Posts Tagged: IBEX Payroll

Herd Philosophy / IBEX Payroll — 1 Comment
3
May 12

IBEX Classic or IBEX Direct – You Decide

By IBEX Staff

For the last 2 years IBEX customers have been switching over to our new payroll platform that we call Everest.

We noticed that after the switch to the new system, some of our customers started relying on us less and less and became more and more independent.  They were basically doing their payroll in self-serve mode.  After their initial orientation and a few calls to verify procedures, they hardly called us at all.

We were curious – why were they not calling us?  Don’t they love us anymore?  Do they still need us?  We decided to call them and ask what was going on. They said things like:

  1. We’ve gotten used to this new system and like the fact that we can do our own payroll whenever it’s convenient for us – without having to rely on anyone else.
  2. After the orientation, the new system was easy use.
  3. We like that IBEX is still behind this making sure all the calculations are correct and up to date and making our remittance payments on time for us.
  4. We appreciate that IBEX is always there to help us with the system and to answer payroll questions.
  5. We like that if we have staff turnover, or when our payroll person goes on holidays or is sick, IBEX can step in and do everything for us without us having to learn the system.
  6. We like that IBEX always answers the phone without making us wait.

Some also said they would like to pay a little less since they do most of the work themselves!

Well now we had gone and opened a can of worms!

In the IBEX tradition we started working on a win-win solution to this.  How could we reduce the price for self-service clients and not shoot ourselves in the foot?  We went back to the drawing board, took out our calculators and designed a new self- serve option that recognizes that you’re doing much of the payroll processing work yourself, recognizes you for doing so, and solves a problem for IBEX.

Introducing IBEX Direct

The result is what we call IBEX Direct.  Our new self-serve payroll processing system that will save you approximately 40% compared to IBEX Classic.

Keeping the Familiar – IBEX Classic

What if you don’t want self-serve and you hate those self-check in/checkout thingies?  Well, we thought of that too.  In fact, we came up with a brilliant solution… Change nothing.

Keep everything just the way you like it.  As in, stop reading now and forgive the interruption!

You just keep on doing what you’re doing, the way you’re doing it and nothing changes.  IBEX Classic continues to be the best option out there for flexible, full service payroll.

Since IBEX Direct is new, let us tell you more about how it works.

What part of the payroll processing do you do?

  • Take Everest training (at half the cost of new customers)
  • Login to Everest to be part of each payroll
  • Create your own input sheet for every payroll
  • Enter your own hours and adjustments for every payroll
  • Preview and approve each payroll
  • Print off your own T4’s and ROE’s
  • Add your own new employees to Everest
  • Pay for your payroll by online bill payment, rather than traditional pre-authorized debt.

What does IBEX do?

  • Automatic remittances
  • Offer ongoing support for things like setting up a new deduction, setting up a tricky ROE, interpreting payroll laws
  • Jumping right in for you when your payroll staff is ill, on holidays or retiring – at no extra charge

How can IBEX afford to offer IBEX Direct at 40% of the cost of IBEX Classic?

When you do most of the payroll processing work yourself, we save staff time.  It only makes sense to pass on those savings to you.  But staff savings is only part 1 of the answer, because, after all, our staff will still be there to support you when needed.

The other reason we’re able to pass on such phenomenal savings to you has to do with reducing our credit risk and administration costs.  With IBEX Direct, customers will pre-pay us by online bill payment.  For you, this means you’ll be paying the full amount of your payroll 3 days prior to payroll day by online bill payment.  We have no more bad debts and no more overhead dealing with collection issues for IBEX Direct customers and in return we charge you less for our services.

IBEX Direct will be available to existing IBEX clients starting in October of this year, so you have plenty of time.  If you are interested, please click the link below and fill in the form to let us know, or call Alpine Crew to talk it over. If you decide to go ahead, we will schedule training for you prior to your switch to IBEX Direct, and if you are not in Everest yet, we will make sure you are converted in time to get going.

 

I’m interested in going Direct

 

 

 

 

Herd Philosophy — 2 Comments
19
Dec 11

Low cost holiday party not low on fun

Looking for a fun idea for your company holiday party that does not cost a bundle but is super fun?  Why not take a page from the IBEX Payroll Herd.

This year IBEX rented our local community centre, had a potluck dinner, and for fun we had a gift exchange and played spongee hockey outdoors on the rink ice.

We had an open bar, but it turned out we were so busy having fun we barely drank anything!  A safe and affordable evening.  We all agreed it was a really, really good time and something we would definitely consider doing again.  We made a video to show the world just how much fun we had – all on a budget.

Video – The IBEX Herd Holiday Party 2011 – Fun on a budget!

 

Customer Service / Herd Philosophy — No Comments
12
Dec 11

How your smaller company can kick big company butt

by Lisa Tachan, Head of Spreading the Herd Word

Here at IBEX Payroll, we are striving to become one of the best places to work in Canada. Our unique work culture,  along with a passion for great customer service, are what we pride ourselves on. We were reminded just how different we are from our competitors when we had a former employee of theirs join our ranks and become a member of the Herd. Nick has been with us for just over a month now, and with his experience in the payroll world, he’s been able to give us some insight into just how different it is to work at a place like IBEX.

“It’s like night and day,” Nick explained. “I think people are set up to expect less from the big companies. When you compare what the big companies do to what the Alpine Crew does here, it’s just a whole different philosophy.”

Nick explained that in most cases, if you use a large company to do your payroll, and there comes a time when you need some assistance with the payroll system, your phone call will go to a call centre setting where it is filtered through to a customer service rep. These reps are heavily monitored. The company will keep track of how many minutes their reps are on the phone with you, how many number of rings it takes before they pick up, how long a customer is waiting on the other line, and the number of calls they take in a day.

When Nick joined the team at IBEX, he had a few other things to get used to aside from the morning Herddle and “Go IBEX!” cheer that happens daily in the IBEX Herdquarters.

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything when I say this, but, sitting in on training with Kevin and Susan, there were just some things that they were doing for customers I was wondering to myself, ‘why are you doing this? Shouldn’t they [the customer] be doing it themselves?”

Nick went on to explain how he witnessed Susan error-proof a payroll for several of her customers. If something looked off to Susan, she would call the customer to double check that the information provided was correct before she sent it off to be processed. Kevin received an e-mail from a customer who wanted very little to do with the whole payroll process. This customer would just list the first name of their employees and how many hours each of them had logged for that pay period. Kevin would then enter that information into the IBEX system himself. At witnessing this type of service, Nick was amazed.

“That just doesn’t happen at the bigger companies,” Nick said. “Usually, they just run a payroll as soon as it is submitted. If there are any errors, the customer is out of luck and will probably be charged a fee to run another payroll. The type of customer service at IBEX . . . . it’s just . . . it’s the kind of service you think of when you think of great customer service. It’s like going back to the old days.”

Chalk 1 for the goats with the most, and zip for the guys in the suits.  Smaller companies can do it better by challenging the way things have always been done.

Share some of your excellent (or not so great) customer service stories with us by commenting below!

Interested in becoming an IBEX Payroll customer? Visit this link for a free trial with our system!

Herd Philosophy — 2 Comments
5
Dec 11

Becoming the best place to work in Canada: Growing the Herd, p.4

By Darryl Stewart, Head of the Herd

This is the final post in our “How to grow your herd” series.

Summary of the first three posts:

  1. In part 1 why I wore only my underwear to work, I talked about why we wanted to grow IBEX
  2. In  how to grow your herd part 2 I talked about how we found our hedgehog concept (our focus) and what it is
  3. In how to grow your herd part 3 I talked about how we confronted the brutal realities that were holding us back

In this final post, I want to give you some insight on how we want to represent ourselves to the world and how we plan to grow our company. How to grow your herd part 4 is all about spreading the herd word.

We have unique names for just about everything at IBEX. To give you a feel for this, at IBEX, marketing is called spreading the herd word, the payroll marketing team is called the Goatbuzzsters and we call our accounting department the Feed Counters.

IBEX has always been a unique place, but in the past we have kept this hidden from plain view.  The thinking was that we must appear solid, secure, and serious (some might say boring and stuffy), like the companies we compete with, in order to be perceived as trustworthy. Payroll, after all, is a serious business. It must be done on time, government remittances must be paid properly, and system data needs to be safe and secure. In the beginning, we asked ourselves, who would trust a bunch of payroll specialists who have fun at work?

As it turns out, lots of people would.

When we began our growth strategy, we looked at who our customers are.  Very few people signed up with IBEX without knowing us.  Most of our customers were referrals from other customers, companies that have people we know working there, or people that have learned about us through our community work or one of the many stories that have been done about our unique work culture.  It became apparent that the true IBEX was not something to hide, but something to tell the world about.  We concluded that we should start letting more people know the real IBEX by finding unique and interesting ways to spread our one-of-a-kind message.

Another thing that was bugging us was that nobody in the Canadian payroll world had caught up to the expectations of web based services.  People now demand open and transparent pricing, free trials, and even free versions of web based software.  We believe this is the way people want to go about choosing a web based anything for themselves or their business. Our goal was to make this a reality for Canadian online payroll – and we did just that with IBEX!

Our marketing plan is simple.

We will make it known that we are striving towards making IBEX one of the best places to work in Canada. By letting the inner workings of IBEX become transparent for all to see, we can show the world what we are doing to reach our goals by sharing both our successes and failures along the way.

We believe in being open and honest about what we do and how we do it.  By putting all our pricing right on our website and offering free trials and free versions of our system, people can experience us instantly, easily, and without the suffering of waiting for a salesperson to call.

Above all, the value of having fun at IBEX while working hard to meet system and customer expectations is what makes this company so unique compared to other payroll providers. We believe a high quality service comes from a hard working team who enjoys what they do. By maintaining an incredible work enviornment that emphasizes the element of ‘fun’ and ‘teamwork’, we believe that IBEX is on the right path to becoming one of the best places to work in Canada, as well as the top Canadian payroll provider.

We’re not afraid to set the bar high here because, well, goats can scale anything.

Spot On — No Comments
14
Nov 11

Customer Spotlight: Salon POP

by Lisa Tachan, Head of Spreading the Herd Word

At only 2.5 years old, Salon Pop possesses a vibrant atmosphere that not only comes from its sleek and elegant salon interior, but also from a happy, talented team of stylists and their very-happy-to-be-there clientele.

At this specific salon located in Winnipeg by Grant Park Shopping Centre, there is plenty to be happy about. Aside from awesome staff and loyal customers, Salon Pop has bragging rights to using only Eco-friendly and organic products by Aveda; a company with a mission statement claiming they “strive to set an example for environmental leadership and responsibility, not just in the world of beauty, but around the world”.

Providing the best possible experience while offering high quality hair styling services and products to customers is just the beginning of what owner Mark Braun and his team of stylists strive for at Salon Pop.

“Aveda looks at beauty and wellness from a holistic standpoint, and that transpires into what we do. We’re not about beauty trends or fads, we’re about taking care of each person that comes through our door as a whole. We’re not just about the hair cut. We want to help with the daily beauty regime of every individual. “

Salon Pop started as a team of 3 stylists and has quickly grown into a fully staffed salon with a flourishing list of clients. On top of running the salon, Mark is also behind the chair and in high demand, checking up on his staff and interacting with customers to ensure every individual leaves the salon completely satisfied. That being said, there isn’t a lot of time in the day to commit to much else.

“When I opened Salon Pop, I knew that I wanted to get away from everything to do with payroll. I wanted to find someone else to do it.  IBEX made my life so much easier. It’s been a huge time saver for me.”

Mark Braun keeps Salon Pop running using Mac computers, which makes him and his business somewhat unique to the IBEX customer experience.  Before changes were made to our payroll system, IBEX wasn’t compatible with the Apple products. To get his payroll done, Mark would have to call in his numbers and speak to our support staff, who would then key all of his information in for him. When the software became available to use on a Mac system, Mark had the opportunity to have the hands-on experience with the IBEX Payroll system himself.

“The transition has been fantastic. I love the fact I am able to do direct deposits and the reporting system is easy to go on. I’m able to calculate holiday pay or make deductions. If I’m ever not sure – I do 90% of my payroll and then call Kevin to double check my numbers, and he’ll either talk me through it or run it himself. My relationship with IBEX has been awesome.”

The ability to access IBEX Payroll both online and through the hardware of his choice has been a huge plus for Mark and his business. He has been able to get his payroll done at a time that is convenient to him, and hasn’t had to put his life on hold to rush back to the office to make sure his employee’s get paid.

With a ‘blooming’ business focused on the ultimate customer experience, IBEX is happy to give Mark and his team a Mac-friendly service that makes payroll the last thing on their minds!

Looking for a wicked new stylist with Eco-friendly values? Visit Salon Pop’s website for more information on their products and services.

Interested in learning more about IBEX and our customers? Find us on Twitter @IBEXPayroll

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