NeighborWorks® Salt Lake Salt Lake Neighborhood Housing Services

CASE STUDY 08/19/2008

 

BACKGROUND

NeighborWorks® Salt Lake opened its doors in 1977 with the mission of revitalizing neighborhoods and creating affordable housing. They provide dynamic and creative leadership programs through partnerships with residents, youth, businesses, and government entities.

The NeighborWorks® Salt Lake vision statement of "Rebuilding Neighborhoods... One Block at a Time" has been visibly and successfully demonstrated in its target neighborhoods, including a large geographic area on Salt Lake City's west side running from 1000 North to 1700 South, and from 300 West to the Salt Lake International Airport. These boundaries include all or a portion of the Fairpark, Guadalupe, Rose Park, Glendale, Poplar Grove, and West Capitol Hill neighborhoods. For 30 years NeighborWorks® Salt Lake has had a successful track record of community development. They help people get into affordable housing and provide outlets for children and residents to excel and learn new skills. They are in constant communication with our community leaders, businesses, residents, and youth.

   

You can learn more about NeighborWorks® Salt Lake at www.nwsaltlake.org or by calling 801.539.1590.

If you are looking into purchasing a system from ProTel and would like a portion of your fee to go toward this organization, just let us know at the time of purchase. We have a special program set up to help our community organizations.

NEED

NeighborWorks® Salt Lake was getting a lot of calls from people looking for information about their varied services. Their receptionist was fielding calls to different staff members to answer specific questions. Everyone was spending a lot of time each day on the phone explaining the same basic messages over and over again to different callers.

Because NeighborWorks® Salt Lake is a local non-profit organization that relies on donations and grants to fulfill their mission their telecommunications solution had to be economical, bilingual, and simple to use.

SOLUTION

ProTel was able to meet their requirements with a tailored Inter-Tel system. Our service personnel customized a phone system for their needs and then trained their staff on how to utilize it. We have kept their organization's communications running smoothly since 2003 and continue to help them stay in touch with the community.

The solution provided by ProTel NetWorks helps determine their callers' needs and lets the receptionist forward calls to customized messages. The messages answer general questions and give callers the option to leave a message requesting further details.

Specifically, this phone system allowed them to:

• Handle more calls more efficiently
• Create as many messages as needed to field callers
• Change and add messages as the organization's needs evolve
• Let callers schedule dedicated and focused time with staff members

This solution has helped NeighborWorks® Salt Lake significantly cut down the time spent on phone calls for everyone in their organization. Their staff has more time to dedicate to serving the community. They are now concentrating on growing their service offerings and areas. Their mission to get more people into affordable housing and learn the skills they need to build our communities is being realized.

We're glad to assist NeighborWorks® Salt Lake in building our communities and concentrating on helping more people get into affordable housing in Salt Lake City. ProTel NetWorks is proud to be able to work with this local organization and we are pleased that, ultimately, this solution has helped NeighborWorks® Salt Lake be more successful in fulfilling its mission to our residents.