Easier access to timely information improves personal productivity and drives economic growth. Everything we do at Mutare makes information easier to get and helps businesses run better. We have built our reputation on the satisfaction of our customers, backing every application we deploy with incomparable service and support. Nothing, however, speaks better to our reputation than the feedback of the customers we serve. The stories below outline how we have helped customers increase sales, decrease costs and meet regulatory requirements while making access to information easier for their enterprise:
General Electric
Location: Worldwide
Market: Manufacturing
Application: EVM Plus
GE is a $16.6 billion, multinational company with more than 10,000 employees producing thousands of GE business-related voice, fax, and email messages transferred around the world daily.
EVM was originally installed on the GE Octel platform. The customer gained the functionality of EVM without the cost of replacing entire voicemail system in 40 locations. They now have mixed Octel, Intuity, and MM platforms, all with EVM, so the user experience is the same, enterprise-wide. GE's sophisticated communication infrastructure links its multiple locations into one high speed network. Each location has a server for message storage and transfer, but the application servers (running the EVM software) are centralized, so EVM installation modifications and support are uncomplicated.
Notes Russell Ashton, GE Manager of Voice Technology: "Our rollout was very smooth, and the feedback from employees has been overwhelmingly positive. As one user put it to me, 'I feel I am so much more in touch with my messages.'"
Fransciscan Health System
Location: Washington State
Market: Healthcare
Application: ENS
Franciscan Health System currently has 4 hospitals and 41 clinics. ENS is fully deployed at 3 of the hospitals, partially at the 4th, and partially deployed in the clinics. There are approximately 6,700 people in the database. There are roughly 6,000 employees and others on the FHS system, including physicians, staff, and volunteers. Next year a 5th hospital will be added to the mix.
ENS was installed in 2005 and implemented through the first six months of 2006. It is used daily for replacement staffing calls at St. Joseph Medical Center, St. Clare Hospital, and St. Francis Hospital. In the past, when an absence prompted the need to find a replacement, calls had to be made to up to 40 individuals who might qualify to fill the position. With ENS, all 40 calls can be made in one broadcast with targeted follow-up calls if necessary. The position can be quickly filled by the first person responding. FHS is also using EEN for emergency activation of the disaster plan, staff recall, and urgent notification for a variety of circumstances.
Recently SFH converted all of the pager codes to ENS so that broadcast messages will reach pagers as well as other mobile devices; that same process is underway at SJMC.
The disaster notification system is tested quarterly, and it is used to send out alerts 1-2 times a month. Franciscan recently created a silent notification system (pager and e-mail) for use during a violent situation where an overhead announcement could create further problems.
From the emergency side, ENS administrators within the hospitals can send group notices to small or large groups quickly. The response to the notification depends on the time of day and the type of event. It was recently used during a major windstorm to notify the hospital "BIO" group of the need to immediately track and report carbon monoxide poisonings. Since the message goes directly to the ED charge nurses, tracking was implemented immediately.
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
Location: New York, NY
Market: Government
Application: Custom
The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation employs nearly 1,900 full time employees and approximately 3,000 seasonal workers. The Department was looking for a system that would allow them to keep track of daily absences for this large and mobile population. Building on the Parks and Recreation Department's existing Octel message server, programmers at Mutare were able to develop a custom application to streamline, standardize, and automate the department's entire absence reporting process.
Prior to Mutare installation, absence reporting methods varied throughout the city's five boroughs. Most involved either phone calls to a live receptionist or voicemail recordings. In Brooklyn alone, calls were taken by 40 different voice mailboxes, auto-copied to a single administrator, hand-recorded and then filed for future reference. The cumbersome and potentially error-prone process could take up to three hours each day.
With the new Mutare application, all absences are called into a dedicated phone number. Callers are guided through a list of questions that allows them, via phone keypad, to identify themselves, the borough they work in, their work location and the reason for their absence. At the end of the call, the employee is given a confirmation number. Prior to each shift change, the application automatically sorts recorded absences, emails those absences to their respective field supervisors, and/or creates a text to speech message for supervisors who have yet to receive computers. Absentee information is also viewable via a link on the Parks Intranet.
Staff members no longer need to decipher and hand-record hours of phone messages. Field supervisors have access to full and accurate absence reports before the beginning of every shift. And, with the application's archiving and report-generating features, department administrators are able to sort, review, and print historical data - a valuable asset for payroll administration, planning and budgeting.
Wayne County Treasury Department
Location: Detroit, MI
Market: Government
Application: Custom
Wayne is the largest county in the state of Michigan and includes the city of Detroit and surrounding suburbs. Among the most caller-intensive departments is the County Treasurer's office, which receives thousands of property tax calls every day, primarily from homeowners and realtors. The county set up an interactive website to help ease the caller load, but the phone remained the primary communication tool, particularly for those without web access. They determined that a customized voice response system for common phone requests was the answer. Manager Sherry Bittles recommended Mutare, having previously worked with them on a patient care management application which, she says, "went flawlessly."
Mutare was able to fashion a voice response application for the County's Avaya system that provides automated responses to a wide range of questions, from tax liability and delinquency status for individual properties to information on regulations and procedures. The challenge was to come up with a sophisticated application that is easy for the callers to navigate and easy to for Treasury Department staff to manage.
Notes Bittles: "What really makes Mutare stand out is their ability to communicate with the client - they know how to ask the right questions to pinpoint our needs, and then explain the technology in a way that everyone can understand. And, they completed our project on budget and ahead of schedule."
After the application was installed, the number of calls to County Treasurer receptionists dropped dramatically.
"We're happier, and our callers are happier. They get the information they need, any time, around the clock, with no waiting. We have received Zero complaints since putting this system in place.
"I knew that we could count on Mutare to come up with a solution to our phone call overload, but what really impressed me was how easy they made it for all of us."
St. Joseph's University
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Market: Education
Application: ENS
St. Joseph's University was looking for an on-site, university-wide system for rapid mass delivery of critical notices to faculty, staff and students.
The University already had Mutare's Enabled VoiceMail (EVM) system and was very positive about their experience with that application deployment and features. They turned to Mutare again for their Enterprise Notification System.
ENS gives college administrators the ability to rapidly deliver messages, via simultaneous voice, text and email broadcasts, to every phone, cell phone, PDA and pager on the system. The Web-based interface allows for the creation and selection of customized lists (students, staff, administrators, first responders etc.), and includes the option for verification from recipients. ENS implementation at St. Joseph's University additionally included a utility that automatically updates contact information through a daily query of the university's employee and student databases, sparing the administrator this time-consuming chore. This is a very welcome feature in the college environment, where 1/4 of the system's student users turn over every year. For added protection, St. Joseph's purchased a back-up server that is located at a disaster recovery site 50 miles from campus. Through a high-speed link, that system mirrors the data on the on-campus server and may take over broadcast functions should the main server be disabled.
Danbury Hospital
Location: Connecticut
Market: Healthcare
Application: ENS
Primary installation at customer site with Mutare-hosted backup - the system is used for staffing to find replacement staff.
GE Healthcare
Location: Barrington, IL
Market: Healthcare
Application: ENS
GE Healthcare, which sells medical devices, uses ENS as a system to notify groups of technicians about customer issues. Technicians are usually on the road. When a customer opens a ticket, it triggers a notice to each of the technicians in that customer's region (via their mobile devices). The use of ENS reduces the time it takes to locate an available technician and facilitates prompt service to the customer.
Oklahoma City University
Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Market: Education
Application: ENS
Purchased a 4-port ENS system to serve students (3,700), faculty, staff, and administration.
State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo
Location: New York
Market: Education
Application: EVM Plus
SUNY Geneseo purchased Mutare's Enabled VoiceMail (EVM) for use university-wide. With EVM, users are able to access and manage voice mail messages from their email inbox. EVM is perfect for a diverse college environment because it works with all email systems, there is no desktop software to deploy or support, and messages can be accessed from any device with Internet access. It was a welcome improvement for many college students who prefer email over voice mail for their messaging. Additionally, says Assistant Director of Telecommunications Marie Shero, "Faculty members are inundated with messages from students trying to reach them. They are overwhelmed trying to manage both voice and email messages. Many, in fact, simply choose not to set up their voice mail systems. With EVM, the faculty member no longer has to check multiple places for messages since they will all be sent to the email inbox. Conversely, our faculty often find students are hard to reach by phone. With EVM, they can leave a voice message and know it will appear in that student's email inbox as well where it is more likely to be seen. We tested the product for 40 days and had nothing but a positive response - the system is very easy to set up, requires no real training, and it works. We are thrilled to have this program."
Sidley and Austin
Location: Chicago, IL
Market: Legal
Application: EVM Plus
A global law firm with 16 offices. Purchased EVM for Intuity serving 2,200 mailboxes on 11 Intuity/Audix systems worldwide.
Cuyahoga County Dpt. Of Employment & Family Servic
Location: Ohio
Market: Government
Application: Custom
The Cuyahoga County Department of Employment & Family Services provides essential support services to parents, child care providers and caregivers throughout the county. Before Mutare’s software was installed, staff members were fielding thousands of phone calls a month. Working with Cuyahoga County’s existing voicemail system, Mutare was able to develop a voice response application that fields, sorts, relays and, in many cases, provides immediate resolution to incoming caller requests from department of employment & family services clients - 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The system works as follows: after dialing the new Child Care Hotline, the caller is asked to identify him or herself by an assigned I.D. number. The application then guides the caller through a series of touch-tone menu options designed to gather all information necessary to respond to various requests - from checking the status of a provider payment, making changes on a child care voucher, or reporting absences. When prompted, the caller is linked to a second application that will read back the name of the assigned caseworker and caseworker supervisor, and even dial the number.
With the ability to record both touch-tone and voice responses, the application creates a digital file of each caller's responses and relays them to the email inbox of the appropriate case or staff worker. "It is set up to handle a wide variety of requests, making sure that all of the information is relayed to the right person. Not only does that spare our employees the need to route calls or call back for additional information, but it also assures the customers a quicker response,” says Tom Drescher, Manager of Information Services.
To illustrate the value of the new application, Tom notes that in the month of April, his agency received nearly 7,000 payment inquiry calls. For 5,200 of those calls, the application was able to identify the status of the payment and automatically report that information to the caller. "Assuming each of those calls would have taken at least five minutes, that's over 430 hours that our staff was spared in one month alone," says Tom. "It's really taken the burden off of our call center and made a real difference in our productivity." Just as important, says Tom, the new system has improved the quality of support experienced by E&FS families at a reasonable cost to the County.
Olmsted County
Location: Minnesota
Market: Government
Application: EVM Plus
As Telecommunications Specialist for Olmsted County, Minnesota, Nena Tolman oversees the voice messaging needs of the numerous agencies operating under the County umbrella. "We pass between 10,000 and 15,000 voicemail messages a day," she notes. "We have people who are often away from their desks and phones - social workers, city workers, educators. Having a reliable way to receive messages regardless of where they are or how the message is sent is a major priority."
The County purchased Mutare’s EVM not only because of its seamless integration with their existing voicemail system and ability to convert voice and fax messages into email attachments, but also for its ease of use – little if no training was necessary for the nearly 2,000 county workers using the application.
“I very much appreciate that voicemail notifications are delivered with the sender’s ID so I can immediately prioritize call-backs," says Tolman.
"I’m constantly hearing about how easy and useful this system is. In addition, installation was completely painless, requiring no additional hardware purchases, no special training for our users, and no extra time or adjustments at all to keep it operational. We just loaded it on and started clicking away. I, for one, couldn’t be happier about that."
Town of Millinocket
Location: Millinocket, Maine
Market: Government
Application: ENS
There's not much a town can do to control Mother Nature. But with a little planning and the right tools, public officials can help make sure local residents are prepared to protect themselves and their properties when nature takes a turn for the worse.
In Millinocket, Maine, that tool is a new mass messaging application developed by Mutare Software. When integrated with the town’s existing Internet and telephone networks, Mutare’s Enterprise Notification System (ENS) enables town officials to quickly send custom voice and text alerts to targeted groups of residents. It is, according to Manager Eugene Conlogue, a welcome addition to the community’s comprehensive emergency response program.
Millinocket’s interest in a telephone warning system for its citizenry peaked two years ago when record rainfall caused flooding of the Millinocket Stream, a scenic waterway that winds through the town center. A dam approximately eight miles upstream from town not only controls the flow of water but also generates hydroelectric power for the region. The dam’s operating company, Brookfield Power, recognized the impact flooding conditions could have on downstream residents and, on behalf of the surrounding communities, obtained a $70,000 grant to purchase the Mutare system. Operating from a single, stand-alone server housed at the regional hospital, the ENS system is shared between Millinocket and the neighboring community of Medway. While ENS can accommodate a multitude of customized contact lists, Millinocket’s immediate concern was to provide early warning of potential flooding for residents along the river banks. Towards that end, the town offered all affected homeowners the opportunity to have their contact numbers and/or email addresses included on an ENS list. Should the town receive notice of rising river levels, a local ENS administrator can initiate a broadcast notice to every phone, cell phone, email address and PDA on the selected list. Because ENS is web-based, broadcasts may be initiated any time, from any location, using any phone or web browser.
“Installation was very smooth,” says Conlogue. “Mutare stayed with us every step of the way with their quick response to our questions and thorough training for those of us operating the system. Our residents now know that they will be contacted directly, and quickly, in the event that flooding becomes a threat, and they are grateful for the opportunity to take early action.”
Since testing ENS’s effectiveness, Millinocket is preparing to roll the system out community-wide to address a broader range of emergency situations, such as gas leaks, water outages or natural disasters advisories. Residents may sign up and provide their own contact numbers through the ENS self-populating website. With the flexible ENS lists, administrators are able to group users according to any number of criteria, such as by neighborhood, building or geographic location, so notices can be targeted to specific groups depending on the circumstances.
“We are fortunate that no new flooding has occurred since we installed ENS,” says Conlogue, “We also recognize that nature is unpredictable. There is great peace of mind, knowing that we have a quick, reliable, and easy to mange warning system in place, ready to respond, when the unexpected happens.
Keys Energy
Location: Florida
Market: Utilities
Application: EVM Plus
“We’ve never deployed an application so simple, yet so powerful” says Kris Bremer, Systems Analyst for Keys Energy. “Our users rely heavily on Mutare’s EVM for unified messaging, and from the day we installed it three years ago, it has worked flawlessly. I have had not a single complaint.”
Keys Energy provides electric power to approximately 28,000 customers in the lower Florida Keys. It is among the 84 power utilities nationwide to receive the Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) designation from the American Public Power Association – a distinction given only to those companies that meet the highest standards for consistent and safe power delivery. With nearly 300 miles of electric lines to maintain, Keys Energy operates around the clock to meet the region’s demand for uninterrupted power. Keeping communications flowing between customers, the main office and its highly mobile workforce is fundamental to that mission.
With EVM, critical voicemail messages are sure to reach their intended recipients, regardless of time or location. EVM continuously monitors the voicemail inbox, copies new messages, and delivers them as an email attachment to the user’s email inbox. Recipients receive text notification of waiting voicemail and are able to access and play their messages from their desktop or PDA, anytime, from any location.
“Our deployment with Mutare was seamless,” says Bremer. “As for troubleshooting, there has hardly been a need. Right from the start, EVM has done exactly what it’s supposed to do, and that is to make life easier for us and make us more responsive to our customers.”
CPS Energy
Location: Texas
Market: Utilities
Application: EVM Plus
“Speaking from a support aspect, the thing I like most about EVM is the fact that I don’t need to know much about it.” That, says Telecom Analyst Felix Melendes, is testimony to the flawless performance of the unified communications solution Mutare Software installed at CPS Energy more than two years ago. “I really appreciate how smoothly the implementation went and the knowledge of Mutare’s support team. We simply have never had a problem, which makes me, and our users, very happy.”
Felix first heard about Mutare’s Enabled VoiceMail (EVM) through Scott Golla, National Account Manager for Cross Telecom, one of the nation’s largest providers of integrated voice and data communications solutions. “We’ve had a very good relationship with Cross for a long time,” says Felix. “I knew that I could trust their recommendations for our telecommunications systems. When Scott mentioned that they had a solution that works with our existing Avaya Intuity voicemail system to provide unified messaging, I knew it was something we should see.” Scott engaged Mutare Software Regional Manager Linda Collins in presenting the features and value of EVM, a web-based application for enterprise users that copies voice and fax messages from voicemail and delivers them as attachments to the user email inbox. “My first thought was, ‘wow, we could use this!’,” says Felix, noting not only the benefits of EVM for internal collaboration but also improved responsiveness to CPS customers throughout the San Antonio region.
CPS purchased EVM, including licenses for 1,000 users, and installed it on a virtual server. “Personally, I can’t remember the last time I dialed into voicemail,” says Felix. “As a public utility, we receive a lot of customer calls. It’s a great convenience and a real time-saver to be able to access and listen to those messages from email. And, if I receive a message that needs to be directed to someone else, I simply forward the email with the .wav file attached. It couldn’t be easier.”
Continental Airlines
Location: Houston
Market: Transportation
Application: EVM Plus
As Technical Manager for Message Services at Continental Airlines, Pete Romfh continuously evaluates messaging technologies that improve processes while supporting service excellence. “We have thousands of employees working around the globe, 24/7. Making sure that we keep communications flowing at all times is critical,” he says. “When we looked at our options and considered the available communications methods, we realized that the phone is still the most universally-available. With that in mind, we considered any solution that enhances voice messaging a particularly good investment. That certainly proved true with Mutare’s EVM. In an environment like ours where people need quick access to their messages, no matter where they are in the world, unified voice messaging and EVM breaks the time-space continuum. Whether you are on Outlook™ in the office, a pay phone in Paris, the Internet in India, or a wireless device in Washington, it makes no real difference. My people get their messages at a time that’s convenient for them from whatever location they are currently in.”
According to Romfh, among the most frequent requests he’s received from employees is for a solution that integrates voicemail and email for quick and convenient access to messages. “When I learned about Mutare’s Enhanced Voice Messaging for Avaya, I knew it would be a great fit. We went ahead and purchased the application a year ago and have been steadily bringing users on board. Now, a frequent comment I hear is ‘Wow- this is so cool! I will never log into voicemail again!’”
Romfh was particularly impressed with how smoothly Mutare’s EVM solution was installed. “It was seamless,” he says, “and the system runs like a champ. If we ever run into snags, it just takes a quick phone call to Mutare and, poof! It’s fixed. There was even a time when Mutare called ME saying they had detected an error and wanted to make sure everything was operating correctly. It turned out to be nothing, but I really appreciate that level of attention. It’s cool knowing that there is someone else out there watching out for us.”
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Continental Airlines is the world's fifth largest airline. Continental, together with Continental Express and Continental Connection, has more than 2,750 daily departures throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia, serving 133 domestic and 132 international destinations. More than 750 additional points are served through alliance partners. With more than 43,000 employees, Continental has hubs serving New York, Houston, Cleveland and Guam, and together with its regional partners, carries approximately 67 million passengers per year.
Cushman & Wakefield
Location: New York
Market: Financial/Real Estate
Application: giSTT
As the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, Cushman & Wakefield appreciates the value of advanced communications technologies in delivering high-quality customer experiences across 221 offices in 58 countries. CIO Craig Cuyar described the firm’s communications goals as intensely customer focused.
“The biggest group of professionals in our business is the 7,000 people who comprise our broker population. Our business is driven by their being able to serve customers quickly and efficiently—which means having access to the right information at the right place and at the right time. Our customers expect a high level of service, and that is what we continually strive to provide.”
Cushman & Wakefield is committed to a customer service standard that delivers the same quality and responsiveness wherever customers are located—Los Angeles, New York, São Paulo, London, Moscow, Singapore, Sydney, or anywhere else in the world. At the same time, the firm wants to achieve cost savings by leveraging technologies designed to deliver both efficiency and effectiveness.
“Our model for communications technology is standardization, consolidation, and optimization,” Cuyar explained. New York–area deployment Cushman & Wakefield has established a strong infrastructure centralized at its core data center in northern New Jersey. The solution consists of Avaya Aura™ Communication Manager 5.2 running on Avaya S8730 Servers with G430 Media Gateways, and an Enterprise Survivable Server (ESS) at the New York headquarters. Four offices (two in Manhattan and two in Long Island) are served by Media Gateways from the data center in New Jersey. As part of the deployment, Cushman & Wakefield included Mutare Software’s EVM Plus™ application for unifying voicemail to email, and giSTT™ speech to text which converts the voice message to text so employees are able to read and respond to voicemail in text form with the same ease and convenience of email. Noted Cuyar, “We now have an excellent suite of unified communications solutions that empower our brokers to receive all of their e-mail and voicemails, no matter where they are. They can easily prioritize messages, see the transcript of a voice message, and work at home any time of the day or night, just as if they are in the office. We’ve received rave reviews about the new tools that have been provided, especially from our ‘power users’ in the field, who really appreciate speed and efficiency for both their incoming and outgoing communications.” As for Return on Investment, said Cuyar, “Overall I’d estimate that we have increased productivity of our people in the New York area by at least 15%.”
Superior Mortgage Corp.
Location: Hammonton, NJ
Market: Mortgage
Application: EVM Plus
After more than 24 years of successful business, Superior Mortgage Corp. prides itself on providing the highest level of service by employing the most knowledgeable and trained personnel. EVM Plus giSTT was implemented in July and is currently being utilized by 40% of the company; including loan officers and senior management. Superior Mortgage is using EVM as an additional method for customer service, providing them access to voicemail messages instantly when they are out of the office.
“The recognizable benefit is the added customer service,” said Naseem Siddiqui, Telecommunications Manager for Superior Mortgage Corp. “Employees are instantly available. If they’re on the road they may not know they have a voicemail. They love it. It makes things simple and it saves a lot of time. Our customers, (loan applicants/borrowers), get immediate response if they leave a voicemail.”
Not only was the software vey user friendly from an administration standpoint, but the difference in productivity was immediate; increasing 60% to 70% after the installation.
Steve Cors, Chief Executive Officer for Superior Mortgage Corp said, “Recently, the seemingly small addition of an email being instantly sent to employees when a voicemail is left is huge for me, for everyone in sales and sales support, and for our ability to deliver customer service.”
MDT Products
Location: Valley City, OH
Market: Manufacturing
Application: EVM Plus
Jami Moore, Telecommunications Specialist and Engineer for MDT Products, outlined how her company cut international cellular costs over 87% combining in country mobile plans, call vectoring, automatic alternate call routing and EVM Plus to provide seamless communications for traveling executives.
MDT is an international manufacturer of outdoor power equipment with a highly mobile employee force supporting facilities in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Mexico. MDT purchased Mutare's EVM solution in 2010, to simplify access to voice messages through email for on mobile devices and PC’s. "I just wanted to say that EVM works great, is easy to install, and requires very little user training, "Jami said at the onset of her presentation. "Employees using EVM are very satisfied with this product and the standard response seems to be "oh wow... That's pretty cool." In addition, MDT found significant money saving benefits in an unexpected place - China.
MDT employees frequently travel between the office in Ohio and Suzhou China, ringing up some significant international/long distance phone charges. Management challenged the telecommunication team to find a way to reduce international communication costs, while at the same time providing access to critical voice messages and follow up.
"The majority of employees traveling to China are engineers. They need to interact with their team members frequently, especially if the conversation revolves around a design change, a process change, or something happening on the manufacturing line," Jami said. "Engineers spend a lot of time out on the manufacturing floor and timely notification of messages was a key factor in trying to find a viable solution."
The solution: MDT purchased a regional mobile phone with a data plan, to be used by employees traveling internationally. Using EVM, mobile users simply configure their EVM settings to have their voice messages relayed to the mobile device as an email. That not only eliminates costly dial-ins for voice messages but also overcame the aggravation of missed messages due to the time zone difference. For outgoing calls, MDT created a vector directory number (VDN) to route calls from their regional office. The VDN passes the caller to the Corporate PBX in Ohio thru Automatic Alternate Routing (AAR) giving the caller the ability to make outbound, local, or long distance calls free.
The Swett and Crawford Group, Inc.
Location: Suwanee, GA
Market: Insurance
Application: EVM Plus
As one of the nation's oldest and most respected wholesale insurance brokers, The Swett & Crawford Group, Inc. prides itself on the high level of expertise and service its agents deliver to the commercial insurance marketplace. Giving those agents the tools they need to manage the quick pace and complexity of communications between clients and global carriers falls in the hands of the company's IT experts and its Facilities Management department.
"We were looking for a way to give our people the benefits of unified messaging," said Kimberly Davies, Vice President of Facilities Management. "We were thrilled to find out from our representative at Tel-IS that there was an application by Mutare Software that would work with our existing system (hosted Exchange) when other third party vendors could not. EVM not only delivers voicemail to email, but also includes a text transcription which is really important to us."
The Swett & Crawford Group, Inc. installed EVM Plus with giSTT speech to text in July, and the response from EVM-enabled field agents was immediate.
"Our brokers are supposed to be out, away from the phone, working [with] businesses and seeing clients. They absolutely love the fact that they get their phone messages delivered in text to their hand-held devices so they know right away if there is an important call," said Davies. "I've been told by several that they simply never need to answer the phone anymore because it is so much faster getting the 'gist' of the message with EVM."
While motivated by the needs of the field, Davies reports a number of other, unexpected benefits generated by the new application. "Our company is very big on conference calls, which means a lot of phone messages go to voicemail. As someone who spends a lot of time at the desk on the phone, I love being able to see those messages in my email. When I'm off the call, I already know which messages I need to respond to right away and which ones can wait."
As a company with contacts around the globe, The Swett & Crawford Group, Inc. has also realized the financial benefits of EVM with giSTT for its international travelers. "Just last week one of our brokers was on his way to Europe and asked to be enabled with EVM. That way, he could see all of his phone messages in email and not incur the high costs for international phone usage."
Additionally, The Swett & Crawford Group, Inc. is a company that archives all of its email. "Up until now, there was no good way to include the content of voice messages in our archives. Now, those EVM messages are archived right along with email. I've had numerous people who tell me how great it is that they can search and retrieve their archived voice messages."
While praising the product, Davies was also impressed by how smoothly the installation went. "In my line of work, I know that a good installation makes all the difference. You can have the best product in the world but if the installation goes bad, that's all you are going to remember. This installation went without a hitch."
With 250 users enabled with EVM to date, Davies says she anticipates many more as word gets around, noting, "It is just a fabulous tool."
