Appletree Answering Service

Appletree has taken a multi-lateral approach in communicating the importance of our Customer data. 

1. Company Insight:  As an answering service, we act as an extension of your business.  If we don’t properly emulate your business, then we are not successfully servicing your customers.  Our Service Managers are constantly asking you for information about your company: FAQ’s, directions, services offered, hours of operation, etc. in an effort to represent you transparently to your customers 
2. Customer Contact Information:  Contacting the right person in your organization is important to us.  For example, if we have a billing question, we want to talk to the appropriate person.  In order to adequately do this, we need to ensure we have correct email addresses, points of contact and phone numbers.  This will allow us to reach you at a moments notice, in the event of an emergency.
3. On Call Directories:  Having correct and up to date on-call information for your employees lets us assist your customers quickly and accurately.  Always contacting the appropriate on-call employee improves the caller’s (your customer’s) perception of your business.  We understand the importance of being in a 24/7 business and real-time information allows us to contact the appropriate employee for that middle of the night emergency call.

Appletree has taken strides to provide our Customers and Employees with the tools necessary to improve the overall experience.  With the implementation of our CRM SalesForce this year, our Employees are working hard to update our Customers company and contact information.  This resource has been a tremendous help in communicating with our Customers.  Proactive campaigns are aiding us in obtaining more detail about our Customers needs, products and concerns.  In the coming months, you will be receiving information cards that we would like for you to complete and return.  Remember, the more information you provide us, the better armed we are to serve you and your Customers.  Finally, we have implemented technology enhancements that allow most of our Customers the ability to check and change their on-call schedules 24/7 via the web from anywhere you have internet access.  For those locations that do not have this capability yet, we are working very hard to ensure we have similar systems in place and the directories are loaded in real time and with the most accurate of schedules.

With growth comes responsibility.  And with an intense focus to deliver exceptional service, Appletree has restructured our Company Core Values.  Our Mission Statement, “Enhancing the lives of our Customers and Employees one interaction at a time”, demonstrates the overall commitment we are striving for; our core values help us define how we are going to deliver on that commitment. 

•   Employees are Critical

•   Think like a Customer

•   Integrity Matters

•   Small Details are Huge

•   Be Quick, But Don’t Hurry

•   Take Care of Each Other

With 12 sites and 350 employees, the deployment of our Core Values had to be perfect.  We created small laminated pocket cards that included our Mission Statement and Core Values, and were distributed to all of our employees.  John Ratliff, CEO of Appletree, recorded a video that was posted on Youtube.com defining the value and importance of a company standing for something and getting behind a common goal.  Finally, we posted descriptions of our Core Values on our internal Intranet to help the employees understand at a detailed level why we chose the Values that we did.

There are a multitude of efforts being put forth this year to build an organization that strives for excellence.  Education programs, people development, benefit and recognition programs, as well as personal interest programs such as Dream On, are a just a few.  Appletree believes that building a family of employees who have the knowledge and tools to do their jobs well will create an environment that is ready to deliver that exceptional experience.