The April 2013 Issue of TAS Trader

Startel

2013 Who’s Who Guide to TAS Vendors

TAS Trader’s “Who’s Who Guide to TAS Vendors” focuses on the telephone answering service (TAS) industry’s leading vendors and support providers. Please consider these providers for the equipment, software, and service needs of your telephone answering service. When you contact them, mention you saw their listing in TAS Trader.

Alston Tascom, Inc
5171 Edison Ave Ste C
Chino, CA, 91710, USA
www.alstontascom.com
Contact: Carmela Rogers, account executive, at 866-282-7266 or sales@alstontascom.com
Alston Tascom offers the ADAM Evolution System and the hosted Evolution System (providing hosting service to telemessaging centers for six years). The Evolution System is a complete contact center solution, powered by a unified ACD, IVR, SMS, voicemail, agent logging, and agent screen-pop and integrated with the a SQL database.

Amtelco
4800 Curtin Dr
McFarland, WI, 53589, USA
callcenter.amtelco.com
Contact: Jim Becker, vice president of sales, at 800-356-9148 or jim@amtelco.com
Amtelco provides communications applications and software solutions to call centers. Amtelco is in all fifty states and more than forty countries, either operating a solution locally or from its cloud-based infrastructure. Millions of telephone calls, text messages, and secure communications are processed daily by Amtelco software worldwide.

Business Calls
11752 Clarksville Pike
Clarksville, MD, 21029, USA
www.businesscalls.biz
Contact: Donna West, president, at 301-854-0284 or ask@focustele.com
Business Calls provides personalized newsletters for TAS owners to send to clients.

CenturiSoft Inc
19 Portmarnoch Ct
Coto De Caza, CA, 92679, USA
www.centurisoft.com
Contact: John Pope, president, at 800-866-1929 or john.pope@centurisoft.com
CenturiSoft offers TAS providers one system that used to require several.

Daniel L’Heureux, Inc
www.callconsult.net
Contact: Dan L’Heureux at 763-473-0210 or dan@callconsult.net
Dan L’Heureux specializes in answering service efficiency and performance.

GE Leasing
www.geleasing.net
Contact: Wayne Moseley at 866-435-2374, 813-294-4011, or waynem@geleasing.net
GE Leasing has twenty years of experience financing TAS equipment.

Map Communications, Inc
840 Greenbrier Circle
Chesapeake, VA, 23320, USA
www.mapcommunications.com
Contact: Grant Sibley, CFO, at 800-955-9888 or gsibley@mapcommunications.com
Map Communications, Inc, is seeking to acquire answering services.

Mastar Telemessaging
www.mastar.com
Contact: Rod Minarik, owner/developer, at 541-606-9272 or rodmastar@gmail.com
Mastar Telemessaging provides TAS equipment for start-ups and small services.

Professional Teledata
Professional Teledata provides call centers with software solutions for transaction processing, inbound and outbound program design, billing management, and appointment reminder services. With headquarters located in Manchester, New Hampshire, the company services the call center and TAS industries, bringing them the latest technology.

Szeto Technologies
1881 St Regis Blvd
Dollard des Ormeaux, QC, H9B 2M9, Canada
www.szeto.ca
Contact: Charles Szeto, president, at 877-697-9368 or charles@szeto.ca
Szeto Technologies provides call centers with complete communication services, including telemessaging, switching, messaging, paging, direct connect, and dispatch functionality. Its Linux-based telemessaging system is a cost-effective system customized to suit customers’ needs.

Tasco Message Centers
6600 York Rd Ste #200
Baltimore, MD, 21212, USA
tascomessagecenters.com
Contact: Anita Swain, sales associate, at 410-377-3000 or anita@tascomessagecenters.com
Tasco is seeking to acquire answering services.

TAS Marketing
233 Whitepine Creek Rd
Trout Creek, MT, 59874, USA
www.tasmarketing.com
Contact: Steve Michaels, president, at 800-369-6126 or tas@tasmarketing.com
TAS Marketing has been serving the telephone answering service industry for thirty-four years, with 450 businesses sold. TAS Marketing also sells used equipment and offers business evaluation services.

Telescan, a Division of Amtelco
Telescan produces products for telemessaging companies. Several products work on any Windows-based platform: On-Call Scheduler, Funeral Home Manager, Messenger, and Phoenix Back-up Server.

2013 NAEO Annual Conference: A Grand Ole Opportunity in Nashville

By Kelli Harrigan

March brought National Amtelco Equipment Owners (NAEO) to Nashville, Tennessee, and the Gaylord Opryland for the Annual NAEO Conference. Before the conference, attendees had the opportunity to attend two workshops: a supervisor workshop that focused on the tools Amtelco provides to help manage day-to-day operations and an IS programming workshop, which was a hands-on opportunity for Intelligent Series software users to build a script from scratch. Sunday morning Amtelco also presented Amtelco U with a variety of tips to maximize the efficiencies and profitability of Infinity and Intelligent Series platforms.

The conference itself kicked off on Sunday afternoon with a keynote presentation by Randi Busse, author of Turning Rants into Raves: Turn on Your Customers Before They Turn on You! A copy of her book was provided to all attendees. Ms. Busse has extensive experience within the call center industry and works with a variety of call centers and healthcare facilities to facilitate improvements in customer service and increased customer retention. With her fun, engaging style, real-life examples, and interaction with the audience, Ms. Busse did indeed receive rave reviews, even causing one attendee to exclaim, “I love my job!”

Amtelco presented their latest news and feature releases Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. Attendees received an in-depth review of the current release features, including updates to miSecureMessaging, VoIP capabilities, Intelligent Series, and Infinity telephone agent. Amtelco also provided insight into the future with the next generation of Infinity hardware and the next major version release of Intelligent Series software.

The NAEO conference was not lacking in social and networking time. The opening reception was held at the Wildhorse Saloon in downtown Nashville on St. Patrick’s Day, making it especially memorable. Amtelco also hosted a reception at the Gaylord in the beautiful Delta Atrium with a suitably Irish theme.

Education continued Monday and Tuesday with breakout sessions in four tracks: healthcare, operations, sales and marketing, and technical. The healthcare track focused on how attendees within the hospital or clinic environment can capitalize on features such as ProShow, an appoint-reminder system to reduce patient appointment no shows. Operations track sessions included a presentation by Randi Busse, “Creating a Culture of Ownership,” and focused on how to take staff beyond basic telephone answering skills. The sales and marketing track concentrated on ways to drive revenue, whether by using new billing strategies or mastering the art of negotiation. The technical track focused on the technology that drives businesses forward, such as useful applications for maximizing efficiency and business continuity planning.

On Monday afternoon, NAEO held its annual business meeting, electing two new board members: Sydney Ryan of Telling and Robert Donnelly of Medical Service Bureau. Gerald R Brosseau II was re-elected to his position on the board.

Tuesday also included some round table discussion time – always an attendee favorite as a way to delve into some of the day-to-day issues with peers. The conference ended with the “Best Ideas” session where attendees shared their favorite takeaways from the conference. With so many sessions, it’s always a plus at the end of the conference to hear ideas shared from those attendees might have missed. Finally, in the closing session, Gerald Brosseau II announced the upcoming NAEO IS Workshops to be held in August in Atlanta, and incoming president Billy Peppard revealed that the 2014 conference would be held in Dallas, Texas, at the Omni Hotel Downtown on March 10–13, 2014.

News

Amtelco Releases Infinity Software v5.61
Amtelco released Infinity Software Version 5.61, which offers enhancements and new capabilities, including support for a new dual-core 3 GHz processor board with a 1 GB network interface and SATA hard drives (to replace aging SCSI hard disk drives and eliminate the need for the SCSI tape drive interface) and paged message urgent confirmation time. For paged message urgent confirmation time, when the urgent confirmation time interval expires, alpha-paging messages, SMS text messages, and Amtelco’s miSecureMessages mobile app messages that have not been confirmed by recipients are returned to the initiating agent.

More Professional Teledata PInnacle Web Portal Enhancements
Professional Teledata announced that the PInnacle Web Portal’s Application Programming Interface has been enhanced to include the ability for messages to be updated remotely. Messages that are securely added via the Internet can now be updated as well. The status of each update is logged for auditing purposes. This feature allows current customers to build applications that help service their customers in a more streamlined fashion, generating more revenue and increasing customer loyalty. The updated PInnacle Web Portal will be provided to all PInnacle users at no charge as part of their ongoing software support program.

Drew Ritter to Serve SNUG Board as President
Startel National Users’ Group (TeamSNUG) announced that Drew Ritter has been elected to the board of directors as president for 2013. “We are fortunate to have a person like Mr. Ritter who is willing to donate his valuable time to our organization,” said Dan L’Heureux, executive director of TeamSNUG. Mr. Ritter is president of Advantage TeleMessaging, Inc., a telephone answering and inbound telemarketing call center based in West Reading, Pennsylvania, and has been an active member of SNUG since 2001. “I am honored and grateful for this unique opportunity,” said Ritter, “to participate in an outstanding user group like SNUG.”

Call Center Fights Cancer with Support to Livestrong Foundation
Sound Telecom announced that it is supporting the Livestrong Foundation as a corporate cash and services donor. Michael LaBaw, founder and president of Sound Telecom, remembers vividly his cancer diagnoses. While visiting family in Austin, LaBaw and his wife, Cheryl, toured the foundation’s facility. “We were looking…to see how the recent events with Lance Armstrong had impacted the organization,” said LaBaw. “While we could see the impact, we clearly saw that Livestrong is not about Lance, but about assisting those who are in need of the foundation’s services, and we saw that we could help by getting the word out.”

Startel Launches New Website
Startel Corporation announced the launch of its new website. The site improves navigation and functionality, allowing users to conduct searches, connect on social media, and find current information on the company and its solutions and services. Customers also benefit from access to a secure partner portal that hosts technical documentation, software, and customer announcements. Key benefits of the site include expanded content, 24/7-customer access, executive insights, and is fully optimized for major mobile devices and tablets. “We are excited about this launch,” said Startel President Bill Lane, “and we have plans to add more content and expanded functionality to the site in the near future.”

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[Posted by Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD for TAS Trader.]

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