Growing and Discovering New Ways to Engage People Using the Power of Voice

Pennsylvania Paper & Supply Company (PPS) is a major supplier of paper goods, sanitary equipment, industrial packing equipment and supplies, and other goods and services. The company employs over 250 field employees that rely on an IVR solution for time and task reporting. PPS’s voice application tracks attendance and calculates employee time on site by allowing workers to call an IVR system to sign in and out of assigned job locations.

PPS had a legacy IVR system, but it faced two major issues: first, their existing vendor no longer supported the current system. Without a viable vendor and no support, PPS was in need of a new IVR system. When undertaking the search for a replacement, PPS president, Douglas Fink wanted something more reliable than their legacy solution. That system went down several times per year, forcing the company to manually process employee information, a very laborious and frustrating situation.

Reliability topped Fink’s wish list for a new system, and to that he added increased functionality. When researching new IVR vendors, Plum checked both boxes for Fink. Whereas the old system was a “one trick pony,” Plum’s system supported multiple audio voices and languages. Of all the systems PPS looked at, Plum provided the best combination of features and price, giving the company a new level of flexibility that Fink sought to bring to his company’s operations.

In the fall of 2011, PPS opted for the Plum iOn on-premises system. Getting the local Plum server up and running was “relatively painless and simple to do,” according to Fink. The IT team at PPS built their own application using Plum’s VoiceXML platform.

Once PPS got its Plum system, Fink said the comparison with their legacy system was “light years beyond. [The Plum solution has] way more robust functionality and feature rich so there’s a lot more we can do.” The system created a better experience for PPS’s employees. The natural voice audio improvement was significant, and much easier for employees to understand. “It was like night and day,” Fink said.

Plum also addressed Fink’s primary concern: reliability. “[Our IVR has] become such a mission critical part of our operation that the increased reliability made a huge difference for us.”