The Challenge

The folks at Tomlinson Bomberger are some of the most forward-thinking professionals in the lawn care, tree service, landscaping, and pest control industry. When they decided it was time to move away from their premise-based phone system, they wanted a cloud-based solution that not only improved call efficiently, but also gave them actionable insights into how they were servicing customers at the point of initial contact.

With so many customers calling Tomlinson Bomberger on a daily basis to discuss new or existing services, the company’s headquarters essentially serve as a mini-call center. Moving away from a phone system with a push-button interface was a priority, because it offered no data insights and added precious seconds to every call as the receptionist scrolled through menus, selected different options, and pushed numerous buttons to find a destination. Tomlinson Bomberger reached out to Heritage Communications to provide them with an innovative cloud-based solution that would offer a more efficient and insightful interface.

The Solution

This request was actually a first for us. Most of our cloud-based phone clients choose traditional handsets or smart-phone interfaces for their office personnel. Receptionists route calls via phone systems with sidecar extension modules, a keypad, and blinking buttons to indicate whether a line is occupied or on hold. It was clear from the outset that the best solution for Tomlinson Bomberger would be a system with a graphical interface that could be operated from a PC.

After doing extensive research, we partnered with a company called Voice Operator Panel, which offers a streamlined software program that is operated with mouse clicks rather than buttons and keypads. This system seemed ideal for Tomlinson Bomberger, because it promised everything they were looking for—a PC interface, a more efficient method of transferring customers to appropriate destinations, and a clear way to collect customer service data.

Promises, however, are sometimes just that, so we obtained a demo version of the program and began running tests to vet the software. To our great delight, it worked exactly as promised!

As easy to operate as the software program was, we worried that migrating from a traditional, premise-based phone system to a software program that operated exclusively from a computer screen might be a heavy culture shock for Tomlinson Bomberger’s personnel.

Typically, when onboarding a customer to a cloud-based phone system, we’ll provide on-site training with groups of up to 10 team members at a time to acquaint them with the hardware’s operations and functionality. Understanding the different menus and push-button functions can sometimes present a learning curve, and training can therefore last up to a day in some cases. With the Voice Operator Panel system, we were concerned that the lack of familiarity with an entirely new approach to inbound calls could create difficulty for the Tomlinson Bomberger team, so we blocked out plenty of time for training.

What happened next utterly amazed us.

The Result

At the training, we provided an interactive demonstration where the head receptionist and her team could experience the software as they would in real-time. We were prepared for extensive rounds of questions and answers as they grew comfortable with the new program.

To our astonishment, they were working it like pros within 10 minutes.

There was really no challenge at all in transitioning them from a phone environment to a PC environment. Not only did the team find the program extremely easy to use (the refrain of the day was “This is so easy!”), they were excited to have it implemented, so they could begin using it as soon as possible.

Tomlinson Bomberger now has the ability to see their entire calling ecosystem in one easy-to-navigate screen. The receptionist can see each phone line and tell by color codes whether the person at that extension is available, on hold, calling, or busy. Once an incoming call destination has been identified, the receptionist only has to drag and drop the caller to the appropriate extension.

Not only has the Voice Operator Panel program increased the call efficiency for Tomlinson Bomberger, in conjunction with our cloud-based call center application, the company now has the ability to track the effectiveness of all incoming calls to see how their customers are being routed, so they can put quality control measures in place based on the data they’re receiving. They can quickly identify how many calls have been answered for a given time period, how many calls have been abandoned, what the average hold time is for callers, and so much more. They are getting information that they’ve never had before, which has greatly helped with quality control and the efficiency of their operation.

Since deploying the new system for Tomlinson Bomberger, we’ve had no follow-up calls from the team for additional training or support requests. It’s intuitive and user-friendly, and we plan to use it again for other customers in the future.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one cloud-based phone system solution that is easy to navigate and full of helpful features, give us a call at 717-431-6266 or contact Heritage Communications today!