Dear EMS Customer,

Our first Reservation Times of the new year provides "Seven Tips for Simplified Facility Scheduling", announces the schedule of free online product webinars, notes some impressive customer support stats from 2007 and more. We're excited about 2008 and looking forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

The Newsletter team at Dean Evans & Associates, Inc.
emsnewsletter@dea.com

Table of Contents

Seven Tips for Simplified Facility Scheduling

Whether you’re booking space for paying customers or internal departments, you want to make the reservation process quick and painless – both for them and for you.

Here are some tips for simplifying the reserving of rooms that will leave both the host and the hosted smiling!

• Solo Searching - Provide an online means of searching for existing events and determining space availability
  
  Making event organizers as self-sufficient as possible not only helps them, it also helps your scheduling office by reducing the number of phone calls and emails they must respond to.
  
  
• Show and Tell - Allow online access to information on rooms, including pictures, room attributes, etc.
  
  The more information you make available to facility users, the better decisions they can make when choosing space for their event.
  
  
• By the Book - Post detailed facility use policies and procedures on your website
  
  Avoid misunderstandings about payment terms, hours of operation, etc. by having that information readily accessible.
  
  
• Request Convenience - Allow event organizers to submit room requests directly from the internet
  
  Whether it’s purchasing a product or reserving a room, customers appreciate the convenience of online transactions. If a process that might otherwise require multiple phone calls and/or emails can be simplified to an online request and a single reply, you’ll have very happy visitors.
  
  
• A Reassuring Review - Email a detailed confirmation to the customer
  
  As the person coordinating an event, the last thing you want to discover when you arrive is that the room is too small, the wrong meals were ordered, the data projector you need for your presentation is not in the room, etc. Sending the event organizer a confirmation that lists the room that has been booked, the event time, the resources that have been reserved, etc. reassures the customer and gives you advance notice of any errors or omissions.
  
  
• Remember Reminders - Send email reminders in advance of their program
  
  While it’s the customer’s responsibility to be aware of the event they’ve scheduled, they always appreciate emailed reminders.
  
  
• Check, Please! - Generate a clear, concise invoice soon after the event
  
  The customer would like to pay the tab so they can close the books on the event; your organization wants to realize the income from it. You do both sides a favor when you produce and send an invoice immediately after the event has concluded.

Superb Support – Post-Incident Surveys Show High Satisfaction

The numbers from 2007 are in, and we are pleased to have received very positive reviews from customers who utilized the services of our Customer Support department. The vast majority (97%) of respondents rated their overall experience as either Excellent (84%) or Good (13%). "I see the surveys coming in throughout the year, so I have a sense of where the numbers are headed," says Stacy Shea, our customer support manager. "But it’s still very gratifying to do the year-end tally and see that people were very happy with the assistance we provided."

Each person who contacts the department with a question is invited to complete a brief questionnaire about their experience. Questions cover response time, courtesy, product knowledge, etc. Ratings in all areas were above 95% positive. "The technical support for EMS is the best I have worked with," commented Beverly at North Arkansas College. "They take their time to research and understand what your problem is and then find a fix."

"An ‘approval rating’ of 97% is a tough act to follow," says Shea. "But our goal is to maintain or exceed that number in 2008." In addition, the department will be increasing the online training offerings, publishing new knowledgebase articles and adding to the training video library.

Been Bloggin'?

Blog posts. They can be anything from deep, philosophical dissertations ("In order for there to be lasting peace among nations…") to shallow scribblings ("Today for breakfast I had cereal."), and everything in between. With so many topics to choose from, what’s a blogger to do?

We, of course, think that scheduling software is a fantastic subject! Now, while it’s all the rage with some companies, we’re not the type of organization to adopt a "pay-per-post strategy". In other words, we’d love your two cents, but won’t pay you even that much for them. However, if you’re blogging and happen to mention EMS, we’d love to link to your post in our next newsletter and on our website.

Here’s one example of some unsolicited EMS feedback – information other EMS Lite customers might find useful as they ponder an upgrade.

So, Shakespeares, if you’re bloggin’, we’d love to help you share your thoughts! Please shoot an email to tom@dea.com.

Sitting Down with Sales – Schedule of Free Product Webinars Announced

In order to help customers get the most out of their EMS software – and prospective customers better understand our products – our Sales department presents a series of free, regularly scheduled webinars on different aspects of EMS. "Taking Your Facility’s Requests Online," "Upgrading from EMS Pro to Enterprise" and "Getting Started with Office Hoteling" are the titles of just a few of the sessions, which cover all of our products.

The webinar schedule for the first quarter of 2008 has been announced and can be found on our website Master Calendar. The sessions are market-specific and very interactive, allowing participants to benefit not only from the EMS account manager’s knowledge of the product but also from the accumulated "best practice" information of others in the industry.

"When I talk to customers and prospects, I strongly encourage them to take advantage of these very informative webinars," says Sean Mulvey, our director of sales. "What really makes the sessions valuable is the combination of our account managers’ knowledge of EMS and our customers’ real world experience with the product. The result, often times, is significant insights on how the system can be used to tackle a particular scheduling challenge. And for prospects, it’s a great way to learn more about us in a no-obligation, group setting."

To register for a webinar, simply find it on the calendar, click the session title and follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.

Case Study – New Community Church, Grand Rapids, MI

A new case study is available on our website. When New Community Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan moved from EMS Lite Version 4.0 to Version 6.0, they also added the Virtual EMS web component – and their facility scheduler is very glad they did! Making information on scheduled events available on the internet has made the congregation much more self-sufficient, and decreased calls to the scheduling office by more than 80%.

But they’re not stopping there. "We hope in the near future to begin allowing reservations to be made through Virtual EMS," says Travis Ben Kensil, the church’s Director of Information Technology. Click here to read the case study.

Got a story you’d like to tell? Were eager to help you tell it! Providing us with the information we need to write a study is easy, and the positive press you get from a study can be very rewarding. What’s more, while we'd never pay for a case study, we do want you to enjoy reading the final version, and what better way than to kick back with a steaming cup of espresso, an iced caramel latte or some other coffee treat on us? Contact tom@dea.com if you’d like more information on participating in a case study.

"EMS on Demand" in Your Lap (top)

EMS on Demand training videos can now be downloaded from the Customers Only area of our website, making it even easier to get up to speed on a wide variety of topics. The sessions can also be viewed in streaming video format.

The download option has been introduced to help those customers who were experiencing difficulties with the streaming format even after an increase in the internet bandwidth at our office. "The download option ensures that people can access the videos," says Chris Wall, our online training coordinator. "It takes just a few minutes to transfer a video to your computer, and then you can use it at your leisure, going back to the material as many times as you need to."

Organizations whose Annual Service Agreement (ASA) is current can access the videos free of charge in the Customers Only area of our website. To learn more about the benefits of keeping your ASA up-to-date, please contact the sales team at 800-440-3994 ext. 863 or sales@dea.com.

EMS Users Conference 2008 - Denver

Warm, sunny days, cool, starry nights and the Rocky Mountains right outside your window… It’s not too early to start pondering a trip to Denver in July for the 2008 EMS Users Conference. In fact, this is the perfect time to be pondering it. Early bird registration is underway, and customers who take advantage of it will save $200 on the cost of the conference. Early bird registration runs through March 16.

"Our 2008 Users Conference is shaping up to be the best EMS event yet!" says Chelsea Walker, our tradeshow and events coordinator. "With the much-anticipated release of a number of EMS upgrades to take place prior to the conference, sessions will include priceless EMS tips and tricks and other product training. To top it off, the conference will be held in the heart of downtown at the new Hyatt Regency Denver, so we’re planning on really playing up the high-energy city feel. Attendees are guaranteed to have a fun and informative experience."

The EMS Users Conference is a three-day event that includes educational sessions, panel discussions, customer presentations, product demonstrations, EMS business partner presentations and many opportunities to network with other facility management professionals. If you have questions about the conference, please email chelsea.walker@dea.com.