About Capitol Medical Center

Capitol Medical Center (CMC) is a reputable private hospital in Manila, Philippines. It is part of the Mount Grace Group of hospitals. It was founded in 1967.

Today, Capitol Medical Center is a modern medical and organizational complex existing as a whole system for the total care of the individual.

The institution’s progress over the years can be clearly seen from its rapid extension of its facilities and medical services.

 

THE CHALLENGE
To have smooth and fast delivery of messages and communications with patients and hospital staff

CMC houses 300 hospital beds, and offers a wide array of inpatient and outpatient medical services. Informing patients of their appointment schedule, medical reports and updates is an important part of hospital operations. To effectively manage and utilize bed space in CMC, communications with patients has to be smooth and efficient.

Before deploying sendQuick’s products, CMC staff had to manually call patients to give them updates on the progress of their lab reports, remind them of their appointment schedules, as well as other important updates. This tedious process took up valuable time and manpower.

 

THE SOLUTION
sendQuick Enterprise System

CMC’s main objective was to have a fast and smooth delivery of messages and communications to patients and hospital staff. They chose to use sendQuick Enterprise System to automate the communication process with their patients.

Through integration with sendQuick Enterprise to their existing hospital system using our API, they were able to quickly set up automatic notifications and reminders to patients.

Furthermore, CMC was able to strengthen its patient engagement level using sendQuick Enterprise System. With the automatic SMS system in place, CMC could add in different follow-up messages at different stages of the patient journey.

 

THE RESULT
Now, they are able to send out customer surveys to gather feedback on their services, which helps them to improve the operations in the long run.

In comparison with other automatic SMS messaging services, CMC chose sendQuick Enterprise System as it is a complete hardware SMS system that had a flexible mode of integration with their existing backend system.

They were able to deploy our solution within a short period of time, and could configure the system to best suit their needs.

ABOUT HARMONY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Harmony Public Schools is a system of 58 Texas public charter schools comprising 35,000 students, and 4,000 faculty and staff. In the year 2000, Harmony Public Schools opened its first school in Houston, Texas and still houses the central administration in the Houston area. Since expanding, Harmony has grown into all major areas of Texas, forming six distinct regions (or districts).

 

 

THE CHALLENGE
To maintain a high uptime for IT systems, datacenter and security operations centre

Harmony Public Schools is a large school system with a strong focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education serving students from kindergarten up to 12th grade. As a centrally connected cluster, all Harmony schools share a centralized datacenter and security operations center including independently managed IT systems in each school. Such a large and interconnected IT infrastructure needs to be proactively monitored to ensure it stay up and running at all times.

They have an existing network management system, but, in the event a system experiencing latency-related issue or unplanned downtime, notifications and alerts were not communicated to the concerned IT personnel instantaneously and were only sent via email, syslog filters and SNMP traps and staff who were away from their desks were unable to receive them.

 

THE SOLUTION
sendQuick Alert Plus

After conducting due diligence in evaluating various available options, Harmony Public Schools selected sendQuick Alert Plus as their choice for a notification management solution.

It can be set up in less than 10 minutes, and with built-in user management, and shift (roster) management, ensures that alerts and notifications are sent only to relevant personnel on-duty at the time of the incident.

 

THE RESULT
Automated real-time, omnichannel alerts for all connected systems

Now, through the sendQuick Alert Plus incident response workflow, their concerned personnel can get notified in real-time, whether they are at or away from their desk, if any of their IT infrastructure systems experience latency-related issues or unplanned downtime.

The sendQuick Alert Plus platform integrates with their existing network management system and converts incoming syslog filters, SNMP traps and emails into out-of-band SMS and social messenger app messages. It is also capable of sending email notifications and automated voice messages.

My First Skool Case Study

About My First Skool

My First Skool is a leader in early childhood care and education having being around for more than 40 years. As the pre-school arm of NTUC (National Trades Union Congress) First Campus Co-operative, My First Skool has grown into one of Singapore’s most respected early childhood organisations since first opening its doors back in 1977.

Dedicated to bringing quality pre-school education within easy reach, My First Skool now has over 140 pre-schools islandwide and is serving more than 22,000 families.

The Challenge

To find an affordable and efficient way to contact parents for their immediate responses to centre placements and various events.

Faced with intense competition in the childcare industry, My First Skool needed to reach potential customers fast to offer placements in various centre at different locations. Staff had to constantly call parents over the phone to inform them of vacancies or upcoming events and open houses. This grew to became a very time-consuming and unproductive activity as parents frequently do not pick up the calls or in some cases, no longer using the contact numbers they provided earlier. The staff was spending many hours just on calling alone!

My First Skool wanted to find a simpler way to get responses from parents without compromising on the productivity of their manpower or needing to hire extra manpower just to constantly contact parents for confirmation. They have explored using email (through EDMs) but have found that it did not provide the timely responses that they urgently needed in order to optimise placements in the centres and to manage the vacancies.

The Solution: sendQuick ASP

The deployment of sendQuick ASP helped My First Skool to achieve significantly faster responses from parents that were on their waitlists with the 2-way SMS feature. It further allowed them to streamline all communications with parents during their mass enrolment-calling (for the replacement of K2 graduates.) As part of the workflow, sendQuick ASP is now triggered to send SMSes whenever attempts to contact the parents by phone were unsuccessful. Besides this, sendQuick ASP is now used to blast information to interested parents about any new centre(s) prior to enrolment-calling or even upcoming opening. This kept the interest warm and enabled their enrolment-calling to be smoother than before.

The Result: efficient communications to parents with ease of use at affordable cost

With the introduction of sendQuick ASP, My First Skool has since saw a 50% increase in prompt responses from parents/customers as compared to email responses. The decision to use SMS as the main form of communication over email was because they knew that the interest of parents will wane if they were not prompted to make decisions quickly. The SMS system allows them to do just that.

My First Skool had also evaluated other SMS service-providers that offered other messaging platforms but found them way too complicated. Eventually, they chose sendQuick ASP because it is simple and easy to use, yet effective and affordable.

Great Southern Bank Case Study

About Great Southern Bank

Great Southern Bank, based in Springfield, Mo., was founded in 1923 and currently operates 100+ offices in eight states in the U.S., comprising 104 retail banking centers, two commercial loan offices, and one home loan office. Great Southern is a one-stop banking and loan provider for small to large businesses and individual customers, providing a wide variety of checking accounts, savings accounts, and lending options.

The Challenge: To send alerts & notifications via text alerts to their data center and customers, and having an on-premise server which can integrate with its shortcode provider

With a large network of branch offices spread across different states, it was imperative for Great Southern Bank to address customer security and 24/7 support to enhance its competitiveness among its peers.

Prior to deploying sendQuick, Greater Southern Bank had the following challenges:

– They only had email alerts for their data center, and they required text alerts as well in the event of unplanned downtime

– They had no means of communicating messages to their customers

– The absence of an on-premise solution which could integrate with their existing shortcode provider to send text alerts

Additionally, the Company had other ways of authenticating a customer’s identity but were looking for a 3rd-factor authentication solution which could simultaneously send a security code to a customer while on a call with them.

The Solution: sendQuick Entera

After evaluating several options, Great Southern Bank selected sendQuick Entera. Entera is an on-premise network monitoring system which is easy to set-up and effortlessly integrates with the company’s backend applications and existing systems (such as SolarWinds) for sending text alerts to its data center and shortcode provider, to send messages to customers. The Company tested the system by sending messages using their custom-made app before the final deployment. Entera also addresses the concern of secure remote access of customers by sending out a security code for authentication.

The Result: Improved Responsiveness, streamlined processes, and enhanced security.

With the successful deployment of sendQuick Entera, Great Southern Bank has experienced faster response time to mitigate the disruptions caused by data center outages. The Company now sends text alerts when their email server experiences downtime. By being an on-premise solution, the authentication of a customer’s identity is more secure and reliable, which has helped streamline the various business processes of the Company, thereby enhancing its operational efficiency.

With a successful deployment, Great Southern Bank is now considering implementing the High Availability option offered by sendQuick Entera to increase the volume of messages being sent to customers and is also considering purchasing more on-premise Entera units.

FTLife Insurance Case Study

About FTLife Insurance Company

FTLife Insurance Company Limited (“FTLife”) is one of Hong Kong’s largest life insurance companies and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tongchuangjiuding Investment Management Group Co., Ltd. (“JD Group”). It offers a myriad of financial products to individual and institutional clients including financial protection and wealth management products.

The Challenge: To Provide Secure Remote Login to Users

The Company’s financial services consultants and customers routinely access financial information on digital devices from remote locations. Their concern was the potential loss of sensitive information due to cybersecurity breach.

Hence, FTLife sought an on-premise, 2-factor authentication (2FA) system to address that concern and integrate its many different online applications services on a unified platform.

The Solution: sendQuick ConeXa

FTLife selected sendQuick ConeXa to provide enhanced security to users remotely accessing sensitive data online. Since it is a centralised 2FA platform, it supports multiple SSL VPNs and various applications that require authentication. The sendQuick ConeXa gateway is an on-premise all-in-one appliance for 2FA, using SMS One-Time Password (OTP), Email OTP & Soft Token. It is a scalable gateway, thereby, allowing other applications to utilize the
platform in future.

The Result: Enhanced Security, Lower Cost of Ownership, Ease of Management

FTLife can now send OTP to their financial services consultants, staff and customers, remotely accessing web-based applications and information. The centralised authentication gateway supports the Company’s multiple SSL VPN’s. It has helped reduce the overhead costs of as the maintenance cost of the gateway is low, while enhancing security and ease of management.

Far East Organization Case Study

About Far East Organization

Far East Organization is the largest private property developer in Singapore. Its operations span the full spectrum of the real estate market, from residential to hospitality, commercial, retail and industrial sectors. It is also the largest private residential landlord and one of the largest owner-operators of hotels in Singapore.

The Challenge: to provide a reliable & highly scalable system that allows visibility for contractor services as well as enhancement of broadcasting efficiency for customer alerts & marketing activities

Far East Organization’s main challenges were two-fold. Firstly, being a leading property developer, it is important for Far East to respond promptly to service calls from tenants and guests in their properties. Secondly, Far East Organization sought a SMS solution that could be integrated to its existing Customer Relationship Management System for its various broadcasting and marketing activities.

With the numerous residential and commercial developments, Far East Organization requires a system that is able to handle the bulk volume of mobile broadcast messages. The existing software-based SMS system was not efficient and was not scalable. It was also not able to track if the contractors or customers had received the SMS.

The Solution : sendQuick Entera

Far East Organization chose sendQuick Entera as a centralized integrated server for the Organization to connect with its Property Management System as well as its Customer Relationship Management System. sendQuick Entera with its 2-way messaging system allows service contractors like plumbers and electricians to respond when they receive an alert from the Property Management System.

sendQuick Entera could also facilitate Far East Organization’s broadcasting and marketing activities with its ease of integration with the existing system. The heavy volume required by Far East Organization would also not pose a problem due to the scalability of sendQuick Entera.

The Result: Increased efficiency of internal & external communications

The 2-way messaging system resulted in more effective and efficient service call communication. It allowed Far East Organization to track the service lead time as the contractors are now able to send an SMS back upon receiving the service call and upon completion of the job.

sendQuick Entera has also enabled Far East Organization’s clients to send return SMS to RSVP for invitations to activities or events.

FotoHub.com Case Study

About FotoHub.com

FotoHub.com Pte Ltd, a digital imaging and photo-printing service provider in Singapore, has over 10 retail stores and an online printing portal. The first such provider to be awarded ISO 9001 in 2003, FotoHub is committed to providing high-quality photo prints and other lifestyle photo products such as calendars, coffee table albums and large prints. For more information, please visit www.fotohub.com

The Challenge: To provide a distinct level of customer service in a highly competitive retail Landscape while keeping business costs Low

Being in a retail landscape where competition is fierce and customers can be fickle, FotoHub understands it needs to continually delight the customer and win their loyalty. Even something as minute as reminding them to pick up their photos once they are ready for collection, is a carefully thought-out process when it comes to providing excellent customer service. FotoHub knows that customers enjoy the non-intrusive way of receiving SMS reminders and not be bothered by phone calls or missed calls during working hours.

Using SMS reminders has the added advantage of freeing up staff resources. Instead of spending time making a phone call, staff time is better utilised to provide customer service in the retail shops. As customers come to collect their prints earlier, cash-flow is improved. FotoHub also sees the value of using SMS to their customers who have signed up as members. The question: which solution to choose?

The Solution: sendQuick Entera

FotoHub chose sendQuick Entera as their preferred solution for a number of reasons. Being a true appliance SMS server, sendQuick Entera is easy to set up in minutes and virtually maintenance-free. FotoHub does not want to run the risk of heavy troubleshooting and maintenance, which often happens when installing vendor-softwares. If they were to buy SMS services from independent operators, they would have less control and would need to expend heavy resources on manual processes. The deciding factor was the affordability and ease of using sendQuick Entera.

Deployed in their internal environment, sendQuick Entera gives FotoHub the ability to automate the process of sending SMS and security with regards to their customers’ data. Information about customers’ order status and mobile number is directly synced from their webserver to sendQuick server.

The Result: improved customer-service at Low total cost of ownership

After the deployment of sendQuick Entera, staff who in the past had to spend time calling customers could now perform better customer service in the shop front. Customers are happy to receive reminders via the non-intrusive SMS service. Overall efficiency is enhanced as staff members need not spend time to repeatedly call customers if they are unreachable. The investment in sendQuick Entera has resulted in a quick ROI with immediate improvement in customer-service and higher work efficiency.

International Specialist Eye Centre Case Study

About ISEC Malaysia

International Specialist Eye Centre (ISEC) Malaysia is a leading eye centre in Kuala Lumpur, which provides world-class facility in eye-care that is affordable to the local and regional community.

The doctors at ISEC hold impressive credentials and they are among the leading eyes surgeons in Malaysia. For more information, please visit www.isec.my

The Challenge: to find an affordable and efficient solution to enhance communications for patient-services

Besides having a world-class medical facility, ISEC Malaysia recognises the importance and need to provide excellent patient services. One persistent problem they face is the over-booking of appointments and no-shows as patients may forget about their appointments. ISEC began to look for a solution that could provide a low-cost, fast, and accurate way to remind patients of their appointments as well as collect patient data from time to time.

With the prevalent use of mobile phones and the convenience of mobile SMS, ISEC was convinced that using sms services will help to meet their objectives. But which solution to choose?

The solution: sendQuick Entera

ISEC evaluated a list of options such as installing vendor-softwares, sending sms via data transfer to telco operator  and sendQuick sms appliance. Installing vendor-software runs the risk of conflicts to existing system and may require extensive manpower for troubleshooting and maintenance. Sending data to telcos presents a security breach which may compromise patient information.

sendQuick Entera, a true appliance sms server became their preferred choice. Deployed in their internal environment, sendQuick Entera preserved data security. The solution is a fully automated system – using an ODBC database connection to their Patient Information System, data such as patient name, mobile number and appointment date/time is retrieved to send sms reminders to patients 4-days before their appointments. The data never leaves their office and information confidentiality is maintained.

The Result: efficient communications to patients at lower total cost of ownership

After the deployment of sendQuick Entera, there is a marked improvement in patient attendance and a more efficient scheduling of appointments with the reduction of no-shows, Patients are happy to receive timely reminders via the non-intrusive sms service. Overall efficiency is enhanced as staff members need not spend time to repeatedly call patients if they are unreachable.

The investment in sendQuick Entera has resulted in a quick ROI with immediate improvement in patient-services and higher work efficiency.

Alexandra Health (Khoo Teck Puat Hospital) Case Study

About Alexandra Health (AH)

Established on 1 April 2008, Alexandra Health is a new healthcare cluster that currently comprises the 550-bed general and acute care Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) and Jurong Medical Centre (JMC). KTPH is a public restructured hospital in the north of Singapore, serving the healthcare needs of more than 570,000 people living and working in the region. The team from Alexandra Health managed Alexandra Hospital prior to 1 August 2010 and brings to KTPH and JMC the same patient-centric focus and high standards in all aspects of patient care.

The Challenge: to find an affordable and efficient solution to manage the Large volume of patient appointments 

Alexandra Hospital was a public hospital seeing large numbers of patients daily. It was imperative to manage the appointment system efficiently and accurately. On average, the hospital saw 300 patients a day at the Specialist Outpatient Clinics. Previously, one of the modes of sending out appointment reminders was through phone calls to patients made from the call centre. As the number of patients increased, this not only led to lower productivity but also higher operation costs. To ensure greater efficiency for the benefit of patients as well as to reduce the call-rates  in the call-centre, Alexandra Hospital began to explore the option of a using SMS, as a low-cost solution, for appointment reminders.

The Solution: sendQuick Entera 

After evaluating a list of vendors and proposed solutions, Alexandra Hospital chose sendQuick Entera, which could complement the existing internal systems and SAP software to achieve better and quicker results. In the new workflow, the SAP software generates the appointment reminder record with the relevant data such as the patient’s name, mobile number and appointment date/time. The sendQuick server then receives the record, merges thet date/time. The sendQuick server then receives the record, merges the data and sends the SMS to the patient. Upon receipt of the SMS, the patient can reply (via SMS) to confirm, reject or change the appointment.

The solution provided for a fully automated system and browser with a specific message template and is virtually maintenance-free. Staff can easily make use of sendQuick to streamline their work processes and enhance productivity.

The Result: efficient patient appointment reminders at Lower total cost of ownership

In February 2009, Alexandra Hospital became the first hospital in Singapore to deploy a fully automated 2-way SMS appointment reminder system. After the roll-out, there was a marked improvement in patient attendances and a more efficient process for scheduling of appointments. Patients were pleased to receive timely reminders via SMS, which is less intrusive. Overall, the call-rates in the call-centre were reduced and this has translated into a lower total operating cost.

With the opening of KTPH in March 2010, the same system was deployed. Being a larger hospital, the positive impact and benefits of using this system was more marked, with greater cost savings and better efficiency.

Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort Case Study

About Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort

Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort is the only resort in Singapore with a beachfront location on Sentosa Island overlooking the South China Sea. Situated on Siloso Beach, the resort aims to be the destination of choice for both business and leisure travellers. With 454 beautifully appointed guestrooms that comes with a private balcony and a view of the hills, garden, pool or sea, guests can enjoy the lush, natural surroundings.

The Challenge: to provide 24×7 uptime in critical IT infrastructure

As a 5-star resort that provides world-class service standards, Rasa Sentosa Resort understands it needs to continually uphold the standards to delight the customer. The standards do not just include front-office guest relations, but it also means having an uninterrupted IT infrastructure at the backend. As IT infrastructure is at the core of the hotel services, it is crucial to maintain continuous uptime.

Even though Rasa Sentosa Resort has an existing network monitoring system to watch for IT events, that alone is not enough. The network monitoring system triggers an email to the respective IT engineer in the event of an IT interruption. However the response time from the engineer may not be fast enough, especially if the event happens during non-office hours. Rasa Sentosa Resorts needs a way to inform the engineers at anytime and anywhere. Thus came the idea of using SMS-alerts, as it is both efficient and effective and at a relatively low-cost.

The Solution: sendQuick Entera

After assessing a few solutions, Rasa Sentosa Resort chose sendQuick Entera. Being a true appliance SMS server, sendQuick Entera is easy to set up and virtually maintenance free. sendQuick Entera is integrated into the existing IT infrastructure and supports the email alerts from the network monitoring system. sendQuick Entera converts the email messages and sends them out as SMS to the respective engineers. The selective message filter allows only important messages to be sent as SMS, thus reducing unnecessary SMS disturbances.

Deployed in their internal environment, sendQuick Entera eliminates the need for leased line and other Internet connections, to send out the alerts. With a built-in SMTP gateway, sendQuick Entera also acts as a back-up SMTP for the infrastructure.

The Result: improved response time to IT events and high uptime for core services

After the deployment of sendQuick Entera, there was a marked improvement in response time to IT events. Specifically, since the server room is not manned 24 hours, using sendQuick Entera has allowed engineers to be mobile and yet respond quickly when needed. Overall uptime of the IT infrastructure is increased which translates to better front-end customer service as core services are less disrupted by the downtime in backend IT infrastructure.

The investment in sendQuick Entera has resulted in a quick ROI with immediate improvement in work efficiency.