How Arokin Group messages 150+ security staff in one send

Matthew Hey, my name is Matthew Arraiza, founder and director of My Digital Group. This is one of many podcasts that we're looking at doing and having discussions with businesses on what they found useful in collaboration with My Digital Group, along with tips and tricks along the way. But yeah, this is one of many episodes that we'll be looking at doing.

Matthew Today we're sitting here with lovely Jordan. Yeah, Jordan runs a company called Arokin. I'll let Jordan just introduce his company. If you want to introduce your company, Jordan.

Jordan So my company is Arokin Group.

Matthew Tell us a bit more about Arokin. What do you do?

Jordan What do I do? I do security, basically. So we do manpower, we look after hotels, retail and some of the leagues clubs around the local area, Gosford, Terrigal. And then we also provide security to some of our big events down at the festivals and concerts too. A bit of fun.

Matthew Yeah, beautiful. And just to note, me and Jordan have known each other for quite some years.

Matthew I suppose before going back in time, before we became mates and so also helping each other in the business world, what challenges did you sort of face? Noting that My Digital Group does a lot of, I suppose, digital marketing as well as website creation and advice. And vice versa. For, I suppose, security, My Digital Group helps in a different way. I suppose, what challenges did you face prior to My Digital Group coming on board?

Jordan That's a good question. We've been with you so long that I've got to remember the prior. But yeah, prior to My Digital Group coming on board with us, where it's saved us is a lot of time, and I would say time between conversations is probably the biggest part, talking with, throughout my team members. And we have guards through Central Coast all the way to Newcastle and to Sydney. So having our operations managers and some of our VAs, everyone's got their own separate number. So communication throughout the team was always through either a WhatsApp group or a Facebook Messenger, where we'd all be in the one, where they'd take screenshots of our messages and dump them in the chat. And, you know, hopefully somebody will read that and understand what's going on to give the feedback back. So, yeah, back then it was way different. So where we've been able to gain all of that is basically the communication has been great.

Matthew Yeah, that's really good.

Matthew I suppose for the viewers, what we've done for Arokin and the security group is what a lot of customers face is they have multiple channels in which they need to monitor for not only text messages, phone calls, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and vice versa. What we've done is we've brought the platform together in a way that you can have that one phone number and that one messaging app in order for you to communicate through. So for Jordan, for example, Jordan is able to log into the one portal and communicate with, how many guards did you say you had?

Jordan Yeah. Working through us at any one time, I'd say probably particularly when the concerts come on board, we could be communicating with anywhere between as little as 20 on a day up to nearly 150 to 200 guards at once. Yeah. And that's coming across myself with two operations managers and a rosterer. So between the four of us, and then we've got accounts over here as well, it's trying to keep all of those communications nice and clear. Yeah. Between us all and understanding what's going on and then communicating all of that communication over to our clients. Yep. So like you said, having all of those conversations through that one mobile where all of us have access to, we can all see what's going on. But the advantages of that too is we can have conversations within those conversations between us without staff. A staff member might be running late at 15.30 and then we can all be on there, oh, how's he going to get there? Send him some petrol money so he can get there on time and get a taxi or something like that. But, you know, to be able to have those conversations just in the one where we can all clearly see that it's being communicated to the one person, it's crazy.

Matthew Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew I suppose coming into festival season now, only because I've been working in the back end for Arokin, what I suppose is, what are you doing now to prepare yourself for the festival season?

Jordan Well, yesterday I messaged. I messaged 150 staff. So, and that was just in regards to, you know, there was just one event that we've got coming up at one of our stadiums. So in terms of preparing for the season to come, it's like I said, I can't keep touching on anything else but communication. And that's what it really helps us with because there's a lot of people that I know. There's a lot of people that Paul knows. There's a lot of people that Ariel knows and our rosterer. So everybody's got their different channels of people that they know and understand. I mean, I know a lot of the Central Coast and a lot of the Sydney guys. Whereas Paul might know a lot of the Coast guys as well, but more so the Newcastle guys. So it's been able to, I can communicate to all the people that I know, which then brings it back into the same stream so that once I've made the contact, I can have Ariel and my rostering team manage it from there. If that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a great way that my team can stay on top of things for me and then fill our rosters based on our needs.

Matthew Yeah, I suppose a big question for yourself, how much time and give me a rough estimate, because I imagine it could be a lot of time and it could be a countless amount of hours. But.

Matthew You mentioned communication and at the very initial stages, you said time prior to My Digital Group coming on, how did you originally message everyone? Was it via Facebook, Instagram or, sorry, WhatsApp?

Jordan Literally. Sometimes Instagram as well, because a lot of guys obviously still face the problems with, you know, paying their bills and phone bills and stuff like that. So you just get those guys. It'll be on WhatsApp mainly. But yeah, WhatsApp was a big one. It still is a big one now. But that's great with My Digital Group because we can actually come through WhatsApp as well. But then that messenger and text message was it, right?

Matthew And I suppose, what was your traditional form of messaging everyone? So was it just doing one message at a time?

Jordan It's on the phone. Yeah. So I'm literally handheld having to, whether it was a copy or paste message that I could do to multiple people. It would be literally copy, paste, send, copy, paste, send. And it was just that was that was the process then.

Jordan Whereas now the process through through the app and the software that we've got now is I can select certain people. I can categorise them to whether they're in Newcastle, if they're an RSA marshal to a security guard in Sydney, to then be able to put them in a group, which is exactly what I did yesterday, I needed event staff and I also needed RSA staff to be able to work on the bars at some of the stadiums that we've had coming on tomorrow, Saturday, and I messaged 150 people and all I had to do was click the checkbox because my admin team and with the rostering team had built in all the correct data that needed to go with their onboarding, to then group them into event staff, RSA staff, security staff, labour staff too. We do some bit of labour work, but I can then just click a button, bulk send and send. I think I did that.

Jordan I was on the way to the gym at 5.30am yesterday morning. I clicked 150, oh, it was 168. I quickly flicked through the ones that I already had working on the day because I didn't want to double up the work. And then they drop a shift here because they want to work at the stadium or leave them where they are. So I just unticked the ones that I didn't want to send it to. Scheduled, sent that for, I think, 8.32 is what I did. So that way I had my two hours in the gym before I actually had to start monitoring things. So I knew at 8.32, that's where the messages would run out to over 150 people. And then by the time I got into the office at 9.30, I already had messages flowing back, which my rostering team were already managing and been able to situate people where they needed to be.

Matthew Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Sorry. And if you could, I suppose, give an approximate amount of time, what would that be?

Jordan Well, the two and a half hours I spent in the gym training myself is exactly.

Matthew I suppose compared to your traditional form.

Jordan Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. When, geez, that's a really hard question to answer only because you'd spend like almost a full day. And that's like six to eight hours having to go through message everybody. This is if you're doing it on your phone. If you had it on your computer, it was okay. Yeah. But you'd still spend four to six hours having to go through, then you're having conversations, but then you couldn't get any help from anybody unless they were logged into my WhatsApp or I'm screenshotting and flicking it over, forwarding messages and stuff like that. So everything's coming to me. So that's me to look after, me to look after all these hundred. If I would have done that normally, I would have got all those 150 staff to me that I've then got to delegate off to other people to be able to put them in areas. And then there's double ups that happens out of that as well. Yeah. And then people get, you know, I might have somebody locked into a hotel, but then I've sent them a shift to go work at the stadium. But the stadium's got more hours. They'll drop that and come here. So it just causes another headache. So it's time. It's hard to say, but it's it's almost a full day's work. Yep. Just in communication. And you're still trying to do everything else in the background, looking after our normal everyday contracts. So the being able to have eyes on everything and having. Yeah. My team work collectively with me now, and it's not just me. Yeah. Like. Yeah, I can't even give you a time because, yeah, it's crazy.

Matthew Yeah. We sort of gave an indication, especially if you're looking after, I suppose, larger venues and events.

Matthew You're looking at that six to eight hours, depending on the number of people you need to message on.

Jordan And another part to the time thing, too. I have four team members that are looking over the rosters that we are looking after now. Well, I know other other companies that working are trying to do that with six to eight. Yeah. And we're doing the same amount of work. Before.

Matthew Yeah, that's great.

Jordan So that's just knowing what's happening at other places and stuff like that. We're just that's what we're able to do with this system. Yeah. And I would even say now because I don't have to have so much eyes on everything. It's actually only two people running this whole roster. Yeah, that's great for me now. And I'm able to just concentrate on what I need to concentrate on, which is my clients. My invoicing. My accounting with my accounts team. I can actually concentrate on the business and I can just leave my team to do it. And I just pop in. Here's these 150 guys that I know, boom, smash. Yeah. Then they can carry on from there.

Matthew So, Jordan, what are you doing with your spare time now?

Jordan With my spare time, I'm able to put time back into the business. Yeah. Because before I was too busy working inside of the business, but I couldn't even work on it. I couldn't, you know, in terms of the compliance and stuff, it's always going to be OK. It's always there. But it's other parts. So how can I go out and meet my clients and make sure that they're happy? I'm able to go and do monthly catch-ups and I'm bringing Paul along with me now, if that makes sense. And teaching him what to do and how to move forward. So now he's at a point where he's using the system that well, that he's turning into me now and freeing up his time. Because now he can palm it to rostering and it's not all him. Yeah, correct. Because he was used to doing the same as what I was doing, doing his own rostering and all that kind of stuff. But he didn't have a system to use. Yep. When he was looking after one of the leagues clubs for us. So now he's got use of the system. He understands how the systems work now. Now he's able to work with the rostering team and do exactly what I'm doing. Yep. Now he's freeing up his time to actually work on the operations of the business. And that's part that we never really had before. You know, fixing your SOPs, making sure all the sites are correct, to checking all the compliance for every single site, uniforms, all that kind of stuff. And he's doing that with one person. Where other teams, you'd have a compliance team, you'd have an operations team, you'd have a rostering team. You've got an accounts, it's just Paul. Yep. And the accounts and a rosterer.

Matthew Yeah, well, so I suppose looking at it from a, just from a high level, you've not only got communication, you've got time. And then it's also the additional money saved in regards to additional staff that you potentially may have needed to help you with communications and vice versa. So, look, I've been very lucky with Jordan as well, because Jordan's very proactive in sort of looking at different areas of the business in which he could essentially improve and look at from a system standpoint.

Matthew And I'm going to hit you with a big one. And this is, we've talked a lot of, especially off camera and in the office around it, but the AI capabilities. So, what we see. What we see a lot with businesses at the moment is a lot of businesses are now panicking to start implementing AI into their businesses. What we're finding is if you're not using AI and another business is, that you are going to be left behind. But I've been working with Jordan for, I'd say, over two years now, especially around AI and AI integration. Tell me a bit about your experiences with AI in general. And I suppose what we've been able to help you with.

Jordan Ask AI. It's been a great addition. And we talk about time. The whole AI segment that's been built into the system has saved me, again, so much time.

Jordan I'll give you a small example was when I was doing a new shirt order and we had our new shirts coming in. So, to get all of our staff shirts, I'd have to go through everybody's list. Ask AI, all I did was I downloaded an Excel spreadsheet of all my staff listings, pumped that into the Ask AI section, and I asked it to go through all of the names that I've put in for that spreadsheet into My Digital Group. And it pulled me out every single name that was inserted. Because my team had actually used the system properly. And had their uniforms in there. Anybody that didn't, I also then asked it to send that person a message and ask for their size to then put it back and input it into their file. That alone saved me. That took me 45 minutes. And I had five people already get back to me with their sizes because everyone wants the new shirt. Everybody wants to wear the label.

Matthew Absolutely.

Jordan So, I had the last five guys that needed to get their shirt text back straight away. And then it pre-filled it because it was checking every 15 minutes for me. And then as they were coming in, it would put their information not only into the file that I asked it to create for me so I could send off for the order, but then it would update their details under their profile. And then it would text them back saying, thank you for sending me your polo. Your polo will be ready when we message you.

Matthew Yeah, well, that's... 45 minutes. Really handy. And time savings, yeah. There was over

Jordan 70, I think there was like 78 people. Yep. That I had in that spreadsheet to be able to get them new uniforms. And that was for all of our staff here on the Central Coast.

Matthew Yeah, well, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, because I suppose for a traditional business and having so many, you have a lot of, from what I see, a lot of casuals, part-timers and some full-timers is going through and trying to identify everyone's shirt size and what is required for them to perform their duties as well. Go back to the old Excel spreadsheet, ask the admin lady if she's got this. No, they haven't got back to me. Can you fill out this sheet?

Jordan Yeah. The old school stuff. Yeah.

Matthew Yeah, I suppose for the viewers as well, Ask AI is a feature that we actually have on the platform and it allows you to use the data that you input into the system and use AI alongside it. So for, as Jordan mentioned, he used it to help and assist not only identifying staff members' sizes that were required, but also then message the staff members that didn't have their sizes to get that response back, you know, in order to get the order progressing, so.

Jordan And I'm going to give you another example as well.

Matthew Yeah, go ahead.

Jordan And because this might go out to all other operations managers and stuff like that who use this platform. But another thing that I've been able to implement into is the scheduling. Yep. So you can schedule. You know, certain things throughout the day using this Ask AI system. And one of the things that I've been able to do is at 7am and 9pm, I have two reports that pull for me that email not only myself, the rostering team, the operations team, and the accounting team. And it's basically a communications. It checks the emails that come through because emails also come through to My Digital Group section as well. But it will check emails. It checks every single contact. It checks all the conversations it's had between 9pm and 7am the next morning. And it'll funnel all of that information. And if people have been not texted back or unread messages or anything that, you know, maybe a staff member's called in sick, but we might miss that, at 7am it'll flow through, report everything from the day before, particularly the overnight stuff. That's why I want it at 7am. And then it'll schedule an email out to everybody. And that will list out everything that's happened within the business. Through email, through conversations. And it'll list everything out into a report to all of our sections. So there might be some guys with missing pay. There might be a client that we might have missed in terms of an email. They needed like five guards to go to an event. And it will then put them in their sections for you. You can build it exactly how you want.

Jordan But then I've got it texting anything urgent or anything that's come overnight. It will text the right team member. Say operations, it will send them a text, hey, David has called in sick for last night at 11 o'clock for his 9 o'clock start today. And it will text him at 7am every morning, anything urgent that's happened overnight to follow that up ASAP.

Matthew Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So essentially you're arming staff with the information they need to do and get on top of as quickly as possible.

Jordan Absolutely. Yep. So as soon as they walk in that office at 9 o'clock. Or they sign on, Paul gets up early. He checks his stuff at like 6.30am. He's like me. I'm up at 5am every morning. The first thing I do, fine. That's just how it is. Yeah.

Matthew No, that's fantastic. And it's good to see that. And I wasn't aware that you're using that feature within Ask AI as well. So it's great to see that, you know, utilising different features of the system has definitely helped transform your business, especially over the amount of time that we've worked together. Yeah.

Matthew So I suppose if there's any last comments you would want to say.

Jordan No, the only thing I can say is My Digital Group, get it before, I don't know what else to say, but get it.

Matthew I appreciate your time, Jordan. But yeah, that's a wrap. Thanks, Jordan, for coming on today. So now if any businesses, whichever industry you work in, if you want more information, in regards to what My Digital Group can do for you, feel free to give us a call. Details are below. But no, I really appreciate you coming in today, Jordan.

Jordan Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Matthew It's been good to have you across. So until next time, next podcast, we'll have a few more businesses coming on just to explain their story and tell us a bit more about what they do, but also how they utilise the systems that we put in place for them. So thanks, Jordan.

Jordan Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.