Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dino!sharkey!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: levitt@zorro9.fidonet.org (Ken Levitt)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Customer Support
Message-ID: <2828@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 90 03:46:17 GMT
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Organization: TELECOM Digest
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 24, message 12 of 12


I am about to embark on a new business venture and money is rather
tight.  This venture requires that my partner and I provide an
incredibly high level of customer support for 16 hours a day 7 days a
week.  I am seeking telecommunications solutions to this problem.

The following items are givens:

   1.   80 percent of the calls will be answered by either myself or my
        partner and will not need special processing.

   2.   Telling customers that "If you can't reach us, to call my beeper
        number", is not acceptable from a corporate image point of view.

   3.   We can not afford to hire an employee to help with the support.

   4.   We can not always be here to answer the phone.

   5.   98 percent of the time a client should be able to talk with us
        within 15 minutes of their call.

   6.   We can not be calling in to an answering machine every 15
        minutes to see if anyone has left a message.

I have thought of three possible solutions but I don't know where to
find the equipment for numbers 2 and 3.

   1.   Hire an answering service.  Either tell them where I can be reached
        at all times or get a beeper and tell them to beep me if any calls
        come in.  This seems like an expensive solution, but it should work.

   2.   Have a call forwarding device that would answer on one line and call
        out to me on another line.  In order for this to work, I would have
        to be able to re-program the forwarding number remotely.  I don't
        think New England Telephone offers a service like this. (do they?)

   3.   I understand that there is a type of answering machine that will
        take a message and then call some other number (like a beeper)
        to inform you that you have a message waiting.

If anyone has any additional ideas or can tell me how to locate
devices listed in #2 and #3 above, I would like to hear from you.
Please contact me directly.  If there are any interesting solutions, I
will post them to the Digest.

	
Ken Levitt - On FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390
UUCP: zorro9!levitt
INTERNET: levitt%zorro9.uucp@talcott.harvard.ed