Welcome to 2012!

It is a real pleasure to add our welcome to 2012! At ARS, we are officially calling this the “Year of the Route”. More than just a slogan, you will see our focus in 2012 is to enhance everything you do with your routes – planning, optimizing, balancing and analyzing. We have many things planned that will help drive down your route operating costs.

In addition, we have plenty of work lined up to keep our programming staff cranking out a whole family of enhancements that will make your office and warehouse more efficient, too. This includes everything from our core package to optional modules such as eStoreFront. We even have a couple of new modules planned for 2012. Everything to make your life easier and better.

We appreciate you being our customer. We know that each day as we begin work we must once again earn your trust and continue to supply the best service humanly possible to you! We are grateful for that opportunity and look forward to another year of success as your IT partner. We hope that you enjoy the same increased success this year over last.

Birthday

Guess who has a birthday today!?! It is Advantage Route Systems. We just turned 18 years young. This is a great time in our corporate life – we are old enough to be through the trying early years and young enough to over excel to make our customers happy. Experience has taught us a lot and we are better now than ever before. 

This year we are renewing our efforts to enhance on ‘the customer experience’ and also give you better tools for route delivery. Matter-of-fact, we are dubbing this “the year of the route” for 2012. A small indication of where we intend to place our efforts this year. 

So, join us as we continue to get better. Let us know where we can improve and how we can better serve you! Our success is 100% dependent on yours. We look forward to being your partner as you have the best year ever!

New Faces

We want to introduce you to a couple of new faces at ARS that joined us last month. To replace Aunrae, Ilda Aguilar joined us in sales. She has many years of experience in customer service, sales and technology. Most recently, she was a supervisor for a sales team with a major network communications company. In the short couple of weeks that she has been at ARS, she has done an exceptional job of learning about our products and assisting you.

The best is yet to come. Ilda can be reached by choosing extension 299.

Another new face is Travis Henderson. He is in the support department and is planning to support the RM2000 line with the other team members. He comes with a CIS degree from Stanislaus State (our local college) and has been working for another national firm before joining ARS. He looks forward to learning the product and enhancing our support team.

You can reach Travis through the support line or his extension at 562.

New billing system

Last year, we embarked on a program to create a better time billing system to more transparently keep you informed about the time you use and what is available to you at all times. We love AutoTask (our help desk system) for keeping track of activities coming in with its reminders for our team. However, it has been a source of frustration when it comes to keeping track of what time you have purchased, used, etc. While it is generally right, it does not meet my standards for the customer experience we think you deserve – not to mention the annoying messages for ‘low hours’ that seem to come out of nowhere and may not always be right on.

So, with the new system, you will get an email statement each month that will clearly show when you have called in and who you talked to for how long and why. In addition, you will see time added to your account through your support plan, new modules or direct time block purchases. Each call is clearly marked as to whether it is billable or non-billable so you know exactly what you are getting. There will be notifications if you run low on time, but at a maximum of once per week.

All-in-all, our goal is to have a new program that is accurate, transparent, fair and mutually beneficial. We invite your comments/feedback and thank you for your patience as we make the transition. You should be seeing a statement within a week.

BT-4 Printers

Over the last few months, we have accumulated a couple of dozen BT-4 printers that customers have returned for various reasons. We have one batch that are a little rough and another that looks only slightly used. They all come with a 30 day warranty and are priced competitively. The ‘more’ used ones start at $200 and the ‘lighter’ used ones go up to $350. Either way, you can save big compared to a new one. Call Ilda on extension 299 to order them.

Save Money on BT-4 Printers

A common maintenance item on the BT-4 printer is the replacement of the rubber guide roll on the top cover. Over time, and with use, they tend to not work correctly causing jams and misfeeds. This part is really quite simple to replace yourself. Instead of sending the printer in, waiting for it get fixed and shipped back to you, you can buy the part and swap them out yourself in about 2 minutes. The parts are cheap – $15 and we try to keep them in stock for you. Let us know if you would like some and we will get the part – and instructions – out to you today!

Thank you – Kiitos Paljon – Mahalo – Gracias et Merci Beaucoup

We owe all of you a big thank you for all of your many ideas, suggestions, and comments for our new Series 6 software.  We had suggestions from over a dozen countries and about 30 users of the software.  Some overlapped others, but the line up is impressive of the new things that YOU want in the next generation software.  Next week, we will be adding the complete list to our web site so that you can see all of the many shiny new features.  If you have not upgraded for a while, there is even a longer list as we have been routinely adding new material throughout all of 2010.

Just as last year, we will have our big update in early March, and then during 2011 continue to add new functions as we design, code and test them.  Each year there are new hardware devices (printers, handhelds, etc.) and we continue to implement them as well.  We are also responsive to your custom programming enhancements!

All of these venues make the Route Manager software a comprehensive and powerful system at a price that is truly affordable.  No wonder it is the most popular system in the USA!

RDM Seminar- February 17 at 12:00 Pacific Time!

Next week is the big, free seminar for RMA and RM2000 users on RDM – Route Dispatch Manager!  Nearly two dozen of you have signed up and we are quickly running out of space.  If you have not signed up already, then be sure to call Adam at extension 283 so you get on the original broadcast.  This will give you the opportunity to ask questions, get answers and discuss how you can get the most value out of this software!  It will also give you a sneak peak at the new Series 6.

Route Dispatch Manager is powerful.  The graphical interface is easy to use, and lets you see each stop as you move it from one sequence to another; to another route or even to another day!  With advanced mapping, you can even optimize it, add travel times and see exactly where your driver is going.

For a sneak peek of the RDM software, click here to view a short video.

Mark your calendars for February 17 at 12:00 PST, 1:00 MST, 2:00 CST and 3:00 EST. You won’t want to miss this event!

Deep in the heart of Texas!

Later this month, ARS will be in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas for trade shows.  Rather than zigzagging across the country from California, we have decided to make it a three week road trip and do training for customers in the area.  If you have been thinking about a one day training session on something, or want to have a consultant dedicate a day to your company, now is your chance!

We have a special you can’t refuse: No airfare to come on site.  Just pay for hotel, car or taxi and our daily training rate, and you get a dedicated resource for 9 fantastic hours!  If you are in Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio or even Tyler or El Campo, we will drop in and give you personalized service on your special RMA or RM2000 software.

Dates are limited, so it is on first come, first served basis!  Call Adam at extension 283 to schedule or get a hold of Lauren at 285, too.

Thanks for the feedback!

Many of you have noticed that after contacting support, you will be prompted to give us feedback through a 7 question survey.  We want to thank you for taking a couple of minutes to respond and give us your feedback.  We really appreciate your many comments and notes.  You often times give us praise and we also get feedback that we need to improve.

Thank you for being candid and taking the time to respond.  Keep the comments coming.

Busy as Bees

Even though the weather outside is a disaster in most parts of the country, our development team is buzzing like a bunch of bees going into a spring hive!  February is always a busy month as we work passionately on our March release of RMA.  This is one of the biggest of the year and will be released next month as Series 6.  We are at it full bore and there are weeks of work to squeeze into a short time frame.  It is always fun and very rewarding to see thoughts, ideas and designs come together in a working – debugged – piece of software!

For the next week or two, we are still taking requests for any custom changes that you might have.  Let us know right away if you have something that you have always wanted.  Call Dave in support to let him know.

Finally, early next week we will have the last version of Series 5 coming out.  It will be Version 5.1.3.  We will let you know when the R version is ready.

Mark This Date on Your Calendar!

On February 17, we are having a special one hour broadcast on the RDM (Route Dispatch Manager) module.  We realize that many of you still have not investigated it and this will be a great time to learn what’s there.  David Kroutil, CEO, will be hosting it and going through its practical use.  During the web broadcast you will not only learn how to use the many functions of the program, but will also be guided through the installation process, as well.  You will be sent a manual ahead of time.  We need to know how many will be joining us, so call Adam at 888-294-7688 ext. 283 to sign up and get information on connecting to this webinar.  RDM is powerful.  It’s graphic. It’s easy to learn.  It’s easy to use.  It’s a wonderful tool that makes your life easier.  It’s also included free in Route Manager Advanced and Route Manager 2000.

If you can’t make the webinar, we will be recording it;  however, you won’t be able to ask questions or get personal application to your business like being there on the 17th!  Join us!

Come See Us! 3 Upcoming Tradeshows!

1.  Joint SEBWA & MABWA Convention and Trade Show February 23-26, in New Orleans, LA

2.  2011 NORA Winter Meeting, March 2-4, in Austin, TX.

3.   Missouri Valley Ice Manufacturer’s Association Spring Conference March 6-8, in Hot Springs, AR.

New release of RMA

Last Friday, January 14, we released the newest version of RMA for our customers. This contained a whole bunch of new things that will make your life easier as you use the software. Click here to view the complete list of new functions in RMA (username and password is required). To save your clicking finger, here is a high level summary of some key items.

RDM – Route Dispatch Manager – more functionality added.  Can do multiple days as well as one route day.  Better tie-in to mapping, too

New Customer Information Tab – equipment is on its own tab so we have more room to display more information

Inventory – made more changes to this area – especially for multiple layers and also multi-units

Advance Comms – we now have some cool colors to better identify what is happening

ZIP code defaults – if you use default values with your ZIP code setup, then there is a way to apply these values on each stop when you change the Zip code

There are about 50 changes all together – some small, some major, so read the whole story with the link above.

Where does this all lead us to?

Even though this was considered a big step forward with the software, we have other things that we have been working on for our Major Release (Series 6) which is due out the first week of March.  This will include some really major changes and we will include them in our newsletter next week.  This is also a great time for us to do enhancements for you.  If you have something that has been on your list that you would like done, call or email Dave Williams at 888.294.7688 ext. 2 or e-mail DWilliams@AdvantageRS.com and we will get the right person to call you back to discuss your requirements.  We will also let you know if if we are already working on a similar enhancement.

You don’t want to miss this!

About a year ago, we announced Route Dispatch Manager.  This graphical tool was created to save you time and help you manage your routes better.  We know that many of you have not had a good chance to look at it, so we are hosting a special webinar on January 27 to learn more about this tool and how it will help you.  In this webinar, we will start at the beginning and show you how to set it up, how to use it on a daily basis and even give you a glimpse of some of the new things we will be enhancing this year.  There will be plenty of time for questions and user interaction, so come prepared to have a good time and learn more about it. If you miss it, we will record it so you can view it at a later time.

Do you do water treatment?

If you do, we want to talk to you!  Each year we set goals for our company and choose a new industry to really “get into”.  This year we have chosen water treatment and filter scheduling.  To be fair, this was one of the original reasons that we developed RDM.  Now, we are pushing it further.  Our target is to add functionality, features and support for all aspects of the industry.  Got some great ideas?  Call Adam (888-294-7688 ext. 283) and tell him what you would like to see.  No promises that everything will be added right away, but you will see many novel things added throughout the year.  Call us!

New RM2000 version due out this Friday

This Friday, we are releasing a new version of RM2000 with several changes and fixes that we have heard about over the last couple of months.  We will let you know when the release is out.  This will be a fairly small release, but will make many of you happy.