How Everywhere Wireless Scaled Up by Enhancing Its Employee Onboarding Process and Training

Last Updated on April 15, 2021 by Owen McGab Enaohwo

As the vice president of innovation and culture at Everywhere Wireless, an internet service provider, part of Tom Vranas’s duties was to enhance their business processes. Despite having existing standard operating procedures on the ground, the need for a more effective system became imperative as the company continued to grow. More employees were hired to drive the growth, and it was necessary to empower them with the right system to be efficient at their job.

Determined not to leave any stones unturned in his quest for the perfect system, he tried out about 70 workflow software options, and SweetProcess came out on top. He tells us how SweetProcess has been an integral part of their expansion in this case study.

About Everywhere Wireless 

Everywhere Wireless is the premier internet service provider in the Chicago, Illinois area. Established about a decade ago, the company aimed to build consumers’ trust in their internet service provider by offering a consumer-centric service. Several years down the line, it has kept to its promise with multiple awards, including the best overall ISP in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Servicing several high-net companies including Amazon, Google, CBS, and Nike, the organization takes pride in offering users 99.99% uptime with speeds of more than 2,000 megabits per second to give users a reliable internet connection at all times.

Everywhere Wireless partnered with the City of Chicago to deliver Wi-Fi to many of Chicago’s parks and beaches, and currently has over 60,000 active users.

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The Breaking Point

An organization may come under pressure in the face of rapid growth due to an increase in operational demands, and the failure to meet such demands causes setbacks. 

Knowledge distribution was one of the biggest challenges that Tom and his team faced. Passing work-related information was easier when the team was smaller, but that became difficult as the team expanded. Team members would constantly ask questions about how to get things done—a need that the manual system available at the time was unable to meet. 

“In 2019, we hired twenty people, and so we had to look at all of the systems from onboarding, recruiting, to the knowledge management system. We hit some pretty significant growth, and we continue to hit that growth. It just came to the point where you can’t count on tapping on the guy’s shoulder again and again—that’s going to drive that guy crazy.” 

Choosing SweetProcess out of a Crowd 

Tom set out to resolve the challenge of knowledge imbalance in his organization by adopting an effective workflow software. 

With a clear picture of what they wanted, he and his team did a thorough analysis of about 70 software systems, in search of the perfect match.

“We went through a process where we did a needs analysis, saying here are the needs and wants, and then looked at probably 60 to 70 platforms, narrowed them down, took a closer look, did a demo, narrowed down, did a trial account, narrowed down…”

Besides SweetProcess proving to be the best workflow software on the market, Tom reveals that the great customer service they got from the SweetProcess team was also very helpful.

“We kept going back. I’ve had dozens of conversations with Owen through this process, wanting to get it right… Our evaluation was like a three-month long thing. We kept going back and kept asking for a demo and they obliged us. They never pressured us.”

How SweetProcess Changed the Game at the Organization

Expectations were high at the organization after going through a tedious selection process to pick SweetProcess. Convinced with their findings, they decided to give it a shot. Tom outlines several ways in which the software has enhanced their operations. 

1. Improved customer experience

A company’s customer service is significant to its success. Growth opportunities are endless when a business has a high rate of customer satisfaction—they will retain existing customers and acquire new ones. 

The support team at Everywhere Wireless now attends to customers in the shortest time possible, getting all the information they need on SweetProcess.

“The teams we have that are using it daily—the network engineers, the support team—they are on the phone daily with customers. It gives them a single spot to be able to get all the information they need without trying to look through the documents and binders and all of the mess that it was. It just makes that customer experience significantly better which is our entire goal of the company.”

2. Effective documentation 

Getting it right with your business process documentation begins with choosing the right documentation tool. The wiki documents the company was working with might have helped in getting things done, but they were inefficient.

“We had SOPs, if you want to define them as loosely as possible. Some of them were on our shared drive or some posted notes or in the back of someone’s head. There was no standard. Business ran really well. For the most part, things never got dropped. We had enough firepower to make sure that things continued to go well, but it was just super inefficient.”

Leveraging a variety of tools including texts, images, charts, graphs, and videos in SweetProcess, their documentation is more comprehensive and organized than ever. 

3. Decentralized knowledge base

Established employees, having spent more time at an organization, tend to be more knowledgeable about work duties than their newer colleagues. This knowledge is evident in their performances, making them more competent. It is the responsibility of the management to bring new employees up to speed.

“There’s this set of institutional knowledge that existed. We had people who had been at the company, you know, four, five, six years, and they just know how it works, but we’re onboarding people all the time.”

When established employees leave the organization, they take all that knowledge along with them to the detriment of the organization. 

“I didn’t want to add another system that’s going to be just another system…. How do I find a place that takes the SOPs and the wiki and combine them into one place so it’s the universal set of knowledge for the company?”

Tom found the answer to his question in SweetProcess. He has been able to preserve work-related information in a decentralized system accessible by authorized parties.

4. Seamless employee onboarding 

Onboarding new employees was easier for the company when it was dealing with just a few people. But its growth brought about hiring more people, and onboarding all of them at once became more taxing. They needed to streamline the onboarding process to take on more people without jeopardizing the quality of the training, and SweetProcess came in handy. Not only was SweetProcess used to giving the employees all the information they needed, but it was also very easy to use.

“For us, it had to be a tool that anyone could access. The idea is that anyone should be able to create, edit and suggest because that’s where the knowledge comes in…Within a minute, anyone who logs into the system can do exactly what they’re needing to do. It really had like the exact feature set.”

Advice for Streamlining Your Operations

Tom has some useful advice for anyone intending to streamline their operations. Do not adopt a top-down approach. Communicate with your team members who perform specific tasks to understand their pain points, and then figure out better ways to resolve those pain points. 

“I think the most important part is understanding the true pain points. And a lot of times, managers and leaders have a different view of what those pain points are. Instead of me saying I think the priority should be this and this, it’s really listening to what 80% of the company is saying: ‘This is where I’m struggling, this is where I’m losing that customer experience, this is what I get frustrated about,’ and then identify those areas.”

Addressing the root of the problem helps to enhance the overall customer experience. 

Feel the SweetProcess Effect in Your Business

Tom Vranas has been able to facilitate growth and enhance employee efficiency at his organization by simply adopting SweetProcess. Having the right workflow tool has a significant effect on your business. Perhaps you want to streamline your business operations. This is a good time to get into it. Sign up for a 14-day free trial on SweetProcess to get started without a credit card. 

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