U4COM is pleased to announce they have 10% saturation of the Syracuse CO

The switch SYRCINXARS1 located in Syracuse, Indiana managed and owned by Embarq formerly known as Sprint is located in U4’s backyard so to speak. After retrieving the number of access lines in this area we have finally hit the mark of 10% saturation of U4COM customers on the Embarq’s switch. This switch houses 574-457 and 574-528 exchanges. U4 will be placing our first switch within Syracuse. U4's first switch deployment is called SYRCIN02DS0.

U4 this week accomplished a record low number of open inquiries

As a company we have set a goal of to keep inquiries under 100. In order for this to happen it means every inquiry has to get worked everyday. Close to 40 inquiries are put into our system everyday for customers. Inquiries are everything from new orders, provisioning requests, service repairs, or billing questions. Many times during the month we have automated inquiries that are created such as mailing a customer an expired credit card post card. U4 strives to be as proactive as possible to better serve the needs of our customer. U4 is making procedures around making sure customer’s accounts get documented. So many companies never document the customers account, and we plan to have everything documented eventually. It is even possible that we will open certain customer records for the end user to view them online when they write us.

Online LD Form

Zak (Director of IT) has been working this week on a new online interface for agents or wholesale customers to submit their additions or deactivations over the web rater then sending an via email. This will allow U4's provisioning department to get all the accurate information needed to provision an order. Zak and I have had a brief conversation today on how we can automate this process one step further and put the information into our billing system, eliminating two people out of the process of that email that we currently get. This doesn't mean their job goes away, it just means we have automated a meaningless task. We will let our wholesale customers and agents know as soon as we launch this online form.

Monthly sales updates to begin October 1st

Scott Wenger Director of Sales will begin to produce a monthly email summarizing all sales related announcements along with new customers we have signed on that month. In the monthly email it will include form changes, new packages, and agent introductions. This email will be delivered to all agents, inside staff, and resellers.

U4 adds $2.44 paper bill fee

U4 strives to keep our staff, vendors, and customers aware of power consumption and being environmentally friendly as possible. U4 this week for the 19th and 5th bill cycle have implemented on all residential customers a paper bill fee. Customers can elect to have an email bill sent with no charge every month. Customers can call in and request this at any time. Sending email statements saves hundreds of trees a year, along with hundreds of dollars in electricity. Customers are also encouraged to visit www.u4billing.com for any billing related questions.

9/11 Thoughts

I have been doing some pondering this week while the rest of the country remembered the five year anniversary of 9/11. I thought I would share a few thoughts on how this affected the companies, as I didn't even know many of you five years ago. 9/11 was a very strange day as was the week that came after it. On September 11th I woke up around 9:30 listening to the radio saying something about Word trade center, and then I heard something about the Pentagon, it was one of those weird moments when you're not sure if you are awake or asleep. As soon as I heard the Pentagon I was like "what the heck, are we under attack" I never got out of bed as fast as I did that morning. I turned on the tv and for the next 3 hours I didn't do anything but watch TV. At that time we had a secretary and I told her don't worry about coming in that day. I finally went into work around 1 on that Tuesday. Boy was it weird. I tried my very best to get TV reception in the building. I accomplished it, however it was tricky and so fuzzy. The entire time I was there I just stared at the TV. At this time it was Benson Communications only and we had three people including myself. Chris Beatty didn't make it in till late in the day and we just watched TV once he got there. We only had one person really stop in that day, and if memory serves me it was Matt Schwartz from Edward Jones. He was just starting his business and we just talked back and forth about how amazing it was. That is really where my friendship started with Matt. I then made an observation that I had 200,000 dollars in Audio Video equipment and I couldn't even see a clear TV channel. At that moment of observation I said I need to get satellite TV right away. I told myself I would never be at work again without network news. However, we haven't hooked up the cable since we moved across the street, and that really bothers me. Once Benson is in its perminate place we will be getting cable hooked back up. It just costs way too much money to have cable moved especially since Benson has moved about five times since we moved in. Okay enough about that.

During that week after 9/11 the phone didn't ring one time till the Monday of next week other than family. Business stopped. Everything. Unfortunately it hurt Benson pretty bad financially. Business prior to September was pretty good, for being the 1st full year of Benson being in existence. It took Benson six months to get back to business as usual prior to 9/11. At that time we really were only doing computer repair. No one cared about getting their computer fixed. What lessons did I learn from 9/11? (These are just person experiences and something that really might not work for everyone).

a, Always have satellite/TV in your place of work
b. Be diversified at things you do (helps if business slows down)
c. Allow employees to be with families and run on a very low staff at the office (nothing really is going to get done anyway)
d. Always have a reserve account for emergencies in case business quits for weeks, employees still want paid.

Inquiry Name Change

Inquiries are account and provisioning notes that we put into our customers accounts. We are slowly converting internal processes around inquiries. This allows U4 to be ahead of the game. In so many industries, especially the telephone industry, calls from customers get documented so little, we are making processes revolve around calls. We are changing some of our inquiry types around. "Provisioning Change" and "New Install Info" has been combined into "Provisioning U4COM". "Internet" inquiries will now be called "Provisioning U4NET". We have also created a new inquiry type called "Provisioning U4VMAIL" (This is for any voicemail issues either ours in the future or voicemail that we resale) Prior to this it was just not tracked in a category. The inquiry changes were done so it will match the services we offer, and what everyone calls inquiries is the same as what sales people call the services. This will also make a lot more sense after the launch of the new website.