Patti Mullen Group saves time, money with Aristeen

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About this case study

Aristeen is best known for managing social media strategy and campaigns but we do much more than that. See our Services page for more details. For this case study, we highlighted a business case that demonstrates our ability to complete projects that don’t exactly match our image or core competency.

What started as a simple writing job for client The Patti Mullen Group transformed into a process automation that improved staff productivity, saving the Plymouth, Mich. real estate agency time and money.

Learn more about how we satisfied our client’s needs below.

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The Patti Mullen Group hired Aristeen to create email templates to respond to donation requests. Notorious for its unique level of generosity, the real estate agency receives countless requests for charitable donations every year, from sports and music boosters to fun runs and farmers markets.

The situation

Although The Patti Mullen Group is thrilled to help so many charities and programs, staff reported scrambling to respond in a timely fashion to the high volume of donation requests. They toiled to write appropriate responses, especially if they were in the uncomfortable position of saying no to a donation request.

“Something has to change,” said firm principal Patti Mullen. “We’re spending way too much time responding to these requests. And we need to respond to all requests in a similar way. I’m no writer so it takes me a long time to think of what to say. Same with my staff. With an email template, we can respond to requests faster and more professionally.”  

The Patti Mullen Group outsources many of its writing projects to Aristeen, from website content to form letters.

Aristeen reviewed the real estate firm’s existing process, compared it to industry best practices and documented what their ideal process should entail. We agreed email templates would improve staff productivity and messaging consistency but they were only part of our proposed solution.

The Patti Mullen Group donates many thousands of dollars to charities and youth programs every year. Their philanthropy budget increases every year. So do the number of requests they receive.

“I like to support the people and communities that have supported me throughout the last 25 years in the real estate industry,” Mullen said.

During Aristeen’s discovery interview process, the client said they wanted to start prioritizing requests from current and former clients, a process change we supported because it made good business sense.

The solution

The core of Aristeen’s proposal included a web-based form to automate much of the process and also shift work from staff to those asking for donations. We saw this as a critical component to improving staff productivity. The web-based form puts the onus on the requester to provide the information necessary for The Patti Mullen Group to determine whether or how they will donate to various charities and causes.

Our project proposal included the automated form that would launch directly from The Patti Mullen Group’s website in addition to email templates for staff to quickly respond to donation requests in a consistent manner.

Aristeen’s estimate showed potential to achieve a 50% productivity improvement, and likely more.

“I love it!” exclaimed Patti Mullen. “This will make the process so much easier. It will also put some of the work back on the person requesting the donation.”

The client’s enthusiastic endorsement was a relief since our proposal deviated from the original request. We were confident our proposal would improve staff productivity. And it did.

Time is money

Once our proposal was approved, Aristeen implemented the process improvement in less than two weeks.

The web form asks the requester to provide the charity’s Tax ID number and mission in addition to information about the requester, including whether they are a real estate client.  This information provides The Patti Mullen Group with a simple way to prioritize donation requests.

“Aristeen’s process improvement saves us a lot of time. In real estate, as in any business, time is money.”

Patti Mullen
The Patti Mullen Group

The web-based form allows The Patti Mullen Group to store, review, track and retrieve donation requests more effectively. The number of requests may decline over time, as some would-be donation seekers may decline to complete the form.

The client was thrilled to receive a donation request two days after the form launched and two more requests the day after.

“The new process works great,” Mullen said. “I wish we’d done this years ago!”

Mullen reports that Aristeen’s estimates were spot on. The real estate firm shaved 50% off of its donation request processing time. And, like Mullen says, time is money.

About The Patti Mullen Group

Located in Plymouth, Mich., The Patti Mullen Group is a full-service real estate agency with a full-time staff. Over the last 25 years, they have developed a solid reputation as the area’s leading real estate experts.  

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Want to hire Aristeen? Contact sales@aristeen.com.