University of Maryland Meghan Kelly

Department of Communication February 12, 2014

COMM386: Experiential Learning- Spring 2014
POINT PAPER-- STANFORD HEALTH RECORDS
Subject. Clients regularly contact Vocus managers to ask questions and inquire about the
database. Sometimes clients complain to corporate account managers about information that they
think is incomplete or out to date. If many complaints are filed, a senior researcher will then
assign the newspapers to an intern to verify and update in order to please the clients. Poor or
incorrect information in the database would result in unhappy clients, which would then result in
a loss in revenue.
Background. Standford Health is a category of newspapers from North and South Dakota. Many
clients filed complaints about the information in the database for these papers. They claimed that
the information was either incorrect or out of date and that it could not be used. My supervisor
assigned these papers to me and told me that my primary duty was to verify all of the records and
update the contact information accordingly. If a complaint is made by a customer, the situation
must be dealt with very quickly.
Discussion.
I was given the entire week to complete the 120 records. The newspapers in the Stanford Heath
category include Argus Leader, Grand Forks Herald, and The Forum.
I called each newspaper and asked to speak to the contact. If I was able to reach them directly, I
asked for their title, beats, email address, and work hours. If I could not reach them, then I tried
to confirm the information either with an operator or online.
Throughout the verification process, there were a few deletions made. There were also a number
of instances where the information was out of date and needed to be changed.
I completed the Stanford Health records after two days. After assessing my work, I spoke with
my supervisor and told him that the complaints were justified because a portion of the records
were in fact wrong/outdated.
Recommendations. This task was completed relatively easily. This category of newspapers was
very easy to get a hold of and I was able to find out a lot of information. It is helpful that I
learned deletions prior being assigned this task because I eventually had to delete a number of
contacts from the database. Since it has been a few weeks of making calls on my own, I felt
ready and prepared enough to complete this assignment. My supervisor, Dave, told me that I did
a great job completing the assignment and that in the future I will be given more difficult
assignments as such. Completing these smaller projects will eventually help me with my final
project for this class.