Natural cosmetics retailer Lush is reportedly planning to upgrade its voice communications to IP telephony as it hopes to improve the links between stores and its Poole head office.

With internal calls not using the traditional legacy phone lines, calls between stores and back to base will be free after the system is fully installed come the fourth quarter of 2008.

But before then an upgraded internal messaging service is planned to launch this summer, with Lush retail systems manager Chris Risbey adding: "We are also looking into the possibility of using online timesheets at some point in 2009."

The firm's upgrades to its communication systems follow its move to improved IP solutions in other areas of its business - such as installing internet credit control processing on its ecommerce website to bulk up customer data security for card payments.

This also applies to credit card purchases made offline, which means that in-store customers can make their purchases more safely and also quicker - which in turn reduces total queue-times.