By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Guiding people through dire economic circumstances is not what Grand Rapids-based ENCOMPASS LLC was founded to do, but since adding the consulting service a few months ago the company has increased its business 10 percent.
The company was spun off eight years ago from Spectrum Health as a separate business, providing assistance services to employers and their employees in areas ranging from change management to counseling employees through difficult family issues or marriage problems. The employee received face-to-face counseling to help them deal with the problems and regain their ability to perform their job.
The $1.3 million company has 20 employees at its Grand Rapids headquarters and operates locations throughout the United States. The staff consists of masters-level social workers, counselors, psychologists, and also psychiatrists and doctoral-level psychologists, as needed.
“In 2004 we decided to offer real-time online consult, instead of just face-to-face appointments,” says founder Dr. Alison Brown. “Problems aren’t always severe enough to warrant a face-to-face consult. Maybe a parent learns their child can’t pay attention in school. The parent can access our web site from their desk, tap into the online real-time consult with one of our service providers and get the information they need in about 20 minutes. And everything remains confidential.”
The technology piece accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s contacts.
“Now we’ve diversified to offer consults on debt, debt consolidation, foreclosure, economic hardship and we have specific tools and financial/legal experts to help with that,” Dr. Brown says. “That problem area started to jump up a few months ago and now about ten percent of all our business is in that area.”
Dr. Brown says the company is on track to post revenues of $1.5 million this year.
Source: Dr. Alison Brown, ENCOMPASS LLC
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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