Picking New Answering Service Equipment

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It's a tough decision. And an expensive one. We need new equipment deliver more services more consistently accurately to our medical client base. We do a good job now. But we can provide more and do it better with the next generation of equipment.  So my key decision on which equipment to buy was based on which products delivered the best services for our answering service and call center clients. A second factor was how it helped the operators do a better job in their job of triaging our client's callers. Third, for those detail activities that can be automated, have the equipment take care of them,

There are 5 major players that supply equipment to the answering service industry. Amtelco, Startel, Telescan, CadCom (or OnviSource) and Pinnacle. I looked seriously at all of these systems and at companies that used each of them. It was a tough choice. I eliminated Amtelco for being too expensive for the value they currently deliver, Startel for the current turmoil in the organization, and CadCom for the not being far enough along with their third generation equipment. That left Telescan and Pinnacle. Both  were excellent systems. Both have passionate users and excellent management.

So the decision rested on three major considerations. First was the scripting ability. Scripting, if it's done right, provides consistency to the questions to ask each caller. Our objective is to ask the questions in the same way that our clients would to triage the call and provide that information to our clients. Second, the decision also rested on the reliability and ease of controlling the dispatch process (delivering the messages from our client's callers). And, third, the opinion of Colleen and a couple of our operators on the ease of use played a major role.

With all three considerations, Pinnacle was, in our judgment, the better platform. Pinnacle was much more mature in the scripting process than any of the other platforms. Their experience with PI ... a scripting program designed for taking orders and other call center activities ... was the basis for the Pinnacle platform for the Answering Service industry.

Pinnacle's approach to the dispatch process also seemed more logical. It kept all the information about the on-call people in a specific database, then kept the rules separate yet linked to he people. And, finally co-ordinated the calendar and the time to each. All three are controlled by logical decision making processes that are consistent over time. It seems complicated. But what's really complicated is the decision making process to properly triage a call. If we understand our clients business process and can develop a decision tree of that process, we can develop the rules to make sure the messages are delivered correctly to the right people at the time they want them. Pinnacle's design makes managing the process easy.

Finally, Colleen and my operators really liked the system. They visualized how easy their jobs would be to get the messages right and deliver them correctly for our clients. That was important.

So, that's the reason we picked the Pinnacle platform. The other systems do a good job for other Answering Service companies as well. Maybe next year, one of the other platforms will be better than Pinnacle. But, at least right now, when i need to make a decision, Pinnacle seems to be the best platform for us to expand and deliver additional services to our client base.