AN Ipswich office is celebrating today after the company was named among the UK's fastest growing companies for the third time.Telecom service provider Unicom, which specialises in business-to-business connections, is one of only a handful of companies with offices in the region to make it into the top 100 list compiled by The Sunday Times.

AN Ipswich office is celebrating today after the company was named among the UK's fastest growing companies for the third time.

Telecom service provider Unicom, which specialises in business-to-business connections, is one of only a handful of companies with offices in the region to make it into the top 100 list compiled by The Sunday Times.

Unicom, which has offices in Old Foundry Road, is ranked in 96th place in the league table of Britain's private companies which measures the growth in profit between the year ending April 2003 and 2006.

During that time, profits at Unicom have risen from £1.7million in 2003 to £5.2million in 2006 - an impressive average growth of 44 per cent each year.

Chris Earle, Unicom's operations director, said: “We provide our customers with highly competitive prices, which we fix for three years, and we ensure that all customers genuinely receive the highest possible levels of customer service.

“We're a relatively small business with a small, closely-knit and efficient management team - and we are absolutely clear in our minds about what makes the difference to our customers: a UK call centre with real people answering the telephone.

“98 per cent of calls are answered within six seconds and managers and directors are hands-on and accessible.

“Our customer retention level is currently running at 86pc against a sector average of around 70pc.

“Of the 14pc we lose, only a third go to competitors, the remainder being businesses that close or move premises for one reason or another, which is obviously beyond our control."

Unicom has 60,000 business customers, primarily small or owner-managed businesses with telephone bills of approximately £1,000 a year.

Mr Earle said: “We've not actually had a price increase since we started offering our telecom services in 2001.

“If a business is interested in moving over to Unicom, then a member of our team audits their current or previous telephony arrangement.

“We then explain how savings can be made, and implement them seamlessly.”

Unicom was ranked 26th in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100 listings in April 2006, 89th in the Fast Track 100 index in December 2006 and 96th in the Profit Track 100 listings in April 2007. The company employs nearly 500 people across the UK.