Is Your Practice Ready for Unified Communications?
July 3, 2008
What if it was possible to reduce costs while growing your business at the same time? Ever wonder how to set your business apart? You could set your organization apart just by how you regard customer service, making you the preference amongst the competition. Not only will your customers benefit, but your business will as well. In this article by Nick Snoply, he’ll help explain several ways in which technology will be part of the solution, especially within the medical field.
Is Your Practice Ready for Unified Communications? (pdf download)
An Integrated Solution and Outbound Dialer: From ‘What is It?’ To ‘How Did We Do Without It?’
May 12, 2008
by Michelle Heiden
As a technology specialist, I’m always looking for big problems that can be solved by well-executed, properly-designed technical solutions. For me, the bigger the better.
Well, recently I helped install a system for a health supply company. When we first began diagnosing their issues, they thought they merely needed a new PBX. But after further investigation, we realized they needed a solution that fundamentally changed the way they manage and grow their business.
It is so significant, that I thought you should hear.
Company Overview:
Butler Animal Health Supply is a national leader in providing pet supplies for independent Veterinarians across the United States. Their products range from cotton swabs to medicine to food supplies for all pets related to Veterinarian practice. Butler Animal Health Supply has multiple locations with their corporate headquarters located in Dublin, Ohio. They have inside sales centers in an additional 8 cities and multiple distribution centers throughout the country.
The Problem:
Butler was hoping to solve multiple problems. All the problems below have a significant hard cost ROI associated:
- Multitude of old disparate phone solutions at each site with minimal to no reporting. (Due to this environment Butler Animal Health Supply did not understand how their organization, as a whole, was providing service to their customers, how many calls the call centers were handling, and bandwidth required to handle activity. They did not have accurate data to support growth.)
- No interoffice dialing. Long distance dialing was required to call remote facilities.
- Each site with individual voice mail solutions. No central management, no standardized use of voice mail and multiple people needed to support this environment.
- Multiple support organizations, excessive network costs. Due to multiple environments, Butler Animal Health Supply was paying up to 8 separate support companies to support their environments, which means little control and inconsistencies.
- Minimal call distribution solutions. Limited call processing.
- No automated dialing, and little to no flexibility or integration to other applications.
Solution:
When we begin with a customer, we get very clear on the goals. In this case, their goals were to:
- a) to make their environment more efficient to for revenue growth,
- b) to increase management effectiveness by giving them tools, and
- c) to reduce technology costs.
The implementation of a VoIP telecommunication leader, Customer Interaction Center, provides a centralized solution that allows for ONE solution across the entire enterprise.
Implemented an Outbound Dialer which automatically initiated outbound sales calls when inside sales reps were idle.
The End Result
was a consolidation of support contracts into one national contract. That, in turn, reduced network costs due to implementing VoIP technology which reduces long distance costs and allow technology to take advantage of the existing data network.
Advanced supervisor, reporting and monitoring tools which allows management to appropriately manage, support and grow the business.
Michelle Heiden is a consultant with G3 Technology Partners (Cincinnati, OH). She specializes in business applications for technology solutions and can be reached at 317.876.6588 or at michelle.heiden@g3tp.com
Most Common Communication Pains Inside Companies
April 16, 2008
Recently, I read a white paper done by Insignia. It was prepared on behalf of one of our suppliers, Siemens.
In it, they revealed a study they completed in 2007– and it had some interesting information in it.
They talked to over 500 people in a variety of industries to find out what the most common communication problems were inside companies today. I wanted to share the list with you, then in subsequent posts, we will address each one, one-by-one.
Here is the list:
1. Waiting for Information. Attempting to get in touch with/get information from an individual with multiple means of communication in order to make progress on a particular process or task.
2. Unscheduled/Unauthorized Communications. Communications that disrupt the flow of work.
3. Coordination Inefficiency. Inability to fully direct or interact within a team in order to move it towards its goals.
4. Planning to plan. Time spent on planning and arrangements in preparation to actually make progress towards completing work.
5. Barriers to Collaboration. Inaccessibility of the tools needed to collaborate fully with colleagues.
6. Offsite Productivity Loss. Reduced output when working from a location other than one of the company’s offices.
7. Customer Complaints Due to Communications. Handling complaints and other incidents of customer dissatisfaction that stem from the communication policies/technology of the company.
8. Trips with Additional Communication Costs. Added costs of communication while on business trips.
9. Trips to Synch Up. Business trips taken for the purpose of receiving information that will be disseminated to a number of individuals at the same time/place and in the same manner.
10.Working from Home - Extra Costs. Added costs of communication when working from home.
I thought these were a neat way of looking at some of the ways technology can help you run your business better. You might print this off, circulate inside your company and see where your team(s) might be lacking.
The G3 Value Commitment
March 27, 2008
I was on a sales call the other day and the customer asked me a poignant question: “What makes you different from all of the other tech vendors that call on me.”
I’m not sure I answered it to his satisfaction, but I came back to the office and jotted down what my belief is about the value we bring customers.
I like to divide our value into three areas: Productivity, Cost Reduction, and Market Advantage.
Now, these three things can take on many looks but I don’t think selling technology should be about the technology. It should be about WHAT THE TECHNOLOGY CAN DO for your business.
That’s it.
Anyone who calls on you — and all they can talk about is the coolness of the latest technology is doing you no service at all.
That said, we’ve learned a lot in 37 years in business serving over 2500 customers–and here are some of our beliefs:
- We believe —that every technology solution MUST address core business issues. In fact, we won’t even make a recommendation unless it improves your business—financially or otherwise. (These improvement might come through things like better customer retention, better customer satisfaction, better customer service, or increasing revenue/decreasing costs.)
- Our second belief is that … success is about process. We have built a Proven Process that helps you and us determine exactly what those core business issues are—and whether there are technology solutions for those issues. We find that over 80% of the solutions we implement come from problems the client didn’t know they had—or didn’t know there were solutions for. I will share more about that process in later posts.
- Thirdly, the partner you choose must be have a WORLD VIEW that has at it’s core —helping you solve problems. We find most companies have as their CORE INTENT to sell products and platforms. And while that’s OK, it doesn’t always speak to your business issues—and G3 takes a very different view—-our intent is to solve problems given your business landscape— and given our knowledge of the solutions. An often overlooked portion of this is implementation, programming and support. Things WILL change in the future — you want to make sure you have a support system that can change with you.
I hope this helps you understand the commitment and belief we have in this world of technology. We take our process seriously–mainly because we want you to be amazed at the power technology has in helping you grow your business.
In a related post, Darren Marie does a brief audio interview about how to get ready for technology.