United Apothecary, Inc. (Riddle Drugs)
Our business is a small chain of pharmacies with a very high volume of voice and fax. We were paying thousands of dollars a month for services in 6 locations spread across our region, most of which were long distance calls between each other. The pharmacies take calls constantly all day regarding prescriptions and make calls to doctors to verify them, our fax machines are burning through paper all day dealing with insurance regulations and prescriptions, and our pharmacists are calling each other for a variety of reasons. Each store had its own Internet provider, telephone company, and service vendors. I don’t think we ever really had a good handle on what communications were costing us overall, but we knew we had to do something to reign it all in.
This company, QoStar, was referred to us from a friend. We reluctantly agreed to meet with them about our situation because we were simply tired of the run around and sales calls from other service providers. Telephones and fax machines are KEY to our business, and if anything goes down it could cost us dearly. They started out by analyzing each store’s usage and current services using past billing to assess each location’s unique utilization and service requirements. It was the mini audit of our service and usage that was really needed. The audit showed us that we were overpaying for just about every service and included unused duplicate services. This audit was able to identify and mitigate the risks involved with changing services and the possibility of losing touch with our customers.
The key concern for our business and “scary” part was the integration and switching each location over to the new service. Unlike the usual “rip this out and throw this in” approach that we had experienced in the past, QoStar had a detailed plan that accounted for contingencies and provided solutions should they arise. Once we understood the process, we felt so much better about making the change. Throughout the process and with all the planning there were still some “gremlins” that QoStar were responsive to and the customer support was above and beyond any of the other previous providers. QoStar and their customer service representatives actually cared about getting it right for us and understand our small business. The old phone companies only concern was up-selling and never once asked how to help or provide efficient options.
Now we have one centralized PBX at QoStar, and all of our stores have their own extensions off of it. Our stores (in five different counties) talk to each other as often as they like and it costs us nothing, saving us hundreds of dollars a month on long distance. The fax machines send and receive through our PBX and provide us with an email notifying us of our “success” or “failure” instead of staring at the machine waiting on a report.
Overall, the saving of approximately $2,500.00 per month on telecom expenses is now being put to better uses. We now work with one direct contact, instead of us having to deal with multiple phone companies and internet providers. The locations call QoStar directly allowing management to work on the true day-to-day small business issues that arise. QoStar’s managed routers help us keep the Internet providers honest too by knowing exactly what internet and service speeds are being delivered to each location. The ability to rearrange, expand, or centralize, with virtually no extra effort required. Problem SOLVED.
Grant Riddle
Vice President
865-435-3305
