AAA Western & Central New York has served the Upstate New York communities for over a century and currently serves nearly 855,000 members.
We spoke with Director of Applications Management, Tracey Guarino, to discuss the club”s success.
Tell me about your role in the club and how you got involved?
Tracey: Tracey Guarino, Director of Applications Management.
I oversee all critical systems application management – this includes support, maintenance, and development. I also oversee enterprise report writing and the club’s business intelligence systems.
Think about your club’s goals. How can AXIS align to it or help you achieve it?
Tracey: Our club’s main goal is to be the most caring and helpful organization that anyone can join. We do this by building member relationships through trust and providing easily-accessed products and services.
We are continuously implementing new services and products to increase membership value. We exist for our members, and judge everything we do by how well it serves their needs.
How can AXIS Help?
Tracey: By supporting the automation and streamlining of member interactions. We want a system that is flexible and efficient. We would like to collaboratively develop an overall solution that is easy to use so the agents/advisors can spend their time focusing on the members’ needs and not on processing the requests.
What Benefits have you seen since implementing the AXIS software?
Tracey: In the past the largest benefit of AXIS was the fully integrated system. I still think integration is important, however the largest benefit today is the system stability.
What benefits are the most important to your club?
Tracey: System availability is essential. AAA is a 24/7 operation. The AXIS system has a 99.9% availability rate, which includes scheduled maintenance.
Once you’ve earned a member, how do you keep them as a member?
Tracey: We try to keep our members by continuously increasing the value of AAA membership, by offering new programs, new member discounts, excellent service, and being helpful and caring with every interaction.
What’s the one big thing we’re missing in Membership/Road Service/Travel?
Tracey:Overall, we have faced numerous challenges trying to get data from AXIS. AXIS provides a solid platform for processing service requests and purchases, but getting at the data can be challenging. We have tools that enable extraction of the data; however, the data is not always stored in a format that allows easy extraction or interpretation.
For Membership, we would like to see variable membership pricing based on tenure, LTV, and/or other customizable options. Membership corrections tend to be lengthy and time consuming and we would like an easier method to correct errors.
System access is a big challenge, but we are in the process of building flexibility to enable non-traditional system access. This will include web-based access to allow us to expand our workforce.
Using the road service system to be more representative of what goes on in the real world.
SmartSpot has been good, but it also has its limitations. Overall development and strategy is something that is missing.
What are the top 3 things that you love about Road Service?
Tracey:
- AXIS system stability and performance.
- Customization opportunities and cost sharing with the user community.
- Support from people at Campana and the AXIS community. I don’t know of any other technical support where I can text at 2:00 am and get an answer back from someone I know.
What have your successes been in Road Service and how has AXIS helped you?
Tracey:
- MPP Implementation – We can now offer more payment flexibility to suit the lifestyles of our members. This feature has contributed to membership growth and retention.
- Fleet Driver Vehicle Inspection Form – Saves time and ensures safe vehicles.
- Integration with CRM System – Allows us to meet our customized needs.
- Travel “Fly out Menus” & Reference Library — This was a huge success for our club. It allows us to customize menu options and reference library materials to provide defaulted information that saves the users time, while ensuring accuracy and consistency and improving customer service.
A Bit About Tracey:
Tracey Guarino joined AAA in 1990 and has held a variety of leadership roles, and currently serves as the Director of Application Management within the Information Technology area. Tracey is responsible for leading the teams that develop, support, configure and maintain the Club’s critical applications. She is also responsible for the Club’s Enterprise Reporting/Business Intelligence Team.
