BEDFORD, Texas, May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The Beryl Companies, the nation’s premier healthcare-exclusive customer interaction center, marked the beginning of its 20th year in business on April 25. Company officials say this is the kickoff of a year-long celebration culminating in a giant 20th birthday party one year from now.
“In April 1985, my two brothers and I began a business venture that has taken us on a wonderful journey to places that we never imagined,” says Paul Spiegelman, Beryl’s CEO. “From day one, our motto has been ‘stay the course.’ We do what we do and we do it better than anyone else. That philosophy has served us well and is the main reason we are successful today. We are blessed to have wonderful clients, terrific employees and an unwavering commitment to excellent customer service.”
Spiegelman says that the company has remained a privately-owned family business that hasn’t relied on outside capital to grow. “This consistency and stability has allowed us to become the nation’s leading provider of outsourced customer service functions in health care,” Spiegelman says. “We have been able to develop a wonderful culture where employees are highly valued and service excellence is our focus.”
“Beryl’s high quality service has never waned,” says Kris Bowman, director of Marketing and Public Relations for Los Robles Regional Medical Center, a long-time Beryl client. “I congratulate them on this milestone. It’s been a pleasure to have been a part of it from the beginning.”
Currently, Beryl serves more than 250 healthcare clients including some of the nation’s leading hospitals, health systems and managed care plans such as NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Yale New Haven Health in Connecticut, VHA, Humana/Ochsner Health Plan in Louisiana, and many others. Additional clients include pharmaceutical companies, clinical laboratories, physician groups and government-sponsored healthcare programs.
“Beryl operates the nation’s largest and most sophisticated healthcare- exclusive call center, runs the latest CRM technologies, delivers exceptional training and QA, and does so with a commitment to great client service,” say Pedro Ibarbia, II, director of Marketing Call Center for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. “Because Beryl does their job so well, we are able to better respond to our community’s needs.”
In 1996, Beryl was recognized with the Gold Award for Call Center Excellence (A.C.C.E.) given by the industry’s foremost publication -- TeleProfessional Magazine. In 2004, for the second consecutive year, the Dallas Business Journal has named Beryl one of the “Best Places To Work” in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The company employs more than 200 people nationwide, with a majority located at its headquarters in Bedford, Texas.
Pride at Beryl is seen throughout the organization. Steve Schaumburg, the company’s Marketing Director, commented, “Beryl’s culture is unique. Our surveys indicate that employees cherish the camaraderie here and the fact that they are encouraged to ‘have fun’ every single day.”
Bekah Johnson, a Managed Care Supervisor at Beryl agrees. “I think Beryl’s strict adherence to its values make it special. We’re constantly reminded how important it is to always do the right thing, have a passion for customer service, and never sacrifice quality.”
The company, founded by the Spiegelman brothers in 1985, bears little resemblance to the organization that they head today. “Our grandfather had heart disease and needed some way to request help at his home in case of an emergency,” Spiegelman explains. “My brother owned a home alarm business and was able to create a device for him to use. We realized that there was a business opportunity and began calling on hospitals to promote it to their patients that might need the service.
“For the first few months we literally slept overnight in shifts monitoring the alarms. We tried to go out and raise money to grow the company, but no one was interested in talking to us. Then, one day, we saved the life of a 93-year-old woman who had been attacked in her home. The Los Angeles Times ran a front page story and the business took off from there.”
So how did the brothers transition into the customer interaction business? “About a year into our alarm business, one of our hospital clients approached us about providing a 24-hour-a-day physician referral service,” Spiegelman says. “We said, ‘sure’ and set up a phone line and began giving out physician names from index cards.
“In 1995, Columbia Healthcare (now HCA) hired us to build a national call center for all of its hospitals. Then two years into the business, Columbia’s strategy changed. In 1998 we purchased the call center operations from Columbia and moved our company from California to Texas.”
Today, Beryl offers clients a wide variety of services including outsourced call center services, web-based customer support, automated calling technologies and consulting and marketing services. As an innovator and leader in the customer interaction industry, Beryl has led the evolution of call centers from being a large fixed expense for healthcare organizations to providing efficient outsourced services that are significant contributors to the organization’s profit.
The decision to move the company’s operations to Texas was a good one, Spiegelman says. “We found the area to be business friendly and we discovered we had access to great people and great technology.
“Our business is about people,” Spiegelman explains. “Almost every day my brother Barry and I say to each other, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’ We realize that our success is a combination of hard work and luck. But, if you have a sense of integrity in what you do and keep to your values, the sky’s the limit -- you can build a successful company and a successful life.”
The Beryl Companies
CONTACT: Tom Peck of The Beryl Companies, +1-214-497-6759
Web site: http://www.beryl.net/
