Powerful business transformation
made with speed, ease & efficiency
The facts
The customer
Reminger Co., LPA, Cleveland
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Philips partner
Total Voice Technologies
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Reminger Co., LPA’s 400 employees are dedicated to serving clients with the high-touch personalized attention of a smaller firm, while at the same time leveraging global reach and expertise that spans more than 30 practice groups. Throughout its 60+ year history, the Reminger team has been consistently committed to delivering outcomes for clients, which is evident in the firm’s tagline: “Results. Period.”
When COVID-19 became a global pandemic in early 2020, Reminger’s Chief Information Officer, Ryan Patriarca, knew he needed to find a way to uphold that brand promise in the face of potential disruptions to business operations. Fortunately, maintaining that quality of service – and making it easy for the firm’s attorneys and support staff to do so – is something he had been preparing for even before it became a necessity.
The need for speed
Like many law firms, the Reminger team uses transcription extensively for various workflows. With COVID-19 prompting an unexpected transition to a remote workforce, Patriarca and his IT team were challenged with equipping staff to upload dictations and conduct transcription from home – without the dictation devices, desktop applications, foot pedals and other solutions typically used in their office-based settings. Further, the team had to accommodate for the lack of consistency in the types of devices people were using at home. “We had some working from laptops, and others working with PCs,” Patriarca explains, “so we needed to immediately enable everyone to be productively working remotely without a lot of additional implementation.”
A real-time, real-world trial
He had been researching Philips SpeechLive for some time and suspected this browser-based dictation and transcription solution could meet their needs based on an understanding of the law firm’s technological and business requirements as well as its culture. Having a long-standing working relationship with Paul Russell, Philips Dictations’ Key Account Management Lead on the Reminger project, Patriarca reached out to quickly deploy a 30-day, company-wide trial of the SpeechLive software.
“We needed a firm-wide trial to demonstrate the solution’s capabilities in a live environment that would truly reflect its performance given all the different departments involved in our workflows,” he says. To support swift adoption, Patriarca and his team removed the dictation software they’d formerly used, and soon had 100% of the Reminger staff using the web-based SpeechLive solution.
We stood the solution up for 80% of our staff within 72 hours, and had the entire firm transitioned to using the solution within a week.
Ryan Patriarca
Chief Information Officer
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A right-sized solution coupled with a strong partnership
Given the unique needs of a quick turnkey solution, Patriarca knew he needed a simple and fast installation, while also taking into consideration the potential challenge of his now remote workforce.
With a well-coordinated approach between the Philips Team and partner Total Voice Technology, Patriarca was able to utilize SpeechLive’s contactless install to complete the deployment process at an accelerated rate to get him up and running as quickly as possible.
“We stood the solution up for 80% of our staff within 72 hours, and had the entire firm transitioned to using the solution within a week,” says Patriarca, adding “I really felt I had the support of the team if I needed it. No matter what I ran into, I never waited more than an hour to get a response from the Philips team.”
The solution’s ease of use allowed the Reminger team to quickly adapt to using the new tool – a key component of a successful implementation, as every minute matters to legal professionals. Once SpeechLive was deployed, staff members did not need (nor did they have time for) a significant amount of training. Patriarca sent a brief series of instructional emails to set up their SpeechLive accounts and provided any needed video classes, and his team of eight IT employees has been managing requests for minor desktop support very well. And when asked about the response from attorneys, administrative assistants, and other staff? “I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback – the solution works really well and it is intuitive, efficient and clear,” Patriarca reports. “It has all the functionality you need and not a lot of extra things that you don’t.”
The new – more efficient – normal
Having a web solution for dictation and transcription that does not require running desktop installation has been a key benefit for the Reminger team. While Patriarca wasn’t initially sure if the firm would be able to conduct necessary upload and transcription processes without a full desktop application, moving to a cloud-based solution has been a success – and he says there’s no turning back. With SpeechLive, it takes less time for dictations to become a work product, and when attorneys can dictate more and quickly move these files into various work streams, it helps increase the volume of outputs.
Looking ahead, Patriarca says the Reminger team may explore incorporating speech recognition technologies to further expedite transcription processes, if they are a good fit and if they can similarly meet the need for efficient onboarding and minimal disruption to business continuity and client support. It’s clear that for this firm, embracing evolving technologies and new approaches is a part of continuing a rich heritage of outstanding service.