Over the course of its 30-year history, Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes has helped more than 100,000 children and adults with learning challenges such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, central auditory processing disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. Their research-validated techniques enable their clients to develop the sensory-cognitive processes they need to read and comprehend to their full potential.
It’s a collaborative effort on a number of levels—from the one-on-one interactions of clinicians and students, to collaboration within a learning center (where consultants guide clinicians on how to best help the students), to exchanges among different learning centers, to an organization-wide effort that provides continuing education for the entire staff.
Supporting this collaboration is one of the missions of IT. It’s also one of the reasons They’ve built our infrastructure on cloud-based solutions such as Google Chromebooks and RingCentral for Google. Using these tools, they have been able to integrate RingCentral functionality within their Google ecosystem, which optimizes collaboration, and ultimately helps them better serve their customers.
Here are two examples. Collaborations between different learning centers are usually about challenging cases in which someone needs to call on the expertise of others in the company. With RingCentral click-to-dial, anyone can call anyone else in Lindamood-Bell by simply clicking on his or her name in the company directory. A conference call requires only a few clicks.
In another example, say a parent calls a learning center and leaves a voicemail with a question or concern about their child’s progress. Previously, someone would have transcribed the voice message and then passed the written note on to the appropriate person. But we all know things can get lost in translation, and there was always the risk that a message could be misinterpreted. With RingCentral for Google, that never happens. A voicemail message is sent directly to the recipient’s Gmail address, where he or she can listen to the parent’s own words using the Chromebook. (I sometimes marvel at how no one uses their phones to check voicemail anymore; everyone on our team prefers the Chromebook.) The main advantage to having email-able voicemail is clearer communication between staff and customers, but it’s a time-saver for everyone as well. As an IT person, there’s another reason why I like Google Chromebooks and the RingCentral for Google integration. Lindamood-Bell has 62 permanent learning centers across the US, as well as in the UK, Canada, and Australia. Each summer, however, the number of learning centers basically doubles as they add temporary offices that operate during the summer only. (These are the offices that have limited admin support.)
They are able to situate those offices wherever they can—a school, or church, or empty office space. In the past, they ran those offices on cell phones, so each summer they needed to scramble to make sure they had cell phones and service for all of those temporary employees.
Starting next summer, their IT’s life will be greatly simplified because summer employees will be provided a Chromebook with RingCentral for Google. Meaning, IT personnel will just need to make sure their offices have internet connectivity and a router!
Another difference next year will be that when they shut down the summer offices, they will take advantage of RingCentral to port those offices’ phone numbers to the closest permanent office. This will allow them to maintain business continuity for their summer customers in a way that they haven’t been able to in the past. Previously, they would have called one of the cell phone numbers and the call would have gone to voicemail. With RingCentral, it will go to a permanent learning center and reach a live body.
To find out more about RingCentral-Google integrations or sign up for a free 30-day trial, please click here.
Originally published Dec 28, 2016, updated Jan 30, 2023