The web-based SMS solution from TMC enables Park Lane House to immediately engage with mobile and home-working customers, through an online database and messaging service, to pass on urgent correspondence via SMS. The customer-centric service allows clients the flexibility to review business-critical messages instantly and respond at their own convenience.
Mandy Gardner, Office Manager at Park Lane House, commented: “At the click of a button we are now able to communicate messages to our customers in seconds. This has allowed us to speed up our internal processes reducing time-spent manually contacting our customers to pass on messages via the telephone. Call handling time has been greatly reduced, allowing staff to invest this time in other pressing areas of our business and our clients’ experience has been significantly enhanced.”
Park Lane House supports the growing trend of mobile and home-working businesses by providing secretarial support such as mail and call handling, typist services and ad-hoc meeting premises. The TMC SMS solution means Park Lane House can instantly forward telephone messages to clients, allowing the mobile workforce to concentrate on core business activity. Gardner comments, “Our customers vary from start-ups to large enterprise organisations all of whom are routing incoming calls to us when they’re on-the-road. SMS is therefore integral to Park Lane House offering an immediate, direct and easy communication service that meets the needs of those clients.”
Gardner continued: “Clients benefit from direct access to telephone messages wherever they are based, enabling them to return calls at their discretion and convenience, avoiding disruption to appointments or meetings. Our clients’ customers also benefit from the assurance that someone will always answer their call, rather than encountering the frustration of continually being diverted to a voicemail. Through TMC we are able to offer a more personalised approach in a 24/7 ‘always-on’ society requiring immediate interaction, especially in business.”
The convenience and accessibility of a text message elicits a timely response compared to other methods of communication. For instance, dependence on email as a mechanism for delivering urgent messages potentially exposes businesses to the risk of vital messages being lost in a congested inbox or being relegated to the bottom of the list. Gardner adds, “With text, there is no need for businesses to invest in equipping staff with expensive mobile devices, such as Blackberry, iPhone or PDA to enable out-of-office access to email. Instead information is available on their handset in an instant via SMS.”
For most organisations immediate communication is a vital aspect of every-day business and with increased staff mobility, time-critical telephone messages may not be addressed until returning to the office, by which time it may be too late – the ramifications of which could be critical for any business. Gardner explained: “SMS is the quickest and most effective form of communication and with it, businesses can ensure that messages are delivered on the day straight to a mobile device, allowing staff to communicate with clients and prospects as soon as possible. This has really enhanced our business offering to existing and new virtual office customers.”
Park Lane House is also using the SMS solution as a marketing tool in order to inform all of its customers of timely special offers, new services or service updates relating to public holidays. SMS is a traceable method by which critical information can be instantly dispersed across a client base.
Gardner continued: “We looked at a number of SMS solutions, particularly from the large mobile operators, however a lot of them incorporated advertising within all messages sent and we didn’t want our recipients to have to read adverts every time they receive a text message from us. TMC’s easy to use web-based application can be accessed from any computer. All messages are fully auditable and compliant through the interface should our customers have a query.”
Gardner concluded: “We selected TMC to provide our SMS services due to the unbeatable value for money that the solution presented. TMC’s ‘no contract, no minimum term, no fixed monthly fee’ approach was one of the key business drivers for Park Lane House, along with TMC’s reputation for cost efficiency and reliability.”