Happily ever after with Zipporah

The planning of a marriage ceremony takes time and energy, and although some may say the stressful period of planning is later easily forgotten, the hassle to organise everything from the reception and invites through to notice of marriage and the ceremony can be simply overwhelming. I have been working with Zipporah long enough to know that e-booking systems are our speciality and something that we pride ourselves on doing exceptionally well.

I know that we have a large client base within Registration Services, it is needless to say that my expectations were set high when it came to register my notice of marriage at my Registration Office. It came as a slight disappointment when I discovered that my local registry office had no booking system. I initially did not give it a second thought, I grabbed a phone and called, but still a bit baffled I was thinking e-booking system?! Why not?

It was while trying to make my own arrangements that I realised booking an appointment the old fashioned way using pen, paper and phone is far from perfect. My partner and I both work during office hours and the booking involved fitting in several phone-calls (involving myself, my partner and the Registry Office) to arrange a suitable appointment into an already busy day. Having seen the impact that online booking systems can have I know there is a better way. By allowing your customers to book online, you save yourself time and money, and frustration for your customer who don’t want to be put on hold. Customer convenience is incredibly important to you and your service, so give your customers flexibility to book appointments when it suits them best.

The benefits of online booking systems is not only matter of convenience, but the efficiency savings that you are guaranteed. With the portfolio of over 60 clients here and abroad, we have seen how our solutions transform your services. The e-booking solutions free the time of your staff, allowing them to dedicate more time to your core business. Our back-end functionality makes sure your appointments are managed between offices and registrars making sure the work schedules are updated and all the confirmation emails are delivered to customers at the point of booking. No double bookings occur and the automated reminders help remind your customers when they should be at your office, eliminating no shows.

So regardless of the size of your Registration district, why don’t you take a 5 minutes of your time to call our sales team and arrange a demonstration !? We guarantee you will see software like no other in the marketplace.

Anna Mazur

Marketing Executive 

What a long trip it's been

We shall start where all good stories should start, at the beginning. Nearly 5 years ago I graduated University and got a job at Zipporah. As all jobs go as a graduate, it started with a lot of learning and a lot of menial tasks, a "style this" here and a "make this button green" over there. As time went on I learned more of the business, more of the products and more of the code. Gradually my mistakes slowly disappeared, eventually (rightly or wrongly) client interaction started to come in and I started to find out what issues our clients had and how we could help them.

Time then went on as time does and confidence grew, I got more involved tasks until about a year in, I was made lead developer on a build of a system. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for me as it left a better impression and I learned more), it wasn't the easiest of projects to do, but it went out, went live and I can happily say it is still live to this day with a reasonably low support rate.

From here I kept progressing, kept getting projects and also kept getting to deal with the clients, slowly learning and slowly remembering. This kept going till I hit my about 3 year mark with Zipporah, at this point me and a fellow developer got the chance to make a system from scratch. This led to some tested patience, a lot of learning and some "interesting" discussions, but I have to say the day that went out to clients and it got a good reception it was worth the effort to get there.

A couple more new projects were needed, and as a team we got these implemented and then out to clients. Then the day came for my first solo build from scratch. This was a smaller project, and I have to admit that a few mistakes were made and some stress was had, but as with all good projects, it went live and in even better news it is still live to this day, with one of the lowest support rates of any system for Zipporah.

Now we come to today. About 300 projects, 30 client builds and 4 full system builds later I have been able to revamp our Registrars (most popular) system. It's been a long road to get here, a lot has been learned, a lot has been broken then fixed and a lot has been done to make this the best system for the clients, but you are all starting to get to see it and I am so proud of the system it has become I can't wait to hear the feedback.

Thanks for reading my rambles.

William Lee

Senior Web Developer 

Bridging gaps

I've learned a lot in my professional career, and one important lesson that no matter the project, industry, or country is that we always make assumptions. When managing projects, and especially development, the only way to meet deadlines, specifications, and client expectations is to ensure that we don’t assume what is needed.

It reminds me of a lesson I learned when first living in the UK. As you may know, I'm American, and moved here about 3 years ago to be with my wife. In my first day here, my soon to be wife offered me some “squash”. I as a picky eater, turned down the nice offer and had some potato chips (crisps). A few days later I was at her parent’s house, who also offered me some squash which I politely refused, and thought “The British really love squash!” A few days later I went on a night out and stayed at a friend’s house in London. The next morning, the first thing that they offered me was squash. I stopped them and had to ask what the reason for this obsession with squash was! They gave me a puzzled look, and after a confused conversation, I learned it was a drink, and not a vegetable that you eat at thanksgiving!

Working with projects can be a lot like this in many ways, as clients have an idea of their requirements, and assume that others will understand this. This can be dangerous if time is not taken to ensure that the requirements and needs are fully understood and documented, as neither myself nor the client will be the one implementing and testing the solution. A large part of my job is to ensure that all assumptions and understandings are documented in a way that can be passed through the life cycle of a project, to ensure that the development team are able to make an excellent system, that meets and exceeds our customer’s needs and expectations. To do this, we use many different tools and techniques, and most importantly we welcome the opportunity to sit down with a client and learn more about their business and ensure that a system that we implement works for them and their needs!

Luke Stegall
Project Manager

First-class solutions require first-class customer service.

So under our new approach to blogging, you may now have learned that you will get a blog entry from a member of each of the individual teams within Zipporah, to give you opinion and comment from all areas of the company. I was tasked with writing the first for the Business Development Team, consisting of myself, Tommy Ludford and the Business Development Manager Jonathan Stewart.

Over the past 12 – 18 months, it’s been no secret that Zipporah has been undertaking some exciting changes, with substantial growth into new countries and new markets. This has inevitably seen our client list grow, and something that Zipporah as a whole, and specifically the Business Development team, has had to ensure is that our existing clients continue to get the first class customer service that everyone has come to expect from our company.

We have always engaged with our existing clients, and we are always striving to ensure that our customers’ needs are met. Whether this is rallying to fix a potential issue, all the way through to using our experience in assisting a customer with some queries on how to better utilise their system, we are always keen to make sure we are approachable, available and perhaps most importantly, honest with our customers. We don’t see our job as providing a product; we see our job as creating a partnership with our customers, looking at potential problems they face within their individual business areas, and providing a first class solution based upon the invaluable experience we have gained in the past 10 years. 

Our support structure is now the best it’s ever been, with every customer having full access to the dedicated support team, via email and telephone. As well as the support desk, every customer has their own Project Manager to oversee any implementation, and an overall Account Manager to give our customers every opportunity to have someone to speak to at any point they feel they need to.

Here at Zipporah, we believe the quality of our Customer Service needs to match the quality of our solutions, and we have worked hard to ensure that it does.

What are your thoughts on the Customer Service you have received from Zipporah? We are always grateful for feedback, good or bad – we won’t get too upset we promise! All information is helpful, so don’t be afraid to let us know!

Jordan Burnell
Business Development Executive