Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to on the Fringe, the podcast where we explore the systems, technology and people shaping the future of our work. I'm Ann Larson, CEO of Corellian Software and EPR Live, and in this episode we're pulling back the curtain on one of the most important parts of our business, implementation and client success.
Today I'm joined by Avery Lapan, our client success Manager, who oversees the support and onboarding experience at EPR Live.
If you've ever wondered how collaboration, communication and the right mindset make all the difference, then this episode is for you.
Avery shares how we support clients through onboarding, what it takes to keep complex projects on track, and why strong relationships with locals, fund offices and contractors are so important.
We also discuss what makes a great fit for EPR Live, how some clients find their most reluctant contractors, become their biggest fans, and how we support our clients every step of the way. So let's dive in.
So I'm here with Avery Lapan from our client success team.
Avery, do you want to introduce yourself?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm Avery Lapan, our Client Success Manager at EPR Live and I manage our support team.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: What does a typical day look like for you?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: They vary pretty widely, but I would say a typical day would start with my inbox checking to see if any clients from the east coast have already reached out with any questions that I can resolve and then prioritizing the rest of my day from from there, I'm usually diving into meetings, often internal meetings, with my team, to check in and see what's on their plates for the day and if there are any roadblocks that we can solve together to help clients.
And then it might be implementation meetings with whichever client we're currently onboarding in the morning, or maybe a client success call where I'm working with a longtime client on some part of their process that they want feedback on.
Moving into the afternoons, it's often more internal meetings for strategic planning, making sure that the team is on the same page on whatever projects we have going on for the future of EPR Live and then also time for things like build work. So reviewing CBAs from that current onboarding project, building things out in the system, or maybe working closer with a team member on training on how to assist our clients better.
Afternoons are often set aside for doing more of the hands on build work for whatever projects we have going on. It could be doing some follow up from the morning meetings with clients and other projects, and then also often time spent with our team and doing some trainings for any of our newer team members on how best to assist our clients.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: So you alluded to those different stages of the onboarding process. Can you walk us through what that typically looks like from day one to go live, maybe after?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So as soon as a client signs on Sargent implementation, we provide them with a list of material that we really need them to start gathering as soon as possible. And that will be Items like their CDAs, details about how benefits function in their area, any kinds of special rules that they think coming in we need to be aware of when we're building out their EPR Live site.
So once we hit what we consider month one, the client ideally has pulled together that information for us, the bandwidth month one to actually really dig into that documentation and start asking more detailed questions. So month one is really about parsing out that information and starting the build work in eprlives, translating CDAs into our systems agreements, what we call them. So we're working in month one with our clients closely to make sure that we have a good understanding of what their rules are in the area, what they really want to enforce, where the gray areas are that we need to continue digging in with other offices that are involved, so that by month two, we're able to start turning our attention to what we call third parties in the area.
So if our typical client is a NECA chapter, the third parties include the locals office, the JTCs, any fund administrators involved, anyone other than the contractors that have to log into the system and retrieve data in some way from EPR Live.
So month two, we're working with those offices to double check that they agree with what's been built in the system so far. We are going to start training them on how their office will use the system and potentially pull data from our system to upload into their own software solutions and do some fine tuning of that build work, which preps us for what's typically month three. And that final month before go live is when we start focusing on the contractors.
So we get them into the system for what we call a test phase where they have live access to the agreements that we've built out. We encourage them to file sample data that will get wiped from the system, but it gives them an opportunity to check over the system set up.
[00:05:26] Speaker A: So it sounds like you've mentioned that being aware of the rules and the CBAs is important for a smooth onboarding.
Having a relationship with the other offices, being in contact with the employers, fund offices, Locals presumably is also helpful to make the onboarding process go smoothly or to have them spend less Time on it.
What happens if they don't have those things? Like what if they don't really know what the rules are? They don't really do a lot of communication out to their employers currently, or they don't have great relationships with their locals.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: So, you know, if they don't have a strong communication channel with their contractors, we can mitigate that by starting the process of communicating with contractors sooner and adding more touch points to get as many eyes on that as possible prior to the change. It's going to be harder if they don't have existing strong relationships with other entities like the locals, JTCs and fund administrators, but that's also not impossible. What that usually does is it just pushes up our timeline a little bit.
So if we have a client who's not confident in the rules or is newer in their area, we're going to start talking to the local from the start of the project versus waiting. In rare cases, it might mean that we evaluate at the end of month one and say, hey, we think we're going to need an extra month on this project in order to have everybody on the same page. And at that point we haven't started the external communication with contractors about the timeline for Go Live. So that's usually a good time to make that kind of call.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: So what happens if they feel like they need to add a month?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: At that point we have to basically internally check our implementation calendar to make sure we have the space and that their new intended Go Live date is available for them.
But as long as that's good to go, then we establish that timeline and update any third parties that are aware of the current time frame. Typically when that decision is made, no messaging has gone out to contractors, so there's no need to change any messaging for them at that point.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: What do you think makes for a great potential client for EPR Live?
[00:07:35] Speaker B: I think when I think about who's been a best fit client, it comes from a couple of things. One, I would usually think of client that has really great relationships and a communication channel already established with their local fund administrators and contractors. If those channels are open, that's fantastic. We've had clients who are really new to their chapters who have been best fit clients. What made them stand out was their office felt a lot of ownership of the project.
It's offices that really want everyone involved to succeed and to get what they need out of EPR Live. And so they're committed to this idea that this is going to be a system of record that everyone should benefit from using and if they don't have answers, when I dig into their CBAs and ask deeper questions, but they're really willing to go out and get those answers from the other offices.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: So it sounds like it's more about mindset. It's more about wanting to make the project a success, feeling ownership in the project, pushing it forward.
Do you know what our direct clients have had to talk to their other offices about EPR Live to make that successful?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: I would say that it really ranges. We have some clients who during the sales process bring those other offices in.
We have some that take the idea to those offices themselves and pitch it on their own, and then we have others that sign on and then it's more that they're bringing them in with me. During the implementation, we talked a little.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Bit about mindset and how to have a good implementation that way. But are there other internal resources that a client might want a client to have in place to ensure a good implementation?
[00:09:27] Speaker B: The first thing that comes to mind for me is that their office is adequately staffed.
It's something that the Nika world is struggling with at the moment. Having knowledgeable staff that has enough time to dedicate to something like an implementation.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Typically we've had kind of one like the office manager is our point person, right?
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Very frequently, yes.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: And the chapter manager needs to be involved as well.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Yes. And I would say more heavily for the chapter manager within that first month, month and a half, when we're going through the materials, establishing what the rules are, making sure that they're built out in the system.
And then once we start turning our attention to messaging to contractors and other third parties, getting contractors in the system, that's where someone in more of that office manager role tends to have more of the workload because they typically are the people that are communicating with those payroll people who will be using the system more heavily.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: But we have had success with clients who have some really small chapters that don't have an office manager.
And also with larger offices that maybe have a couple people in there, is there a way that you approach those differently?
[00:10:47] Speaker B: I think in those cases, if our ideal setup is that the office has really good communication with their third parties and they're willing to go get that information, there are times when they're short staffed where we might step in and start asking those questions directly from the third parties on behalf of the client, if that's what they need us to do to make sure that we're hitting our deadlines.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Sometimes we have clients where there's multiple People in the office, do you just have to have somebody who's the accountable person or do you manage that communication differently? Do you break it out like sometimes. I've noticed in NECA chapters there's somebody who specializes with nebf.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. The ideal is that there is a point person and it is still customizable. So there are definitely cases where we're going to address specific questions to the chapter manager versus to the office manager based on what items they oversee in their office.
We do make sure that everyone involved in our client's office is always included on those communications so that there is that clear record of any decisions that are being made.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: I know we typically have weekly meetings for these projects with the client's team.
How often are you reaching out to them outside of that?
[00:12:08] Speaker B: There's typically emails or phone calls outside of those meetings at least a couple times a week. We can probably resolve most of those questions in our meetings, but when we get closer to Go Live, it's more likely that we're emailing multiple times a week and are scheduling a one off meeting to make sure that everything's buttoned up before Go Live.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: When do you feel like the client feels the most stress?
[00:12:34] Speaker B: I would say in the last few weeks before Go Live and in their first month of having a new system. That's usually the highest stress point.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Oh, have we talked about how we support them after Go Live? No, how do we support our clients after Go Live?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: I consider the first live month in the system an ongoing part of onboarding.
The clients are new. They've been trained on how to do all of these tasks through our software. And even if they have recordings of that, you know, written instructions, it's still probably going to feel foreign the first time that they're actually doing real tasks in a live environment.
So some of the things that we'll do is hop on a meeting with them the first time they're trying to apply check payments in the system or provide extra training to a contractor who might be struggling or we're still really hands on during that process. We end the weekly meetings after that first live week in the system.
So from there on it's made really clear to the client they can pick up the phone at any time, shoot us an email at any time. And we do a lot of impromptu meetings throughout that first month to make sure that they have the answers that they need and that their third parties and contractors need.
Usually after the first month in the system, we, they're feeling pretty good. I would say after three months in the system.
They know what they're doing. They're feeling pretty confident about it. But that first month we are going to give extra support not only to them, but their contractors and third parties to make sure we're all on the same page.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: So from I want to back up just a second. Do you have a definition of what a client success manager is?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: That's a good question. I guess for our company I'm defining it as someone who's in charge of managing client relationships and focusing on the client experience, helping clients achieve their ongoing goals, working with them on account renewals and checking the pulse, making sure that clients are feeling like our software is a good fit and that they are also maximizing their use of the product that they purchased.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: From a client success perspective, what do you wish more prospective clients understood before starting the onboarding process?
[00:14:57] Speaker B: I think that it's a really collaborative project.
Sometimes people approach a software implementation and anticipate that they're going to tell us what their goals are, hand over some paperwork to us, and then come back in a few months and everything set up the way that they need it to be.
But our software is enterprise software. It's super customized to exactly what they want it to be. And it's intended for offices that really want to have a say in how reporting is happening in their area. They want to have control of rates and they want to see all of their data.
So that means that onboarding has to be really collaborative for it to be successful and for EPR Live to really do all that it's meant to do for them.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: I can't imagine a scenario where a potential client just handed over their CBAs. We just went off and built things for a few months and then turned it on for them. And having that be successful, that's my nightmare. Is that the common misconception or is there something else that people come into this not realizing?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Well, I guess something that I've experienced more recently, something that does come up sometimes is the clients might not be fully aware of how much ongoing maintenance there is for their office. As a site sponsor, having some awareness that you are signing up to do things like updating the rates, managing who can access data in the system, managing what users should have, access to contractor profiles. That sometimes seems to come as a little bit of a surprise.
So that'd be something that I would love for them to show up expecting and embracing that level of control.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: What do you love most about helping clients implement EPR Live?
[00:16:54] Speaker B: I think it's the most exciting when clients and their third parties are coming off of a paper system because I love helping them maximize the efficiency in their office and giving them access to their data.
It's fun when it's a system where it's really a struggle for them, for their contractors and for all of the other offices involved.
And I think EPR Live really shines in situations where you have multiple collecting agents, multiple fragmented processes, and we get to bring them into a solution where the contractors report in one place to everybody involved and we get to cut back on things like errors and lost time.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: And can clients expect to get all of their contractors using EPR Live in the first month?
[00:17:41] Speaker B: All is probably a stretch, but again, that's going to vary. If you're in an area that's surrounded by EPR Live Local, your likelihood of hitting 100% is going to be significantly higher because your contractors are already logging in and know what they're doing.
Most areas have anywhere from 80 to 100% of their employers reporting through our system within the first month.
That is also up to the client at some level as well. I've had one implementation hit 100% response rate when we asked contractors to sign up and give us their information.
And that was because the office manager had good relationships with the contractors and was dogged about getting on the phone and calling them if we hadn't heard from them yet.
Having that kind of buy in from the client and dedication to making sure that everybody is on board is definitely make or break when we're trying to shoot for something like 100% participation right off the bat.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's my understanding as well. Is that the best thing when you have one contractor who just doesn't want to do it is just to call them and walk them through it.
That's the story I've heard many times over the years. You can get that last contractor or last few contractors by spending that personal time with them and then they're totally fine after that. It's just like walking them through it one time and then they're good. I don't think I've heard many stories about contractors who decided that the old way was better.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes those tough contractors ended up being the biggest fans of the system with just a little bit of extra assistance, which is something that our team is always really happy to do. We work with people who are new to the system every day, so we're always happy to spend some one on one time with someone who might not be comfortable with the technology or is just feeling really overwhelmed. With the change in their process.
Often what we hear from those people once they've reported for a month or two in the system is that it's so much easier. Why didn't we do this sooner? So that's always encouraging for us. And I think I've yet to hear a contractor say, I wish that we were still doing our old process.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I've never heard that.
And most of our clients have zero paper reports coming in.
Some took longer than others to get there. But they can get there. Everybody can.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: And I would assume that that's only going to get faster.
People can't avoid using software for the majority of the tasks that they're doing in their offices at this point in time. So I think that the adoption rate is just going to continue to get faster.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: I have heard in the sales process and talking to clients who've been on the system for a long time that there were certain contractors who would say, like, I don't have a computer or I don't have the Internet. I think that's less and less of a thing. I hope that that's less and less of a thing.
What happens if we have a client who wants to implement EPR Live but there's just one entity who doesn't want to use it?
[00:20:56] Speaker B: What happens is going to depend on that entity and how they're currently receiving data from the contractors.
So if it's an entity that right now the contractors are printing paper reports and mailing them to that office, or emailing them an Excel spreadsheet of the employee data along with their check payments, often what we'll do is still include that benefit or benefits in our build out of EPR Live so that when the contractors go to report, it's still going to calculate those benefits and tell them what they owe. But we're able to indicate on their invoice instructions that office is not participating in EPR Live and provide them with instructions of how they can pull data from EPR Live that they'd already put in and send that over with payment to the offices that is not participating.
It's not ideal for those contractors because they are still having to provide data to multiple offices, but it still is making it a little bit easier and streamlined for them. And it's still helping them catch errors during the reporting process by having it calculate in those reports.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: And it'll still give them one place to make corrections if needed, print out the amended report for that office.
There's ways for them to pull that data as a spreadsheet or as a PDF.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Correct. And as long as the office that's not participating isn't a local, we find that often the locals will really help members when there are corrections with communicating with other offices. So the locals typically want to see the data for those benefits, even if the offices connected with the benefit aren't in the system so that they can assist in any way that they can.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: I'd love to hear what some of our clients say about the process. What have been some of the more interesting reactions from clients as they go through the process?
[00:22:57] Speaker B: I mean, the reactions I love to hear is when I'm training them on how their process translates into our system and they react that it's going to be so much faster for them and so much easier. That's what I want to hear with every training.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: What do you think is that like moment of first value for them?
Like, is there ever a point in the process where you see a switch from like, we bought this software, we're not really sure how this is going to work to like, oh, now I see, now I get it.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: So for areas that don't have a software in place for any kind of rate enforcement, they're going to start reacting that way. When we start talking about how we can enforce their rates in the system and how that's going to cut back on contractor errors and missed payments for others, it might be when we talk about the types of balancing reports they can generate from the system to help streamline their funding process, that might be really exciting for them because right now it's totally manual and they're hand keying and check information into multiple systems.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Do you think the relationship with your team and them.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: If they're coming from a solution where they felt like they weren't supported and they weren't getting the kind of response time that they were looking for, being able to build that relationship with them is something that a lot of them have expressed as a reason to pursue EPR Live as their system.
Our team that is doing the implementations overlaps mostly with the same people that they're going to talk to on the support line. It helps that they have one on one relationships with the people that they're going to continue to work with over the years in EPR Live.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: What's the best piece of advice someone has given you?
[00:24:44] Speaker B: I think the piece of advice that particularly applies with implementations is to stay curious, to approach each project with curiosity.
I think it's easy when we're onboarding new clients. There's a cadence to it, there's A repetition to it.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: And.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: And every single area is different. Even the locals within one NECA jurisdiction, they're going to be different.
And I've found times where I thought that I had the details of rules about some specific fund or benefit down pat because they're in every area. But you have to stay curious and keep asking questions because there's always exceptions.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Yes. What are some of the bigger surprises that clients find through the process, the hidden things that come up?
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Sometimes there are special agreements with specific contractors that maybe they just haven't been paying attention to or tracking since they haven't been enforcing the reporting rules. It might be that the contractor is reporting 95% the same as the main CBA in the area, but they have some kind of exception for specific people on their team or for specific classifications. We often discover those and have to enforce those through the system.
Working owners is another one that comes up a lot. Whether or not your area technically has working owners written into the cba. If they do, who qualifies under those specific rules in your local and how they should be reporting?
That often has not been enforced.
And then the other big topic would be our portability, how each local is handling portability. Do they staunchly enforce using erts, so everything has to be reported and paid in the local that the employees are working in, or are they making some exceptions where some benefits can be paid back home directly, whether that's for work in their area or for their members working outside of their area?
[00:26:40] Speaker A: When you talked about special agreements, when do they usually find those or how are they discovered?
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Hopefully they come up when we're first talking to the local about what we've built in the system, what we need them to review. Often the local is aware of those situations and will call it out and provide some additional documentation that maybe the NECA chapter didn't have.
For others, though, sometimes it's a surprise once we get the employers in during the testing phase and they say, this doesn't quite meet my needs, this is not how I report. Digging into that further can turn up that they have some kind of special agreement, which is a big part of why we do that testing phase. Our hope is that we can uncover it then versus two weeks from then when we're live in the system.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: So it sounds like communication is key.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: All right. Anything else? Anything I missed?
That's it for today's episode of on the Fringe. A huge thank you to Avery Lapan for joining me and giving us a thoughtful behind the scenes look at what client success really means at EPR Live. If there's one takeaway from this episode, it's that successful implementations aren't just about data or software. They're about communication, clarity, and collaboration. Whether you're new to your chapter or have decades of experience, the right mindset and right support can make all the difference.
If you enjoyed this conversation, make make sure to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you have questions or ideas for future episodes, we'd love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.
