ARSA Plastic Surgery Center’s Communications Get a Makeover

UPSTACK migrates multilocation medical alliance to modern Cloud UC & Contact Center 

Summary

When Advanced Reconstructive Surgery Alliance’s communications infrastructure needed a makeover, they turned to UPSTACK to move the organization from a traditional legacy phone system to a modern cloud communications service. UPSTACK converted 300+ seats and 28 locations, all within six weeks – in time for the grand opening of ARSA’s new headquarters.

The Advanced Reconstructive Surgery Alliance (ARSA) offers strategic, operational and managerial expertise to its surgery practice members so that they can focus on delivering quality patient care. To ensure members thrive, ARSA shares best practices and systems, including business technology. To that end, the alliance engaged UPSTACK to help its founding practice member, The Plastic Surgery Center (TPSC), migrate to a cloud communications system in record time.

The Challenge

In late 2022, ARSA planned to move to a new headquarters building, an initiative that prompted the organization to upgrade its technology. The company planned to adopt a new patient engagement and marketing automation platform from Red Spot Interactive, which integrates practice management software and omnichannel marketing using voice, SMS and email communications. As part of this move, RSI recommended the company select a cloud communications provider with integrations to the RSI platform, such as GoTo Connect.

ARSA’s challenge was that it needed to deploy a unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution for 300+ seats across 28 offices and a contact center as a service (CCaaS) solution for its Patient Care Customer Service group before opening its new headquarters, which was only six weeks away. RSI brought in the technology advisors at UPSTACK to manage the deployment because of the company’s extensive communications expertise and experience with the cloud communications platforms.

UPSTACK’s technology experts, led by UPSTACK Partner and Managing Director Michael Martin, endorsed the selection of GoTo Connect and agreed to take on the project, which presented the following challenges:

• Managing deployment across 28 locations in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania
• Meeting the expedited six-week deadline for deployment, which normally would take three to six months
• Configuring the UCaaS and CCaaS solutions to meet ARSA’s needs
• Increasing outbound calling answer rates

The Approach & Solution

With the six-week deployment deadline looming, UPSTACK fast-tracked the engagement by first helping with final contract negotiations and configuration planning with GoTo Connect. Then they got to work engineering the best solution possible by:

• Gathering information from ARSA’s existing premises-based phone system
• Interviewing ARSA departmental leaders to understand the group’s business needs and desired outcomes

Martin and his team noticed that many of ARSA’s departments lacked visibility into employees’ calling activity. To rectify this situation, they moved several departments, such as Accounts Payable, onto the CCaaS platform, enabling administrators to monitor and analyze calling data for optimal performance.

Additionally, the UPSTACK team uncovered and resolved ARSA’s recurring problem of unanswered outbound calls to prospective patients trying to schedule appointments in response to marketing campaigns. The culprit was employees calling from mobile phones that did not display ARSA’s caller ID on recipients’ phones. Following UPSTACK’s recommendation, ARSA implemented HIYA’s branded caller ID solution so patients would answer employees’ return calls and book more revenue-generating appointments with member clinics.

UPSTACK also eliminated several implementation challenges, including porting and network readiness, by collecting information during the sales process so they could hit the ground running once the contracts were signed. Martin and his team’s installation and project management expertise helped ARSA meet its six-week deadline to enable 300+ seats at 28 locations and open its new headquarters on schedule.

The Outcome

By working with UPSTACK, ARSA experienced many benefits, including:

• Successful deployment of a UCaaS/CCaaS solution across 300+ seats and 28 locations in six weeks
• Rapid migration with no business disruptions
• Configuration analysis and adjustments from UPSTACK’s experienced team
• More visibility into departmental calling by moving them into the call center
• More than 90 percent increase in successful outbound calls by adding branded caller ID
• Ongoing training and support
• Upfront savings of approximately $45,000 with complimentary professional installation

The Value of Partnering with UPSTACK