Advantage Testing of Houston: Backing up your backup

The phone is ringing, and a visitor has just walked into Advantage Testing of Houston.

Office manager Kelley Vo can either answer the phone or let it roll over to the next member of the administrative team. But what happens when they are busy?

Voicemail.

Creating connections

Kelley Vo, Office manager

For Advantage Testing of Houston, developing trusting, supportive connections with students throughout their academic careers is a cornerstone—a cornerstone they found themselves unable to replicate with voicemail.

While they have an administrative staff of four, part-time and work-from-home schedules often mean the team must work as backups for each other, including on phone duty. But even with a backup system in place, busy periods and focus on other high priority work can lead to missed calls.

“We noticed we had a lot of phone calls, but not a lot of voicemails,” says Kelley. “Without that voicemail message, it was very hard to determine what they needed or who needed to call them back. We couldn’t tell whether it was billing question, they wanted to find a tutor, or anything else.”

More than just an answering machine

With missed calls piling up and empty voicemail messages, Kelley and her team needed a solution.

While Advantage Testing of Houston had never used a virtual receptionist before, they knew exactly what they wanted: a real-life person to catch calls anytime of the day.

At the suggestion of their parent company, Advantage Testing, they decided to give Ruby a try.

“We’re able to reach more people now,” says Kelley. “Everyone is much more receptive to talking to a live person compared to voicemail. It’s really helped us know what people need in advance. If they need a math tutor, we already have the information ready before we even give them a call.”

Helping your administrative team and beyond

Backup support has not only helped current and perspective clients, but employees have also seen the benefits.

“Our part-time remote employees really love Ruby,” says Kelley. “Sometimes they’re only working until 1pm, but the rest of the world are still on a regular nine-to-five schedule. Now they can be confident that someone is handling their calls no matter what time of day.”

With Ruby, Advantage Testing of Houston don’t just have backup support—they have a partner able to seamlessly integrate into their administrative team down to the smallest details.

“When you answer the phone, you never know who is on the other end. Some callers can be difficult or simply refuse to give information. The Ruby team helps us feel prepared for what’s on the other end, just the same as I would do for my own team.”