DA Corporate

I am pleased to announce that we have "gone live" with a new customer support site.  Please visit http://support.douglas-associates.com and take a look around.

Our new site has a searchable knowledgebase that our customers can access 24/7 to find the answers they need.  For many years, we have had an internal database of support articles that our support reps used to assist customers.  Now, we have migrated most of those articles to the public site, and we plan to be quite aggressive about publishing new articles.

In the past, customers needed to contact us by phone or email to start a support incident.  Our new site offers customers the option of creating a support ticket online.  Customers will also be able to login to our support site and view their tickets and their resolution.

To increase our efficiency, the new support site automatically processes all the email sent to support@douglas-associates.com. The system will search the knowledgebase for possible solutions and forward these answers to the customer as part of the confirmation email.  Internally, the system will help us route your support requests to the correct department so they can be processed faster.

In all, we expect this site will help us provide better service in a more timely fashion.  Please let us know what you think!

Here in Michigan, the days have turned cooler, the kids have gone back to school, and the United Way pledge cards have arrived in our office.  Because our company makes software for United Ways, we all know how important it is to support your local United Way.  But, as I drove into work this morning, I wondered how many people out there really know all that United Ways do.

For instance, I wondered if people see past the Pledge Card sitting on their desk.  It might be easy to dismiss this as just another non-profit organization with its hands out...another request for part my hard earned pay.  What do they do with all that money they raise?  How do I know if they can be trusted?

This year, my Pledge Card crossed my desk at the same time as my annual 401k statement.  I'm not an investing wizard, so I've plunked my retirement money into mutual funds.  I let the mutual fund manager worry about which stocks and bonds to buy and when to buy them.  Sure, the mutual fund manager charges me a small fee to do this, but it's one less thing that I need to worry about.

 It occurred to me that United Ways do a similar thing.  When I give my money to a United Way, they manage it for me just like my mutual fund manager.  I don't need to spend a lot of time deciding which charitable organizations I should support...nor do I need to decide how much to send to each one.  My United Way does all that for me.

And then, there's the issue of trust.  Do I want to review the financial statements of all the charitable organizations that I support?  Do I want to review their programs to be sure they are meeting real needs in the community?  Once again, I don't need to worry about this because I know my United Way is doing that for me.  And I know my local United Way is run by local volunteers; community leaders that I know I can trust.

Since I've worked with United Ways for so many years, I already know these things, and my Pledge Card gets filled out immediately.  My 401k statement will get stuffed into a dusty folder at home, but my Pledge Card will reach out to every corner of my community.  That brings a smile to my face and a bit of warmth to my heart.

If you're looking for information on your local United Way, the United Way of America web site is a good place to start.  And, if there's a Pledge Card at the corner of your desk, fill it out now.  It really does feel good.

I am pleased to announce that we have completely scrapped our existing web site in favor of a web site based on the fine CommunityServer product. 

While our old web site had served us well for many years, our company has changed dramatically in the last few months and it was completely out of date.  In December 2006, we sold off our Consulting Services division to Ed Gibbs.  Most recently, we sold our IT Services division to BRC Michigan on March 1, 2007.  With all these changes, it was time to move our web site rework to the top of the "to-do" list.

As we built our new web site, we had two crucial objectives:

• First, we wanted a web site that was easier to update and maintain.  Our old web site had out of date information about what we're doing and what products we've updated and released.  Any changes to the old web site had to be sent to a programmer or web designer.  Our new site can be updated by all of our staff and even our customers.
• Second, we wanted to build meaningful partnerships with our customers.  Recently, I was talking with one of our customers and she had no idea what we've been working on.  We needed a quicker, easier way to get this information out to our customers.

I'm sure we'll run into a few bumps as we move over to this new technology, but I'm sure it will be worth the trouble.  You can't put a price on stronger relationships with your customers.

For more information about CommunityServer please visit http://www.communityserver.org.