-Healthcare contract service utilizes CRM solution to grow its business -
Alliance Recruiting Resources, Inc. places healthcare professionals in temporary and permanent positions in anesthesiology, radiology and cardiology specialties nationwide. Since 2002, the company has been dedicated to bringing innovation, best practices and leadership to the medical staffing industry.
The company’s mission is to recruit and retain the best medical professionals in the industry, making organization an essential part of its core operation. From placing professionals in positions to coordinating with a facility’s needs, a recruiter’s day consists of numerous phone calls, emails and faxes to maintain relationships.
Soon after the company launched, Alliance Recruiting recognized that it needed to automate its business to optimize its success. Management realized that employees were often checking over their work multiple times causing productivity to sink. In order to increase its productivity and reduce cost it needed to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.
Unfortunately, after installing its initial CRM solution problems quickly surfaced. Management discovered numerous glitches hidden within the software. In that web-based solution, employees could only look up 300 records at a time which became a major problem since at the time Alliance Recruiting contained a database of more than 60,000 sales contacts and recruits.
“Our database actually became worse as a result of our previous CRM solution,” said David Sturm, chief application architect, Alliance Recruiting Resources, Inc. “We realized we needed a solution that could not only support our business in an efficient manner but a solution that was easy-to-use and implement as well.”
Improved Functionality
In July 2006, Alliance Recruiting selected Oncontact Software’s Oncontact CRM, a complete front-office application suite for the sales, marketing and customer service areas designed for mid-market companies. Oncontact CRM provided Alliance Recruiting with a customizable CRM solution to store its vital customer information on one central screen, allowing users the ability to communicate quickly and more efficiently with potential prospects and existing customers.
“Our database is now 90 percent cleaner, and getting better everyday, as a result of implementing Oncontact CRM,” Sturm said. “The solution has taken our work flow to a completely new level.”
The fact that Oncontact CRM runs on Microsoft.NET was also a key factor for Alliance Recruiting when choosing its solution. Using Oncontact’s Microsoft Windows-based system now allows employees to simultaneously filter and sort numerous contacts in its database, which has since grown to over 300,000. It also provides the ability to view multiple information profiles at the same time, which was not available with its previous CRM solution.
“The increased functionality with Oncontact CRM cuts down on performing redundant work,” Sturm added. “It keeps everyone communicating more efficiently in a controlled environment.”
One Size Fits All
In addition to the improved functionality, the customizable features of Oncontact CRM allowed Alliance Recruiting to expand its CRM capabilities immensely. The solution enabled the company to completely redesign any field or screen simply by using the “drag and drop” method. Alliance redesigned multiple screens including the company, contact, and opportunity screens to complement its specific needs and requirements.
Alliance Recruiting was also able to create a custom scheduling system inside of Oncontact CRM. The assignment system links users to available opportunity work schedules, making it easy for recruiters to navigate through the system and place recruits in the field proficiently.
Oncontact CRM allowed the company to customize its activity function to provide further organization as well. In the medical staffing industry there are numerous forms that need to be authorized in order to place recruits in hospitals due to state requirements and insurance regulations. This typically makes the process daunting and time-consuming. However, with the customizable activity function, employees receive reminders to check in regarding the status of forms on schedule to keep them up-to-date on all projects in real-time. This allows the Alliance Recruiting team to complete their credentialing processes in about half the time of the industry average.
Increased Level of Support
Alliance Recruiting received a significant increased level of support with Oncontact Software. With its previous solution, there were multiple tech support departments and it could often take months to fix a problem. Now, with Oncontact CRM, Alliance Recruiting can package its databases and send them directly to Oncontact’s support team. This allows the support team to look at the code directly on site to troubleshoot problems and provide a solution as quickly as possible.
“The support team is excellent,” Sturm said. “Oncontact will dive into the problem and help us no matter what the problem is. The application is compact and uses a standard API code, providing us with hassle-free, timely experience every time.”
Overall Business Growth and Success
Since the implementation, Alliance Recruiting has doubled in size. Due to its growing success, the company will be opening two new product lines, surgery and internal medicine, in the near future.
“The flexibility of Oncontact makes it easy for us to absorb the automated operation and management of these new business lines,” Sturm said.
“In the recruiting industry, it’s normal to grow 1 percent to 2 percent per every new employee,” added Sturm. “However, since Oncontact Software automated our business, we doubled in size by increasing our staff only 25 percent for a 5 to 10 percent increase per new recruiter.”
Since the application allows the company to make constant modifications to its system, Oncontact CRM will continue to grow with Alliance Recruiting.
“Everyday the solution gives us visibility to identify efficient business processes and create new visions for the future.” Sturm concluded. “We now can confidently implement new procedures to grow efficiently knowing that Oncontact CRM will support us.”
