BACKGROUND
Evans, Mechwart, Hambleton & Tilton, Inc., based in Columbus, OH, is a civil engineering and surveying firm that was founded in the early 1920’s. With over 250 employees EMH&T has provided engineering and surveying work for hundreds of clients in Ohio.

THE CHALLENGE
For years EMH&T has provided its clients with world class customer service and top quality engineering and surveying support. However, recently EMH&T faced two major challenges in their pursuit to continue providing their clients with the top quality service they had come to expect. EMH&T was dealing with a messaging system that was not only outdated but also unreliable. EMH&T found itself constantly looking for technical support when their messaging system failed them. Their system was based on a Unix platform. Unfortunately no one at EMH&T was familiar with Unix since the rest of their client server platform was Windows based.

Along with their technical difficulties, EMH&T experienced rapid growth in both their business and the amount of messages they received. “Its amazing how many messages go through our office in a single day,” Adam Long, EMH&T Professional Engineer, Professional Surveyor and Information Technology Manager said. “ So many times messages would get lost, mixed up, or given to the wrong person.” EMH&T was in need of a messaging system that could manage all of their messages, was reliable, and easy to administer.

THE SOLUTION
EMH&T was amazed by the technology they discovered when Norstan, an AVST partner, introduced them to the unified messaging solution CallXpress®. The AVST unified messaging solution allows EMH&T employees to access voice, fax, and email messages from their desktop PC or from a single telephone call. “With CallXpress we have been able to consolidate our messages, creating a more efficient way to manage the way we communicate,” Long said.

Our final decision came down to AVST and a competitor. However, the choice was easy, AVST offered true unified messaging, with a feature rich design and seamless integration,” Long said. “We are extremely pleased with our AVST system, it has been extremely reliable and cost effective.”

Having all three message types arrive at their Microsoft Outlook® inbox has also made EMH&T associates much more productive. “ With its user-friendly functionality and easy to read icons, we are better able to prioritize are messages,” Long said. “ All of my messages are laid out in front of me. I can easily check and see if my boss has sent me an important email or voice message, or I can quickly glance to see if that urgent fax I have been waiting for has arrived.”

CallXpress also gives EMH&T access to all of their messages over the telephone. From a single telephone call anywhere in the world EMH&T associates can listen to their voice messages, listen to their email messages, which are converted to speech. They can also forward any fax and email messages to the fax machine of their choice. “For our employees working off-site, the remote functionality has been a huge advantage for them. They have the same access to their messages as those of us working in the office,” Long said. It saves those EMH&T employees a tremendous amount of time and energy. They are no longer spending an unnecessary amount of their time searching for their messages. “ One of the best features of the remote access is the paging capabilities,” Long said. “I no longer worry about having to check my messages every 5 minutes. When an important message arrives at my inbox I am notified with a page.”

Once a message arrives at an EMH&T employee’s mailbox, it is very easy for them to reply to that message. Long explains that after checking an important email message over the phone, EMH&T employee’s are able to respond to that message with the same touch tone commands used to check their messages. “It’s so easy, you just press a couple of keys and you can reply to that email with a voice message. Or if you are busy you can forward that email on to a co-worker along with a voice introduction explaining how you would like them to respond to that message,” Long said. “With such features we have been able to offer our clients improved customer service and support, while making more efficient use of our time.”

Another time and money saving feature of CallXpress is its fax capabilities. Faxes are no longer misplaced or misrouted when coming into the EMH&T office, since they are sent directly to employees’ desktop PC. “ I can’t begin to tell you how much time we have saved by not having to search the office to find that important fax that was accidentally picked up with someone else’s documents. We also don’t waste time walking to the fax machine to send off a document, all of that is now done from our PC,” Long said. Along with saving precious time and money, EMH&T employees have the ease of knowing that all their faxes will arrive with complete privacy and confidentiality—a comforting feature not available with public fax machines.

However, according to EMH&T the most appealing feature of CallXpress is its Windows based platform. “Since the rest of our operating system already ran on a Windows platform, it only made sense to go with CallXpress,” Long said. “With the Windows platform of CallXpress, our administrators have no problem managing the system.” 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. “ We were also very fond of the fact that we will be able to expand our CallXpress system as EMH&T continues to grow, due in part to the system’s scalability,” Long said.

“We could not be more pleased with our AVST unified messaging system,” Long said. “It has definitely improved our customer service and communications capabilities making all of our jobs a lot easier. AVST has delivered what they promised.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (“AVST”) is a leader in the unified communications (“UC”) marketplace uniquely combining the strengths of its world-class messaging platform, CallXpress®, with its speech-enabled call management module, Seneca™, to create a powerful, next-generation unified communications solution. The Company’s products are designed to scale and support organizations of all sizes. For more information please contact us at: www.avst.com or +1.949.699.2300.