Uniting

 

Uniting is one of the largest not-for-profit community service providers in NSW and the ACT. Based on Christian values, they provide services in the areas of aged care and disability, community services and chaplaincy, and they get involved in social justice and advocacy issues that impact the people they serve. 

Uniting has been providing services to the community for more than 100 years. They have more than 8,000 staff members, who work across a large network of locations.

THE CHALLENGE

Uniting began working with Toshiba three years ago, when they were looking for a solution that would help them digitise more than 100 years of hardcopy archives, with the aim of transitioning to a completely digital model of storing records. Toshiba were able to offer a solution that would scan documents and convert them to PFD, Word and Excel files, and this is when the business relationship began.

More recently, Uniting were planning to run important customer feedback surveys across the business and began looking for an efficient way of processing a large number of survey responses from clients. They needed to capture a large amount of data, including quantitative (circled responses) and qualitative data (written responses).

Kay Freudenstein-Hayes, Quality Risk and Compliance Manager at Uniting, said that they had a tight time-frame to work with and approached Toshiba, based on their existing relationship with them.

“At Uniting we pride ourselves on the services we provide to our customers, users and community.  Surveys are an important tool for us to gauge the quality and effectiveness of our services. We had already experienced Toshiba’s level of expertise with data scanning software, through their implementation of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and PDF/A functions on our existing multifunction devices (MFDs).  Toshiba were a natural choice for us in looking for a solution to process our client surveys, due to the level and quality of service we have come to expect and receive from their products and services,” said Kay.

THE TOSHIBA  APPROACH

Toshiba were able to offer a solution incorporating information auto-extraction, capture and collation, which would work with the existing hardware in place at Uniting. The solution can scan survey response documents to capture the data, and includes text recognition to translate handwritten comments into digital text.

“From our first contact regarding this project, Toshiba was able to demonstrate the depth of their experience in this field and provide us with the requisite level of support and guidance. We received expert advice regarding our specific requirements with keen insights and recommendations based on industry best practice. The Toshiba technical team actively partnered us in the project and worked direct with our other external specialists to provide well-thought-through solutions,” said Kay.

THE TRANSITION

As this was a simple addition of software, there was no disruption to the normal, daily functioning of business at Uniting. Toshiba installed the software and ran some testing with Uniting in preparation for processing the survey responses.

As the software was put in place under a tight time-frame, there was little time for extensive testing and there were teething issues when Uniting began to process the survey responses through the system.

Edith Chow, Project Officer for the Client Feedback Survey at Uniting, said that she was impressed by the support she received in working through these issues.

“Toshiba provided excellent support whenever we needed to iron out practical issues. They were easy to get hold of, communicated clearly, were fast at providing assistance and always kept us up to date. I can’t speak highly enough of the support team,” said Edith.

THE RESULTS

Uniting has a solution in place that largely automates the process of capturing and translating the information on their client feedback surveys.  The solution allowed Uniting to immediately begin analysing the results, rather than manually collating and inputting the data.

“The solution proved to be particularly proficient at capturing and translating quantitative data and made for an efficient way to collect this data. The text recognition component was less accurate but did speed up the process of collecting this information. We are hoping that we can refine this component for added efficiency in future survey processing,” said Edith

Uniting is pleased that they have a solution that could be added to existing infrastructure and alleviate the requirement for human resources in processing their feedback surveys.

“Toshiba recommended a solution that was value for money, fit for purpose and provided great efficiency gains for our survey automation process. We can now focus on analysing the results of our surveys and translating them quickly and effectively into service improvements. We look forward to expanding this service across Uniting,” said Kay.

THE OUTLOOK

Toshiba is committed to working with Uniting to improve the outcomes of their solution to process surveys. Uniting has confidence in the business relationship and feels well supported by the team at Toshiba.

“The support we have received from Toshiba has been excellent and we have complete faith in their desire to work with us to optimise our solution in the long term. They have demonstrated a commitment to customer satisfaction, which we really value”, concluded Edith.

Uniting
Level 4, 222 Pitt Street 
Sydney NSW 2000 Australia

Telephone 
1800 864 846

Website
www.uniting.org

Toshiba (Australia) Pty Ltd 
Bldg C, 12-24 Talavera Rd 
North Ryde, NSW 2113 Australia

Telephone 
1300 794 202

Website
www.toshiba-business.com.au