Stories from the Field: How Kelley Connect created a business solution for Community Action of Skagit County

Welcome to a new section of our blog, where we are going to tell some of the terrific stories we’ve heard and problems we’ve helped solve. Keep an eye on this space, and if you have a story you’d like to share, please let us know!

To kick this off, we need to give you a little background on Community Action of Skagit County. Their mission is to help people improve their lives through education, support, and direct assistance while advocating for just and equitable communities. You’ll see nowhere in there does it say to be pushing paper or use antiquated hard copy data entry systems. That’s where we came in.

“Our time is best spent helping people, but the majority of our job- we were considered the paper pushers because energy efficiency was a program that moved quickly to get information in and out,” said Misty Velasquez, the energy program coordinator for CASC. “When we meet with someone for the first time, it usually takes an hour. And a half hour of it is just someone filling out a form that we then go over with them.”

Misty was about to hire 3 full-time employees to help with the data entry work. Instead of an estimated $10,000 a month going to families, it was going to go to administration. As an existing customer, she asked one of her Kelley Connect team members to help her find a solution.

“They had been using us for a doc management system, but it was purely a storage system,” said Josh Stein, Software Sales Specialist “She said he knew the vision of the forms, and with her vision we created a solution.”

Josh immediately knew the goal was to free up headcount to help the people of Skagit County vs. focusing on process and administration.

“We want to let people get to the business they are in, not the administration of it,” added Josh.

The old process was already antiquated. People used to walk in, get handed some paperwork to fill out form after form, and sign everything. Many of the forms even had duplicate information. In the system that will launch shortly, there is a web interface where people can begin the process either in the comfort and privacy of their own homes or on a tablet as soon as they enter the building.

“Now they can pass the information around to multiple counselors and keep it all digital,” said Josh. “It was largely the limitation of the technologies they didn’t have.”

And most importantly, it’s how we can work together as a team. Misty’s rep was Jason Ostendorf, Director of Professional Services, who knew he could put in a quick call to Josh and get the solutions started. With all our additional resources, the solution is almost always within our Kelley Connect network.

“When someone calls us asking for help, we immediately start listening for how we can help them save money,” said Jason. “Whether it’s headcount or a more efficient system or whatever they need, we can start solving problems right away.”

And fast. The system was specked, designed and ready for implementation in 60 days.

“Our focus is advocacy for self-sufficiency,” Misty said. ”We need to be able to spend time with our clients, hear what their goals are, hear what they need to support themselves. In order to do that, we have to spend time with them. We cannot just be pushing papers all the time. My goal was to get my staff to work one-on-one with our clients, and help them come up with their own solutions. We needed to spend that valuable time with our clients to accomplish our agency’s mission.”

A success story all around.

Have an experience you’d like to tell us about? We’d love to hear it. Please email or call Stephanie Moceri at stephanie@kelleyconnect.com or 206-284-9100 and we’ll set up a time to hear what you have to say.