Access reviews

Thank you for this great review. I appreciate the you have focus here...and, well, I also appreciate that you think I am responsive and friendly - both of those items are important to me. It is also good to know you 1) feel your compensation is competitive, 2) understand the benefits of working for a well-financed organization (which we are) and 3) appreciate the opportunity to telecommute, which is available for certain positions. The cons and advice to management you list are helpful to hear so directly. We will continue to investigate better health plans. This is a challenging area as costs here continue to rise, but I know that benefits are critically important to Access team members and their families. We will continue to search for better plans, which is a never-ending effort. Succinctly put, I know that a lower deductible is important to most Access team members and we will continue to do more research here, specifically. We are on it, but this is a challenge that I openly admit frustrates me. We try to balance covering individuals and trying to completely cover as many families as possible, so it is a very hard balance to strike, but we will continue to focus on it. On this topic, we will be doing a full benefits survey prior to our next benefits enrollment so that we know where to concentrate our investments in improvements. PLEASE participate in that survey. The fact that you believe we have conflicting priorities is, I believe, a function of our need to communicate better, which is one of your cons and is also in your advice to management. I believe that we have clear priorities, but if you don't...well, that is on me for not communicating better and not installing a process for better communication. We have worked and are working hard this year to improve communication, including my personal videos (one example is here: https://vimeo.com/261397192), but we will keep improving here, too. For reference, our priorities are our F.A.C.T.S.: - Financial Performance (meeting/exceeding top-line and bottom-line budgeted numbers) - Access Way (culture initiatives and meeting our vision) - Client Growth - Team Member Development - Safety and Operational Excellence Our strategic pillars were just revisited yesterday (not exaggerating here) by our executive team and we agreed on some changes to align our pillars better with our priorities. Our strategic pillars, as they existed yesterday before our meeting, are: 1) Drive Core Services Organic Growth 2) Develop a High-Growth Software and Conversion Services Business 3) Complete Focused and Strategic Acquisitions 4) Operational Excellence through Performance Management The conversation yesterday – and what will be published in the coming weeks/months – was around creating better alignment between our priorities and our pillars. There should – and will be – better alignment between them. The next version will have better alignment and be more succinct, plus we will communicate it better, you have my word. Finally, regarding our software business and our various product lines, the fact that our plans to thoughtfully reduce our product lines and EOL some of our products isn’t apparent to you only further illustrates our need to communicate better. We have a much greater focus here and have discussed our plans to focus our efforts and investment here to fewer products, I thought, at all levels in the organization. Lesson (continued to be) learned: communicate, communicate, communicate and then communicate some more. Thanks, again, for your very thoughtful and direct review. As always, please reach me at ralston@accesscorp.com with any questions or concerns. Thanks, Rob

Thank you for your thorough and thoughtful review. I am glad that you appreciate the compensation, benefits and our transparency. We work hard to try to differentiate ourselves in these areas and will continue to do so. I am bummed, however, that you think it is all about the bottom line. Clearly, we aren't focusing on the right things in our communications, but it is worth noting that the company-wide calls you mention are all about our company priorities, which absolutely always include financial performance, but also include a lot about our efforts in the community, our investments in team member development and culture initiatives, improvements in the safety of our team and our achievements in growth with and exceeding the expectations of our clients. I guess to our detriment, I do always note that - according to the IRS and at the highest level - there are two kind of companies in world: for-profit and not-for-profit. We are without-a-doubt for-profit and we need to perform profitably, and our continued profitability allows us to continue to invest in the growth of the company and growth provides opportunity for the Access team and Access clients. Next, you're right that Client Experience is at unsatisfactory levels currently. With all the changes this year to consolidate our client experience function nationally and roll out our new self-service online portal, FileBridgeRecords, our clients have definitely experienced way more friction and challenges than they should be experiencing. I will say that I think our current client experience team has done a great job with all the changes we are going through, but it is time to elevate our game, which notably is our annual theme for 2018. Furthermore, it is worth noting that our company vision to exceed the expectations of our clients, company and community, every day and our mission of advancing how the world manages information with the very best service remain top-of-mind for me. To that end, we are in the process now of recruiting for a new VP of Client Experience to help us elevate our game to meet our vision and mission. Finally, price increases and new services are always a sensitive subject and I appreciate you focusing on them here. I will start with the services we offer are incredibly valuable and expensive to provide and administer - - I don't want anyone to ever lose sight of the fact that we protect and manage information for hundreds of millions of people. This year was the best year ever for collaboration between operations, finance and account management on price increases and new services to better pro-actively communicate with our clients about our services and price increases, but there is always room for improvement and, on that front, we are currently recruiting for a director level position to help us with our pricing strategy. The responsibilities of this position will include improved communication both inside and outside the organization about pricing and pricing initiatives. I don't think (for a second) that the hiring of this position will completely desensitize this subject and nor will we (ever?) behave/communicate perfectly, but it absolutely will help to improve our communication in this area, which does need improvement. Thanks, again, for the thoughtful review and advice to management. I take all feedback very seriously and thoughtful reviews like this will help us get better. As always, please feel free to email me at ralston@accesscorp.com. REACH for your very best, Rob