Case Studies
New Tech Computer Systems
Profile by TeamSupport Staff
New Tech Computer Systems (www.newtechsys.com), headquartered in Shreveport, LA, develops and maintains specialized software systems to facilitate the day-to-day business practices of retail and institutional pharmacies, as well as alternate care facilities such as nursing homes and health clinics. The company, a subsidiary of Morris Dickson wholesale pharmaceuticals, established in 1841, operates in seven states and is actively extending its business footprint.
Ron Petitt, an experienced IT manager, was brought on-board with the prime directive to organize operations and prepare the business for significant anticipated growth. His first tasks were to formalize software testing practices and establish the framework for a call center styled support department.
He found the company's Retail and Institutional Groups were getting-by with a proprietary and highly customized support center system, but The Alternate Care Group had no viable technology to manage their workflows. Client support issues were not being properly documented; vital information and test results were stored in individual email accounts or as Word documents in difficult-to-navigate shared folders on the company network. "Common problems and solutions had to be solved the 'long way' almost every time they occurred," Petitt realized. "TeamSupport helped us change all that practically overnight."
Petitt discovered TeamSupport as part of his online research of call center products. He evaluated some 10 popular systems, some hosted and some on-premises-based, before choosing TeamSupport. The decision was easy, "Right off the bat it seemed easier to use," he said. "It had enough 'out-of-the-box' features to get my team moving ... integration with our e-mail system was a real plus and we could create custom workflows. TeamSupport offered us a broader scope of use, for example, some were focused on bug-tracking or software testing, but overlooked customer information."
"It would have taken us at least three to four months to develop and test a custom in-house system." TeamSupport was up-and-running in a single day. "There was very little learning curve to it – granted our staff is pretty technically oriented – TeamSupport's intuitive layout and functional metaphors made it a gem to implement."
"TeamSupport has become the center of our world ... everything begins and ends there." With its tie-in to their e-mail system, the group uses TeamSupport tickets throughout the daily workflow. Very little was being documented prior to TeamSupport, "what little we had was hard to get hold of and there was no central knowledge base or means of keeping-up with customer contacts, or of knowing who was dealing with what. If I were to narrow it down to one thing, I would have to say that TeamSupport has really improved our internal communications," Petitt declared.
General ticket creation and assignment between team members are core to New Tech's TeamSupport success. While most tickets are for customer support calls and remain with the individual who created it, task and bug tracking tickets "are passed around quite a bit since they're used for software development and can go through several stages and owners before being marked complete. The ability to attach files to a ticket is also important – it's often easier to forward a screen shot of the problem than try to describe it with words alone. Using TeamSupport's email notification, it's rare that anything falls through the cracks." The company is also taking advantage of TeamSupport's Inventory and WIKI features, "It's great to be able to centrally organize documents and other needed information in a place that is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection," noted Petitt.
Petitt characterized the support he's received as "responsive, fast and involved with insuring our success in using the product." Because they're also in the software development business, he understands the difference between "minor convenience tweaks versus major feature additions; TeamSupport has been really good about implementing minor changes that make the product more elegant or easy to use." For example, exposing the actual URL link to a particular ticket, "We used to copy the address from a separate window and paste it elsewhere; now we just click the 'Show URL' button to see the address – I asked for it on a Friday and it was there on Monday!" The TeamSupport staff also helped tap-into features of their web-based phone system. "When a call goes to voice mail, it sends TeamSupport an embedded MP3 of the caller's message and Team Support, in turn emails the appropriate group about the new ticket."
Would Petitt recommend TeamSupport to others? "I certainly would, especially for its ease of use, fast implementation and reasonable cost of ownership," he said.
Ron Petitt has been in the software and IT industry for more than fifteen years and has served in every role from tech support desk to operations manager.
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