BACKGROUND
Babbage Simmel & Associates, based in Dublin, OH, is a technology training and consulting firm. They offer Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, and Active Developer educational training courses and high level Microsoft and Novell consulting. Founded in 1983, Babbage Simmel does business with approximately 700 companies around the country and has over 11,000 alumni that have participated in its training courses.

THE CHALLENGE
Over the last several years, Babbage Simmel has grown at a rapid rate and recently they began to experience message overload. “ We had calls constantly coming into our receptionist, who spent almost all of her time directing callers to the correct extension,” Rick Haggard, Babbage Simmel and Associates Director of Operations said. “On top of all the calls we were receiving, we were inundated with faxes coming and going. Documents were always getting misrouted or lost, it was not a very productive means of communicating,” Haggard continued. Babbage Simmel needed a better way to manage all of their messages.

THE SOLUTION
Babbage Simmel’s messaging issues were resolved when Norstan, an AVST partner, presented them with the AVST unified messaging solution CallXpress®. Unified messaging allows Babbage Simmel employees to access all three message types (voice, fax, and email) from their desktop PC or telephone. “CallXpress has given us a huge advantage in the way we communicate. By unifying our messages our office has taken a proactive approach in managing our communication overload challenges,” Haggard said.

Being able to view voice, fax and email messages from Microsoft Outlook® has made Babbage Simmel employees more productive. “We no longer leave our offices, wait our turn at one of the office’s public fax machines, and then spend more time loading and sending the document. That is if it goes through the first time,” Haggard said. “Its just click, click and the document is gone. ” In addition to the ease of sending faxes straight from their PC, Babbage Simmel employees have the comfort of knowing that faxes arrive with complete confidentiality and privacy. “We no longer have documents lingering around the office, either lost or misrouted. Now all of our faxes arrive safely and accurately,” Haggard said.

Babbage Simmel has also set up a fax library for its sales staff so when a customer is requesting information, Babbage Simmel employees need only make a couple clicks of their mouse and corporate literature or forms are sent off to the requesting client immediately. “We have saved a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money by eliminating multiple warehouses of documents,” Haggard said. “With the fax library we have a centralized location for all our corporate information, and time is not wasted running around trying to find the appropriate information to send off to our clients.”

CallXpress is also a very flexible solution, providing employees of Babbage Simmel the same easy-to-use functionality on the road as it does in the office. “I really like the idea that before I leave to go on a trip, I can load all of my voice, fax, and email messages into my PC, so that I may reference back to them while I am on the road,” Haggard said. “And if I want to access my new messages all I have to do is simply connect my laptop to the company’s network.” Haggard can also obtain all of his new messages through a single telephone call. He simply calls in to the CallXpress system, and he can listen to all of his voice, fax, and email messages. If Haggard prefers to read his messages he can forward all of his faxes and emails to the closest fax machine. “The remote access feature is very popular at Babbage Simmel, with approximately 80 percent of the staff taking advantage of it,” Haggard said.

“To have all three messages arrive at the same location has great value to us. It makes our staff much more productive. Since installing CallXpress our staff has seen an increase of 15 percent in production levels,” Haggard said. “The AVST unified messaging product has also allowed us to have a more one on one relationship with our customers and clients. They now have three ways to directly contact us.” And if Babbage Simmel employees are not in their office, they can be paged when an urgent message arrives.

RESULTS
The receptionist at Babbage Simmel has seen her productivity levels rise as well—by more than 50 percent. She is no longer answering and directing routine calls, she is now able to redirect her time towards more critical tasks. Now when callers dial in to the Babbage Simmel main number, they are greeted promptly and given several different options. The system can even connect them with the party they are trying to reach, even if they do not have that person’s extension number.

Having the CallXpress system run on a Windows platform was another important selling point for Babbage Simmel. “We are able to administer our whole system on a single platform, which makes managing the system easy and convenient,” Haggard said. CallXpress can be administered from any Windows workstation on the network using standard Windows controls such as pull-down menus, radio buttons, and on-line help. As Babbage Simmel continues to grow they will be able to expand their AVST system to meet their needs due to the products scalability.

“We are extremely happy with our CallXpress system. It has met and exceeded our expectations. We are very pleased with its reliability and its competitive pricing,” Haggard said. “No other products really compare to the AVST system.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
For 25 years, AVST has been shaping the evolution of communication, with more than 40,000 installations. Our award-winning CallXpress solution has been unifying communications for companies all over the world. So as the world of enterprise communications advances, you can be assured that AVST has your future covered. To learn more visit www.avst.com or contact us at +1.949.699.2300.