becca
GBAvoid at all costs. Months and months for port requests to be constantly timed out. Ofcom will be next step for our business. I hope anyone reading these reviews takes the terrible reviews seriously. Don't waste your time with this company.
Elliot
GBSimwood has been our chosen provider for over 10 years! I have used Simwood for the past 10+ years across 3 different businesses where we have always been a reseller. I have watched the company grow from a small team with a dream to a telecoms powerhouse, to which we've always found the service provided to be incredible. If there has even been a problem or outage (which like any provider, does happen) the responsiveness of the team along with their consistent updates has always put our minds at ease and allowed us to provide accurate updates to our customers until the problem is resolved. Contact has never been an issue for us, as we either manage to speak with someone quickly over the phone, or a ticket is responded to within a few minutes, so no complaints at all there. As we've now started our own venture there was of course no hesitation when it came to not just our VoIP system, but which system we would like to supply to our customers!
Bad Time
GBAbsolutely Disgusting Company Their website even says ‘don’t want to be our customer, f*%$ off then’ If you are a small business stay well clear, I made the mistake of signing up, there are many better companies to work with who don't have a "minimum commitment" cost, end of first year and they wanted to raise mine by 150%. I have been charged export fees of £10 per number just to return to the Range Holder (BT). Where Simwood are the Range Holder, they have delayed and cancelled the porting process, beyond the end of my contract. When asked to clarify why, they have added a £150 charge for "extra porting work" to end up replying with "I am not able to provide you with any information". When asking their Chief Operating Officer (Grahame Davies) to keep 8 numbers active for 16 days until the port is complete as they are currently being used by a care home and we are in the middle of a pandemic, they want to charge £250. That's alright thanks, Ill rather use the money to compensate those being cut off. Do yourself a favour, do not use this company.
David Horton
GBGreat VoIP network backed by great people There a lot of companies in the VoIP space that are either reselling someone else's network, or have hacked together their own network from a poorly thought-out architecture. Simwood on the other hand have made the investments necessary to have a truly best-in-class network. I have used their wholesale product for 5 years, had a great experience, and recommended them to many of my customers as well. The people at Simwood are great as well. Highly knowledgeable and responsive. It's clear that the network has been designed with a high degree of observability, because whenever there are any issues they are immediately on top of it. The sales team that I have dealt with, led by Frazer, is great to work with as well and have been very collaborative in terms of finding ways to address customer needs. This is a special company, extremely knowledgeable in its space and being led by great people from top to bottom.