Outstanding Service Earns National Award

TOP TEN

MedCom Professional Services, Inc. Wins ATSI Award of Excellence

MedCom Professional Services, Inc. of Levittown, PA has been honored with the exclusive 2009 Award of Excellence for twelve consecutive years, earning a combined score of 96.9%. The award is presented annually by the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI), the industry’s trade association for providers of telecommunications and call center services including telephone answering and message delivery. MedCom Professional Services, Inc. was presented with the award at ATSI’s 2009 Annual Convention held at the Westin Convention Center Hotel in Pittsburgh, PA.

After six months of intensive testing, an independent panel of judges scored call-handling skills such as courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients, the cornerstones of the call management industry. If a company scores 80% or better in ALL categories, they are presented with the coveted Award of Excellence.

“The ATSI Award of Excellence offers the industry the kind of quality testing and benchmarking that is essential to help us establish the service levels demanded by our customers. We congratulate MedCom Professional Services, not only for their TOP TEN achievement in 2008 but also for following up this year with another TOP TEN placement in 2009 from a field of 136 participating telephone answering services,” stated ATSI President Dennis O’Hara.

Now a twelve-time winner, MedCom Professional Services, Inc. has earned the Diamond Award for twelve consecutive years. ATSI congratulates the staff of MedCom Professional Services, Inc. on their proven quality service to their customers.

About ATSI
The Association of TeleServices International was founded in 1942 as a national trade association representing live answering services. ATSI now encompasses companies across the United States offering specialized and enhanced operator based services including: call centers, contact centers, inbound telemarketing, paging, voice messaging, emergency dispatch, fax, and internet services among others.

21st Annual SNUG Conference

Earlier this week members of MedCom’s management staff attended the 21^st annual SNUG (Startel National Users Group) Conference. The conference was held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the Sheraton Convention Center Hotel. Some of the main focuses at the conference were networking amongst other answering services, brainstorming ideas to create new products or services and reviewing industry standards to reach the next level of service.

Although attendees of the conference represent their own company, each brings as much information and suggestions to offer guidance to competitive businesses. The concept of management staff from competitive offices sharing ideas and business practices is one that many, specifically those not members of user groups or trade associations, may not realize the benefit. However, the value of collaborating with other members in the industry allows your company to be open to change, continually learning and to expand your business knowledge and resources.

Openly discussing operations and practices allows you analyze your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, commonly referred to as SWOT analysis. This SWOT analysis becomes part of your future strategic planning. It focuses on both internal and external factors. The internal factors are Strengths and Weaknesses. Your company’s Strengths are the aspects of your organization that are helpful in reaching your goal; whereas, Weaknesses are the aspects of your organization that are harmful to reaching your goal. The external factors are Opportunities and Threats. Your company’s Opportunities are the external aspects of your organization that are helpful in reaching your goal; whereas, Threats are the external aspects of your organization that are harmful to reaching your goal. An important note to take is that the SWOT analysis is not the actual planning strategy. SWOT analysis is used as a description of factors that must be considered within a planned strategy.

Listed on Wikipedia are several examples of possible factors included in a SWOT analysis:

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Resources: financial, intellectual, location.
• Cost advantages from proprietary know-how and/or location.
• Creativity (ability to develop new products).
• Valuable intangible assets: intellectual capital.
• Competitive capabilities.
• Effective recruitment of talented individuals.
• Competitive Advantage.
• Brand reputation.
• New product.

Opportunities and Threats

• Expansion or down-sizing of competitors.
• Market trends.
• Economic conditions.
• Expectations of stakeholders.
• Technology.
• Public expectations.
• All other activities or inactivities by competitors.
• Criticisms by outsiders.
• Changes in markets.
• All other environmental conditions.
• Global Influences.

After attending the SNUG Conference, I found that the sharing of business practices and philosophies amongst successful industry leaders is necessary for any company to constantly reevaluate its current holdings and to find new ways to succeed.

Remaining Profitable in a Rapidly Changing Industry

Looking back on the answering service industry ten maybe even five years ago has shown considerable changes to the industry as a whole. The industry is constantly changing; resulting from newer and improved technologies. Within the timeframe mentioned above, MedCom succeeded within the industry by achieving some major accomplishments and top of the line upgrades. MedCom enabled voice messaging systems, SQL servers, web-based features and upgraded to Startel’s latest CMC Platform becoming the first answering service to operate a fully redundant and completely operational back-up CMC platform. MedCom earned significant awards and certifications achievements in the call center, such as the SNUG 24/7 Site Certification GOLD LEVEL and the ATSI Award of Excellence. One of the main goals at MedCom is to stay ahead of the competition, offering the latest features and providing excellent service.

The best way to remain profitable in any industry is to focus on your company’s core competencies. The core competencies are services or products that make your company excel in certain fields. Core competencies focus on adding value from services or products for the customer, making that service or product difficult for competitors to match or copy and they must be adaptable for a variety of markets.

Over the years, MedCom has experienced a steady growth by focusing on our core competencies. Under the leadership and guidance from management, our agents have been trained on how to best handle our clients’ calls within a one to two minute timeframe. While maintaining the industry’s highest standards, our agents interact with callers obtaining the necessary information requested by each of our clients. Having to handle calls from a variety of business environments, medical, commercial and professional, require our agents to remain attentive and focus on each caller’s needs. It is customary for our customers to expect and receive all necessary information in a timely fashion. You would actually be amazed at how much information our agents will get from callers in such a quick time span of one to two minutes per call. MedCom’s efforts to continually reduce the time needed to efficiently acquire callers’ information has become one of the most important and cost effective services given to our clients.

Resulting from MedCom’s quick and efficient call taking, our agents are available for the next caller. At MedCom, we focus on providing each caller with our agent’s undivided attention for the duration of their call with a minimal hold time. We strive to provide each clients’ customer a pleasant experience when they call. Long hold times and frequent interruptions reflect poorly on the quality of an answering service along with the reflection the client themselves. Therefore, we provide ample staffing to manage call volume and more importantly hold times. Each of the past three years, MedCom significantly lower the hold times for any callers placed on hold. In 2005, the average hold time for a caller was twenty seven seconds, in 2006 the average dropped to twenty five seconds and last year the average was down again to twenty four seconds. These hold times are well below the industry benchmark, which is service level difficult for competitors to replicate.

Additionally, MedCom is renowned for implementing the latest technologies available. Offering new features provide us ways to reduce customers’ costs, improve the quality and eliminate errors. Staying atop the technology curve, MedCom remains a step ahead of competitors. Some of the latest features include: accessing your messages via the internet, communicating with agents via 2-way text messaging and even enhanced customer data basing. Stemming from using the latest available features, minimal hold times, and efficient quality service, MedCom has earned and won the ATSI Award of Excellence ten consecutive years, including this year’s Top Score.

Finally, it is important to know that your company can’t be the best at everything. The best way to remain profitable is to focus on what you can do best and stand out in those areas. Focusing on core competencies lets you build competitive advantages that your customers will remember.

If you would like to hear more about MedCom, visit our website or use the new CALL ME button on the our blog’s homepage. The CALL ME button connects you directly to our office.