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ABTelecom promises state-of-the-art service telecom interconnect service that allows companies to reduce the cost of ownership of telephone and data networks
The Internet has made the world very small," says Jack Salsbury, the new data-services manager at ABTelcom, Inc. "Without proper security and network design, your businesses are at risk – and that includes phones, too."
by Nancy Swanson Western Business News
Looking to meet the needs of his customers, Ray Mosness, president of ABTelcom, saw the convergence of telephone and Internet protocol. He realized he needed to bring a data background specialist on board and he says he found just that when he hired Salsbury, a Microsoft certified system engineer and Cisco certified network associate. With Salsbury’s data background and Mosness’s telecom background, the two combined in hopes of taking their product and its customer service to a higher level.
ABTelcom, Inc. provides state-of-the-art telecom interconnect service that allows companies to reduce the cost of ownership of telephone and data networks that are incurred by business owners today, plus provides network design and firewalls to protect a company’s computerized information.
The Internet-protocol (IP) based phones and trunk lines that ABTelcom provides allow phones to work over computer type information systems, thereby reducing a company’s long-distance phone costs considerably.
A main feature of IP is that it allows a company with multiuse offices to operate phones seamlessly over a data network. For example, if a company had an office in Billings and one in Bozeman, the two phone systems can be combined to act as a single phone system. This technology allows for a consolidation of hardware, thereby lowering the cost of ownership at any multisite business.
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Communication technology tips
1. Sign up for call transfer service through your local exchange carrier and eliminate the need for customers to dial another number to reach an employee on a cell phone or at another location.
2. Call forward your office phone to your cell phone when traveling on business, eliminating the need for customers to call multiple phone numbers to try to find you.
3. Change voice mail announcements daily to assure callers that you are in and open for business.
4. Most voice mail systems have the ability to rewind and fast foward messages in increments of a few seconds for added convenience.
5. When leaving a message on voice mail, talk clearly and leave your full name with correct spelling and phone number.
6. Announce calls to the party you are transferring to and make sure the person is at their desk. If not available, you can transfer directly into voice mail.
7. Consider using a cell phone with a built-in speaker phone, freeing your hands up for driving. Clip the cell phone to your visor in the car for a closer range to your voice.
8. When traveling, check the law regarding cell phone usage. Many states have banned or restricted cell phone usage in cars and public places.
9. Design and use your web site for two-way communication with your customers. Use online surveys, response forms and user log-ons for VIPs.
10. Use teleconferencing, video conferencing and web conferencing to communicate with your customers and remote employees. It¹s effective, efficient and safe.
11. Use the auto reply feature on your mail manager to reply to messages when you are unavailable through email.
12. Use the Internet and email to effectively market your business. Consider emailing newsletters, invoices, brochures and other correspondence (with permission)
13. Hold your fire and wait to hit the send button when replying to an e-mail that has ruffled your feathers. Remember e-mail is forever.14. Instructions for all technology equipment should be available to each user. Protocol and expectations should be explained in employee handbooks.
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"Instead of paying for two sites of firewall protection and Internet access, the business just pays for one site," Mosness says. He says other benefits include toll free-calling between offices and reduced costs of voice-mail because a business only needs to buy one system for all of its locations.
Mosness says that with the convergence of telephony and IP, he has noticed a real change in the level of training required for technicians. Salsbury agrees, stating that the training went from a "wire puller" level of technician to now requiring a college level degree.
"The future of our industry is young people and those that are highly computer literate and data smart," Mosness says.
Salsbury says that the company’s technicians must adhere to rigorous certification programs.
"Ray has significantly higher levels of certification, more so than any other firm in the state," Salsbury says. "He has pushed all of us to become certified with Toshiba, Sprint, Samsung and Mitel, just to name a few."
Demand for the service ABTelcom provides is growing. Some of its customers include Billings Public Schools, Valley Federal Credit Union, EBMS, Remax, Hanser’s Automotive and Custer National Forest.
ABTelcom offers standard telephone PBX, IP telephony solutions, data network infrastructure including local area networks (LAN) and wide area networks (WAN), design and servicing of all components, including Internet (firewall) security, and virtual private networks (VPN).
The office is located at 5320 Holiday Ave., Billings, MT 59101, phone: (406) 248-4204 or toll-free at (800) 800-7806, and Web site is http://www.abtelecom.net
Copyright © Western Business News, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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