OAISYS Stanley Steemer Case Study

Our Customers Speak for Our Solutions
An OAISYS Case Study
Stanley Steemer
San Diego, California
For more than 60 years, Stanley Steemer has been bringing
cleaner, more comfortable homes to America. To service
customers nationwide, the company boasts over 300 locations
in 48 states. From their beginnings as a humble, one-man,
one-truck operation in Columbus, Ohio, Stanley Steemer has
grown significantly—all because they're driven to deliver the
best, and proud to stand behind every service 100 percent.
The San Diego Stanley Steemer franchise is dedicated to
upholding the values that made their parent company the
success it is today. They’re focused on delivering their best
across all facets of the business—outstanding people, superior
equipment, and exceptional services. When the time came to
upgrade their business communications system, they
recognized it as a golden opportunity to further enhance their
customer service.
“At the time, one of the requirements for the phone system was
that we be able to record all inbound and outbound calls. When
we talked to [Mitel], we told them that was a high priority, and
they recommended the Talkument system,” said Marcia Gwin,
Marketing Director for Stanley Steemer of San Diego.
Talkument, the voice documentation and collaboration
software from OAISYS, allows users to store and organize digital
recordings of important business telephone conversations.
These recorded interactions, or voice documents, can be used
to improve business practices and increase the productivity and
collaboration of an organization’s workforce.
“Most of our initial contact with customers is by telephone and
with any home service provider, particularly the carpet cleaning
industry, you’ll hear, ‘well, I was quoted this, and when the
technician got to my house, they said the price was this,’ and
that’s always a huge concern because whatever you quote, you
want your technician to be able to deliver that same
information when they arrive,” Gwin explained.
Finding a way to address that occurrence was of particular
importance to Gwin. “We’ve had multiple occasions where a
customer said, ‘your customer service rep promised me this,’ and
[with Talkument] we can now say we record every call and we
will be more than happy to listen to the call again, and if we
promised that, we will deliver that service. It’s amazing how
many times that will resolve the issue promptly; it’s wonderful,”
she said.
Gwin has also been pleased with how the Talkument software
has enhanced communication and collaboration levels
between Stanley Steemer employees in the field and those in
the office. “When you have technicians in the field and customer
service reps on the phone, there is sometimes banter on ‘what
are they doing up there, what are they promising?’ I can call my
technicians into the office and say ‘this is what was said on the
phone,’ and it has brought some goodwill between those two
groups. [The technicians] can actually hear what our customer
service reps are saying. It’s not one of those ‘he said/she said’
scenarios anymore, they can all listen, and they get along much
better,” elaborated Gwin.
The insight gained by having calls readily available for review
with agents has been especially valuable for Stanley Steemer as
it relates to training and development. Gwin said, “Customer
service people say, ‘gosh, I didn’t know I sounded like that,’ or ‘I
didn’t know my tone came across like that.’ ”
“All of our managers have a call assessment sheet, and we will
periodically listen to calls for the different customer service reps.
I have a checklist of all the things they are supposed to hit, the
greeting, the mentioning of the products, the confirmation of
the date and time of service.

In my spare time, I might have Talkument up at my desk and I’ll
be playing a call in the background and critiquing the call. We
use that for a variety of things, [such as] to incentivize those
people if they get a high grade on a call, we might give them a
gift card,” Gwin said.
Gwin also explained that the Talkument solution has allowed the
team to eliminate any unnecessary burden on customers when
obtaining their information. “We have had situations where
we’re speaking with a customer and we’ll get disconnected, and
we haven’t captured their phone number yet, or we were
entering their information and our [CRM] system went down
temporarily, and we lost what we entered. Before, we couldn’t
recoup that. All we have to do now is pull up the call and listen
to it as if we were having the initial conversation and we don’t
have to call the customer back and let them know what
happened,” explained Gwin.
So, I invested the hour and at the end, I said ‘this is the one—I
don’t care what phone system we buy, we have got to have this
Talkument system,’ “ shared Gwin.
Talkument has made a positive impact not only with Gwin, but
also the entire organization. “I’m not alone in my joy of having
the Talkument system available to us. The owner, he says, ‘this is
the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. It’s my
favorite part of the phone system,’ and other managers mirror
that as well. So, it’s not just me, it’s all of the users and actually
our other staff who are involved with listening and hearing
themselves—they like it too,” Gwin said.
“We enjoy the product, we like everything about it, and I
encourage others to use it. If they’re undecided if they want to
use Talkument, they can call me and I’d be happy to speak with
them,” concluded Gwin.
Talkument’s ability to provide full insight into an interaction has
helped Stanley Steemer to effectively resolve any customer
issues that arise. “You get all the detail and you get the tone and
inflection. With complaint resolution, you can hear every call
regarding the topic, so anyone listening has the exact same
information. That is critical in resolving customer concerns,” said
Gwin.
Gwin believes the Talkument solution has contributed to the
continued financial success of Stanley Steemer’s San Diego
operation, saying, “I think quality of service has increased. If it
gets us repeat business because of the way we resolve a
customer concern, that’s worth its weight in gold. If training is
better, service is better; you’ll have more customers and they’ll
come back.”
Another unexpected benefit of the solution that has impressed
Gwin was presented by Talkument’s unique call visualization
feature, which displays all activity that has occurred during a call.
“I can go on to the Talkument system and follow a call through. I
can trace a call from the time it hit my phone until the
conclusion, and how long it took to get from point A, to point B,
to point C and every person it touched along the way,” said Gwin.
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an audio version of this case study.
Gwin was extremely thorough in her research and
understanding of Talkument before deciding to purchase the
solution. In fact, Gwin took advantage of the free web-based
training tools OAISYS provides to learn more about the solution
and to ensure that it would fully meet the needs of her business.
“I went online [and completed] the Talkument training so that I
would be familiar on the usage of the system before we made
the decision to buy. I wanted to see ‘is this user friendly for me,
can I learn it quickly, can someone else learn it quickly, and is the
system going to do exactly what I want it to do.’