Out of office
CharteredOne | Issue 7 | Winter 2013
A digital dictation
Christmas Carole
from Document
Martyn Best is CEO of the fast growing Liverpool-based digital
transcription business Document Direct. In a light hearted nod
to the forthcoming festive season Martyn has adapted his
corporate brochures to give us an insight into how Document
Direct would have helped our dear friend Santa Claus.
So who’s Carole you may well be asking?
She’s our extremely efficient typist who is looking forward to
Christmas as it allows her to support our clients in even more ways
than normal.
We are Document Direct and in the past eight years we have
helped a wide range of businesses, from lawyers and barristers,
to accountants and authors (best-selling business author Andy
Bounds even), property surveyors and insurance advisers, who
have outsourced their typing, document production and some of
their secretarial services to us. However - here comes Christmas,
and a whole range of new customers, most of whom you will all
know very, very well.
First on our list – he’s big, he’s red, he’s ho, ho, ho – he is of
course, Santa Claus himself. If you think you have backlogs and
business peaks, just consider his business, and the opportunity
for outsourcing! He clearly subcontracts all key elements of
toy production to his self-employed workforce of elves, and his
transport issues are all well scheduled with Rudolph & Co.
His customers, sorry children, also use the latest in technology
to communicate to him, as they all signed up as Document
Direct customers earlier this year. From the convenience of
their rooms they dictate their toyish requests into their i-phones
and blackberries using our dictation app, and with a quick
‘ping’ off the requests go to Carole, head of our typing team.
(It’s actually Jayne, and she’s my Operations Director, but we
are being seasonal remember). Within minutes, this dictation
is transformed to a standard toy request letter in Santa’s preagreed format, and it is emailed directly to santa@northpole.
com. These consistent, legible and timely requests ensure all
orders are fulfilled, no backlogs develop in the office, and on 24th
December we send one clear, concise bill to Santa.
does the job of sending his dictation. All of his work is typed and
returned to him well before Boxing Day, and even Scrooge can
then have Christmas night at home. Of course, with no fixed fees,
and offering a pure pay-as-you-use approach Scrooge sees this
service as exceptional value. (Memo to Bob Cratchett – no need
to hurry back).
Now, how about helping those customers always on the move?
Over to Rudolph, and the “anywhere” system that we provide.
Any shortfalls in his toys are reported back to him in real reindeer
time again by our mobile apps and the typed reports are sent
straight back to Santa well within the hour, and hit his inbox
on whatever mobile device is being used. Despite the recent
decline in the Blackberry, it is still a deliciously popular device with
reindeer.
And finally, and please excuse this one – the most important
Clause to us is the one in our customer service declaration of
looking after each of our customers as best we can, and with our
ISO (ho-ho) 27001 security accreditation your confidentiality is
preserved, and our client standards are maintained.
So, from Martyn, Jayne, and all at Document Direct (including
Carole) we wish you all a very Happy Christmas, a healthy, happy
and prosperous New Year, and of course lots of new documents
in your stocking!
If your New Year’s resolution is to become a new client of
Document Direct, or find out more about how they can help you,
please just send a quick email to
[email protected] or telephone 0151 227 9150.
Payment however takes a bit longer, and this is where another
of our customers Mr. Ebeneezer Scrooge is often asked to help.
We all know that even on Christmas Day, Bob Cratchett is not
at his desk, so who does Scrooge turn to when his loyal staff is
on holiday, and those debt reminders need sending? Why none
other than Document Direct, of course. Scrooge just dictates as
usual, and docks his digital dictation device and our software
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