Gerry Smith is a qualified plumber who has always worked from home. Being a 1 staff company wears him thin, and since he has no full time receptionist he currently relies on his home phone and voice mail to retrieve messages.
The problem: Gerry find’s that when he’s checking his messages at the end of a long days work out of the house, there are a number of callers who just hung up rather than left a message. He also often finds that his voice mail is full and he has missed the opportunity to receive further messages. In addition, since it’s his home phone, even though it’s the second number in the house is used by his wife and children, he finds that they are often on the phone and callers get a busy signal, or they leave a message with the family and he never receives the details.
The solution: Since Gerry already has a second phone number in his house, that was meant for use by his company alone, Gerry signs up with Connections and forwards all calls to that number through to Connections. A real person with his chosen answer phrase now answers callers, “Good morning/evening Gerry’s plumbing answering service, how can I help you?” The Connections staff asks the callers for their full name, their call back number (and confirm the same), as well as details on what the call is regarding, and address information if it’s a service call. Gerry has opted that all messages are emailed over to him every morning at 7am. He notices immediately with the first set of messages, that the number of calls he was actually getting in a day exceeded his expectations, and he had the accurate details he required to call the callers back and meet their demands in a timely fashion. In fact, on Gerry’s first day of service with us, his clients were commending him on his new service, as they no longer had to find another plumber when their calls went unanswered!
Case Study #2 – The Busy Doctor’s Office
Dr. Steven smith runs a small but busy family doctors office. He has a full time receptionist, as well as a couple of nurses that answer the phones for him.
The problem: The staff needs to take a break for lunch! And a there are a lot of calls coming in and going out of the office on a daily bases. He finds that even on weekends the office voice mail is full with patients call back to confirm appointments as well as leaving urgent messages that he can’t attend to until he gets the messages Monday mornings. Sometimes, it feels like the phones never stop because callers are confirming appointments, making new appointments, while office staff is trying to call out appointment reminders, and get test results from the labs. Not only all of that, but Dr. Steven also wants to be able to attend to his patients emergencies when they happen.
The solution: The doctor signs up with Connections and has the ability to transfer his office lines to us when they close for lunch each day, when the office closes at the end of the day and over the weekends, as well as during crucial staff meetings or if the receptionist should call in sick. Connections is given access to the doctors online calendar as well as detailed appointment information therefore patients can call 24 hours a day to book, change or confirm their appointments. In addition, the doctor set up an emergency protocol for Connections to follow outside of office hours, so the next time a patient calls at 3am in severe pain due to a bleeding abscess, the doctor is called at home, or on his cell and connected through to the patient immediately in order to assist them. Since appointments can be confirmed, made or changed through Connections, the office staff finds they spend less time calling back clients they missed speaking to the first time and more time attending to their other job duties. The doctors office runs smoother and more efficiently while the doctor feels confident in his customer service because he is now able to offer a 24 hour emergency service!
Case Study #3 – The Internet Providing Help Desk
Beverly Sayer is the owner and sole operator of Sayer Technologies, a wireless internet provider. Her business started off very small, where she installed base stations around her house and offered her neighbors the password to her network for a small monthly fee. Before she knew it, she was making arrangements to install base stations in her neighbors yards, and her business started to bloom. Eventually, arrangements turned into contracts and she was offering service throughout her entire town!
The problem: As her client base started to grow, so did the amount of communications she would receive both by email and telephone, mainly from people verifying their passwords, or needing a system refresh to insure optimum service. She found herself spending more time working in her company, providing current customers with customer service, than on her company installing more base stations in order for her to expand further.
The solution: Bev signed up with Connections and gave them full access to her company email for customer service. Connections staff was able to verify & reset passwords, as well as refresh base-station signals upon request, 24 hours a day, in addition they checked her customer service email account every hour for her, and responded to written inquiries with regards to simple service enquiries. Connections could also sent Bev a daily recap of all of her calls, and saved all outgoing emails so that Bev could scrutinize correspondence at will. Bev also set herself up an emergency procedure so she could be contacted on her cell or at home, at any time should there be an outage that she needed to attend to immediately. Her customers were offered efficient, quality customer service and Sayer Technologies was able to grow!
Case Study #4 – Work Alone
George Freeman owns a large moving company. His big-rigs move people’s houses across the country. Many of his drivers end up driving for multiple days on their own from one of his offices/warehouses to another.
The problem: Worksafe BC stipulates that any employee working alone in British Colombia the “employer must develop and implement a written procedure for checking the well-being of a worker assigned to work alone or in isolation. The procedure for checking a worker’s well-being must include timer interval between checks and the procedure to follow in case the worker can not be contacted, including provisions for emergency rescue. A person must be designated to establish contact with the worker at predetermined intervals and the results must be recorded by the person. In additions to regular checks, a check at the end of the work shift must be done.” George’s warehouse is often closed during the hours that his drivers are making their way across country.
The solution: George signed up with Connections and arranged it so that when his workers start their drive, they check in with Connections and inform them of their contact number, where they are headed and that they would be checking in every two hours until they arrived. Connections set a reminder in their account to call the worker 15 minutes after their check in time if the worker did not call in. In the event that Connections was not able to reach a worker, they had an emergency procedure to follow that started with calling the area supervisor and informing him, followed by George himself who would then start a search.
Case Study #5 – The Hostel
The Backpackers Inn is a busy hostel during the summer months. Many of their guests are students backpacking across the country during their breaks from college. Because of the nature of their guests lives, they often find that initial enquiries about staying in the inn are at random hours of the night.
The problem: Reception in the hostel closes at 4pm daily. The hostel loses a lot of clients because no one is able to book them in after hours, and many of the callers are calling from payphones and do not have call back numbers.
The solution: The Backpackers Inn hired Connections to take their lines after 4pm daily. With access to their online network, Connections was able to book new client’s reservations at a moments notice while on the phone with them regardless of the time of call. In addition, Connections was able to answer general enquiries regarding the Inn from where it’s located to what facilities it offers and how much nightly stays cost.