In the late 1970’s as communications grew, so did the need
for a live answering service. The need
and demand of an answering service to support businesses coincided with the
reduced cost of telecommunications and increased costs with labor. The operators for the answering service
would act as a receptionist for the business and dispatch the messages to
extensions within the company. All City
Communications provided this service for many companies. The message center had a revolving wheel
above the operators where messages were stored after being written down. This wheel would be accessed by spinning it
to retrieve the message when the person who had a message called in for
it.
In the late 1980’s wireless communication began the next
phase of communication with the pager.
Pagers were given their own telephone number where the caller could dial
in and send a numeric message like a telephone number. The next technological advance of the pager
was the ability to alphanumeric page.
Alphanumeric allowed operators to type in a message and send to the
pager utilizing radio towers. All City
Communications helped many businesses with their paging needs. All City Communications would handle incoming
calls and dispatch via pager as well as repair paging devices.
Voicemail became popular in the 1980’s as a way for
businesses to stay in touch with customers; however it lessened the personal
contact needed for businesses. Voice
mail displeasure began to increase the need for businesses to have a person
answering the calls instead of a machine or voice mail system.
Businesses discovered their competitor had a competitive advantage with
a live answering service and began to reduce the use of an answering machine in
lieu of an answering service. Businesses
realized the small cost of an answering service outweighed the cost of fewer customers.
In the 1990’s computer and cell phone use increased and so
did the variety of ways communication was achieved. Email and text messaging was introduced. The operator behaves as a bridge for the
message to be dispatched utilizing these new technologies. Character limits were increased on cell
phones versus alphanumeric pagers resulting in more complete messages and email
began the replacement of the traditional mail service. Communications became faster and more
accessible no matter where the recipient of the message was. All City Communications was at the beginning
of the emailing and texting evolution.
All City Communications began emailing and texting messages to multiple
businesses making communications available in multiple ways.
Today an answering service can utilize an API (application
programming interface) that allows call center functionality to be integrated with
cloud-based customer
relationship management, leads management, and other applications. An answering service such as All City
Communication can function as an employee sitting in the building of their
customer. Seamless integration is
achieved for the answering service allowing the business to keep the largest
cost of business, labor to be lessened while increasing the availability of the
service or product.
