Num Pisutha-Arnond, Managing Partner, Curas

Microsoft Office System Customer Solution Case Study

Healthcare Solutions Integrator Increases Marketing Reach with Latest Software

“Our employees count on the reliability of the Office Customer: Curas suite of applications. They couldn’t wait to get 2007 Web Site: www.curas.net Customer Size: 8 employees Office.” Country or Region: United States Num Pisutha-Arnond, Managing Partner, Curas Industry: Professional services—IT services, Healthcare Healthcare IT solutions provider Curas wanted to streamline Customer Profile and increase its marketing communications efforts, which were Curas, based in Dardenne-Prairie, Missouri, assists healthcare practices hampered by manual processes and limited employee use of with the selection, implementation, and software applications. Curas experienced major improvements continued support of electronic medical records and practice management after installing Microsoft® Office Professional 2007—a 600 technology. percent increase in marketing outreach, as well as impressive Software and Services gains in internal efficiencies and response rates to customer  Microsoft Office issues. − Microsoft Office Professional 2007  Windows Vista Business

Business Needs as “spam.” In a time-consuming process, Curas is a Gold-certified reseller and the organization’s salespeople would copy implementer of eClinicalWorks, a leading and paste content from Microsoft® Office electronic medical records and practice Word into Microsoft Office Outlook® management solution for physician messaging and collaboration client practices. The company serves private software to create personalized e-mail and hospital-owned medical practices in correspondence. Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Curas employees are dedicated users of As part of the company’s sales efforts, Microsoft Office programs, and they rely Curas sends regular correspondence to its most heavily on Microsoft Office Outlook, customers. The company prefers to avoid notes Num Pisutha-Arnond, a Managing For more information about other sending bulk e-mail, feeling that individual Partner at Curas. “We do everything in Microsoft customer successes, please e-mail messages are more personal and Outlook. We use a shared calendar, we do visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies less likely to be rejected by junk mail filters a resource calendar, and we use it to software. “We didn’t have any problems use the SmartArt® graphics to build very manage our to-dos.” with the installation at all. It went quickly professional-looking marketing and smoothly,” says Brad Cassity, documents.” Customer help-desk requests, which arrive Managing Partner at Curas. in e-mail, are also tracked through Microsoft Better customer service. One of the Office Outlook. To confirm that a request The 2007 Office release contains features services Curas provides to its customers is has been addressed, employees would and functions that enhance usability of the technical support. Help-desk requests have to manually search through their e- core programs. Most noticeably, the new from customers arrive in Curas mail messages, another time-consuming Microsoft Office Fluent™ user interface employees’ inboxes through Office process that sometimes delayed action on and Ribbon provide simpler and more Outlook 2007, where they are flagged, the customer’s request. intuitive tools for Curas employees. tagged for importance, and added to a users’ task list. By clicking on the task list Many of Curas’s customers used Office Benefits item, the original e-mail can be quickly Professional Edition 2003 in their practices Curas has already seen some impressive located and opened to view further to generate patient letters using mail merge improvements since deploying the 2007 important details. This function provides and to analyze exported eClinicalWorks Office system. Due to increased under- simple and efficient follow-up. “Flagging data. Curas would generate database standing and use of software features, messages in Outlook 2007 so that they reports for clients by exporting the employees are able to do more in less appear on your task list is a great improve- eClinicalWorks data to the Microsoft Office time, which has made it possible for the ment,” says Cassity. “We used to have to Excel® 2003 spreadsheet program. Some- company to increase its marketing efforts, scroll through all of our e-mails again just times, Curas found that data exceeded the provide better customer service, and raise to double-check that we hadn’t missed maximum number of rows allowed in Excel overall efficiency. Customer-facing anything.” 2003. Curas also wanted to provide more communications and reports are more professional-looking report formatting to professional-looking and useful, as well. Pisutha-Arnond adds, “The biggest benefit customers, which wasn’t easily achievable of using Outlook 2007 is it helps us not in Excel 2003. Increased marketing outreach. The drop a client request. We have greater more intuitive mail-merge process in Office confidence that nothing is falling through “When the 2007 Office release came out, Word 2007 makes it possible for the sales the cracks.” for us, it was a natural evolution to deploy team to send many customized e-mail it,” says Pisutha-Arnond. “Our employees messages to potential customers in one- Greater internal efficiencies. count on the reliability of the Office suite of quarter of the time it took previously. In Pisutha-Arnond also appreciates the applications. They couldn’t wait to get 2007 just a few months, Curas has increased its improved tools in Office Outlook 2007 for Office.” marketing outreach by six times over what organizing and managing shared and it produced in the entire previous year, due resource calendars. “We’re tracking Solution to the efficiency gained through the new multiple clients, products, and activities. The Curas office has 10 PCs running the mail-merge process. This has raised new Previously, you couldn’t see everything Windows Vista® operating system. The business leads by as much as 600 you had to do today or manage it as company acquired its 2007 Microsoft Office percent. easily.” Curas estimates that the improved system release through a software reseller, organization tools have increased daily and Curas employees managed the instal- Not only is it easier to get messages out to productivity by 25 percent. lation process. The installation team chose customers, but the communications look to deploy the new software over a weekend more polished. “We used to centrally Improved report formatting. The so as to not disrupt customer service. Curas develop marketing pieces for our custom queries that Curas builds for its employees simply carried CDs to each salespeople,” says Pisutha-Arnond. “Now, customers are enhanced with Office Excel individual computer and uploaded the they go to Word 2007, grab templates, and 2007. “Now everything fits into one

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2008 spreadsheet, which our customers find easier to analyze,” says Cassity. Curas employees indicate that PivotTable® dynamic views in Office Excel 2007 are easier to create and modify, as well. Cassity continues, “We've created Excel spread- sheets predefined with the new PivotTable designs. That gives our clients not only the requested report, but also provides data that they can analyze in new ways, which is a real value-add. Now it looks like a formal report, due to some of the new formatting in Excel 2007.”

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2008