A Hosted Automated Attendant
That's a Keeper
For over ten years I used to sell service on a hosted auto attendant called Personal Office. We had an arrangement where I programmed the individual applications based on the specifications provided by the customer. I received ongoing payment for my services.
When customers needed changes to the customized service, they contacted me and I would make the programming modifications for them. But there were times when someone would ask me if they could make their own changes. This was not possible with PersonalOffice because they didn't have the system configured to allow end-user access to administrator tasks.
I also ran into problems where Personal Office did not keep up with latest technology and they were missing many important features that came to be expected by customers who have used other Auto Attendant systems.
A few years ago I had the most disheartening experience when PersonalOffice suddenly informed me that they were terminating the service. The owner of the company told me to move my customers off their system to another firm to avoid any interruption in service. I quickly sent emails out to everyone about the upcoming termination of service with complete instructions of what to do to save their assigned phone number and their auto attendant service. I had negotiated with another auto attendant hosting service to take over the servicing of these accounts and the emails I had sent to all my customers gave step-by-step details of how to open a new account and move the service over.
Some customers never followed along even after repeated emails. I had hundreds of customers using this system and could not contact that many people by phone. So email notification was the way to go. But some customers never read my emails and called later to complain when their service was cut off. Those who followed my instructions saw no interruption in service. Things went well for those who followed my emailed instructions since the owner of the original PersonalOffice released the phone numbers to my new vendor when the customer completed the proper forms that I sent them. Toll-free numbers are portable and the customer has a right to keep them.
As it turned out, Personal Office sold their accounts to another firm who continued under the same name. Unfortunately for them they purchased accounts that were already moved to the new vendor. I found out about this from a number of customers who complained about improper billing by the new PersonalOffice. I guess you can say "Buyer Beware!" Not only did they think they were purchasing accounts of active users, but they even tried to bill for services not being rendered. I am glad I was able to move a majority of my customers over to the new vendor.
We Need Something Better
The vendor I had moved my customers to provided a great service with wonderful support. However they were limited in the way programming was done. My customers were used to certain features that this company didn't have.It was a quick solution, but it was not the best. I continued to investigate other alternatives, as I wanted to provide the best service for my customers.
A New Era
I found iTeleCenter. They had great prices. They had all the features. They were up with all the latest technology. And they gave the end-user the ability to build and maintain their own system via a web browser interface.
This was a win-win for everyone. iTeleCenter is easy for the user to configure on their own. It attracts those who want the ability to make their own changes on the fly. They can pick a phone number immediately from a list when signing up or transfer an existing number. And they can even try it for free for two weeks just to find out how well it works and how well it satisfies their needs. I especially love all the bells and whistles iTelecenter has. Things that everyone was always asking me for back when I was offering PersonalOffice. Too many things to mention here but they are all listed on their web site.
I feel strongly about the future of iTeleCenter. If you need to automate your phone system and have decided on using a hosted service instead of buying your own equipment, and if you like to be in control yourself and feel comfortable doing your own setup and programming, then I highly recommend iTeleCenter.
