The 2002 ATSI Convention

Convention Review and Update
Convention Highlights
 Innovation Awards
Golf Committee Salutes Donations
 ATSI Convention Exhibitors 
ATSI Award of Excellence Winners

September/October, 2002

Convention Review and Update

by Tedd Smith, ATSI President

Hello, everyone!  It is my honor to serve as your president of ATSI for the next twelve months.  I want to review the 2002 Convention in Denver and extend thanks and praise to our vendors and members who worked so hard.

We had a great turnout in Denver with 315 members and vendors in attendance, up from 299 last year.  The pre-convention workshop by Carolyn West Price was a "standing-room-only" event.  The convention kicked off with an address by Jim McPherson of America's Blood Centers, who spoke about the alliance that is forming between our two organizations.  Immediate Past President, Darlene Campbell, has pledged her time and extraordinary talents to this huge project.

Ron Beilin and Paul Del Fino of Opportunity, Inc. presented the results of the benchmarking survey that ATSI undertook last year.  If your company responded to the survey, you will be receiving the complete details of their report.

Darlene cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the Expo and we stampeded into the trade show to find out all of the great new stuff that our vendors had to offer.  The trade show was completely sold out, thanks to the great support of our industry's vendors.

Afternoons were filled with user group meetings and round table discussions, which were all well attended.  The opening reception on Thursday night was a blast.  The Friday morning general sessions were related to the Internet and technology, while the Saturday morning sessions covered legislative issues among other topics.  After the morning sessions, attendees could spend time in the Expo or attend more user group meetings.

The Awards luncheon on Saturday was wonderful.  I had the pleasure of surprising Jim Marchbank by inducting him into the ATSI Hall of Fame.  Most of us had never seen Jim at a loss for words before, but we did this time.  Of course, Jim was able to pull a story out of his repertoire that amused and entertained us all.  The ATSI Award of Excellence winners were announced.  Congratulations to all of the winners and everyone who participated.

There are many people to thank for this great meeting.  Lori Jenkins, as Convention Committee chair, did an outstanding job.  Charlene Glorieux and her staff solved all of the myriad problems that occur at a function like this before anyone noticed them.  Darlene Campbell's leadership will serve as an inspiration to all of us for years to come.  Many thanks to our presenters and to our vendors, for all of the support they give to our industry.  Telescan provided the tote bags to attendees.  Special thanks go to the sponsors of the ATSI 2002 Open: Alston Tascom, Amtelco, CadCom Telesystems, Professional Teledata, Startel, TASBiller, Telescan, and WSTA.  Thanks to all of the User Groups for their attendance and support.  Finally, thanks to all of the Committee Chairs and the Board of Directors who will be working so hard for all of us this year.

Convention Highlights

by Darlene Campbell

The accolades I have received about our 58th annual convention must be shared with the chair, Lori Jenkins of Denver, CO, and all of the outstanding presenters and exhibitors.  Our convention was successful in terms of attendance and content.  If you stop to consider the world we live in now having seventy-five percent of an organization's membership attend a convention, conference, or meeting of any kind is outstanding.

The presentation on Thursday by Ron Beilin and Paul Del Fino of Opportunity, Inc. was the culmination of many months of work on our industry benchmarking program.  We learned some thought provoking answers to business performance questions such as, "What is the definition of good performance?"  "How do you define good in your company?"  "How do you plan?"  We learned that sixty-eight percent of the respondents have no plan, forty percent do not formally plan or develop a budget, and thirty-eight percent are dissatisfied with meeting their goals.  (Refer to the accompanying chart for more details.)  If there is no plan and no budget, how can one expect to accomplish goals?  The overall review of the benchmarking survey results will be made available to ATSI members via the ATSI Website.  This is just the first step in our industry benchmarking process.  More work will be done in coming months.

Bill Durr of Blue Pumpkin Software gave an outstanding presentation on optimizing workforce by addressing scheduling with flexibility of start times and shift duration.  Bill Durr is truly an evangelist for his company and the call center industry.

Legislative issues have not been a significant issue for our industry since the nineties but we need to be tuned in now with the multitude of telephone service providers closing down without notice or with only short-term notice.  Our industry must join together to obtain essential service provider status with the FCC.  The presentation by Pete Orvis, ATSI member, Jeff Hartzell, Vice President of Focal Communications, and Jeff Carlisle, FCC representative was enlightening and is the first step in providing the groundwork for our future legislative agenda.

The initiative for Disaster Preparedness has been endorsed America's Blood Centers.  Members of ATSI have volunteered to set up pilot projects in several cities in the US and Canada.  Our members are excited about the opportunity to assist their local community blood centers in relation to blood services and funding.  We are prepared to offer outbound services in the event of a disaster to raise awareness of the need for blood and dollars.  Many members of ATSI have indicated that they can provide alternative office space in the event that a blood center must be evacuated.  My hope is to have six pilot projects up and running in the next six months.  Our goal is to let the relationships developed by our respective members take the program forward to optimally meet the overall need.  If you would like to share in this important program, I welcome your comments: dcampbell@metromessageservices.com.

Connections Magazine 
Announces the First Annual "Innovation Awards"

The Connections Magazine Innovation Awards are given for significant product developments and services.  Although it was not possible to completely review every product or service from every provider, we did do our best to meet with each vendor and consider what they had to offer.  Many noteworthy and worthwhile developments were promoted at the ATSI Convention and we regret not being able to talk about all of them.  Here are our picks for the best of the best.

Platinum Innovation Award

Alston Tascom -- Text To Speech (TTS) converts a typed message into audio for client access via telephone or sent to an email address.  TTS can also be used with Tascom's programmable IVR; employee names, part lists, and other text files can be read to callers in response to touch tone input.

Gold Innovation Awards

Amtelco -- Infinity Conference Bridge is an automated or manual conferencing platform that can connect up to twenty parties together.

Professional Teledata -- TBS Plus integrates the power of contact management into the TBS billing package, allowing billing data and contact records to be accessed from the same program.

Silver Innovation Awards

Amtelco -- Infinity Abandon Eliminator gathers the caller ID numbers of callers who abandoned while in queue and schedules an automatic call back, allowing a hang-up call to be turned into revenue.

Professional Teledata's -- Forget-Me-Not service provides a means to automatically confirm appointments for your clients and doctors.

Startel -- Reverse 911 provides a means to quickly contact hundreds of people in the event of an emergency; also useful for non-emergency phone broadcasts.

Bronze Innovation Awards

Almond Hill Enterprises -- Turbo Schedule is a full featured, Web-based scheduling and calendar program, allowing agents to take appointments at any time.

Alston Tascom -- Evolution Call Recording Module allows agents or supervisors to automatically or selectively record their calls, which are sent to their voice mail boxes for later playback.

Amtelco -- eCreator IVR merges the automation and efficiency of IVR with the programming power of eCreator.  It includes text-to-speech conversion for lists and other data.

Alston Tascom -- Evolution Progressive Dialer speeds outbound campaigns without the downsides of progressive dialers.  It also can be used for call blending.

Broadfield Imaging -- TASbill.com is an Invoice printing and processing service will quickly and cost-effectively print, stuff, and mail invoices.  It is compatible with any billing system that can print to a file.

Exacom --Exacom Archival Recording System (EARS) is a cost-effective solution for remote voice logging.  Recordings are converted to wave files and accessible via a standard Internet browser.

Golf Committee Salutes Donations for Golf Outing

David Brashear and Mary Jones, coordinators of the ATSI Golf Outing, want to issue a big "thanks" to the vendors who supported the golf outing by donating prizes and gifts.

• Alston Tascom: Titanium driver

• Amtelco: Cordless phones (2)

• CadCom: Golf shirts and hats

• Peter DeHaan Consulting: Gift certificate to Amazon.com

• Professional Teledata: Collapsible coolers

• TASbill.com (Chris Twig): Business cards (2 sets)

• Telescan: A sleeve of golf balls for each player

• ATSI: Award plaques

ATSI Convention Exhibitors

In case you missed this year's convention or could not take in the entire exhibit hall, here is a list of the exhibitors along with their contact information:

Almond Hill Enterprises Inc.

714-637-3384 
contact: Sid Mandel 
Smandel@turboschedule.com 
www.turboschedule.com
TurboSchedule is a full Internet-based, operator-assisted appointment-scheduling tool. 

Alston Tascom, Inc.

909-548-7311 
contact: Bill Cortus
info@alstontascom.com 
www.alstontascom.com  
Evolution provides a unified IVR, ACD, voicemail, call logging, power dialer, and blended call capabilities.

Amtelco

608-838-4194 
contact: Kevin Ryan/Jim Becker 
info@amtelco.com 
www.amtelco.com  
Manufactures messaging and order-taking platforms, voice mail and message delivery systems.

CadCom TeleSystems 

580-242-4636 
contact: J .R. Criner 
info@onvisource.com
www.onvisource.com
Manufactures answering service and call center CTI systems: AccuCall and AccuScript.

Copia International Ltd.

630-388-6900
contact: Dorothy Gaden-Flannagan
sales@copia.com
www.copia.com 
Suite of business communications software comprised of FaxFacts, VoiceFacts, and E-MailFacts.

CTI Software

888-284-2850 
contact: Terri Roth 
Terri@CTISoftware.com
Suite Answer Center is an affordable solution for answering services to provide personalized attention..

DB Masters Software 

847-634-3880 
contact: Ron Kritzman 
Ron@dbmasters.com 
www.dbmasters.com  
The Billing Assistant billing system and other software and consulting for the teleservices industry. 

Incoming Calls Management Institute

410-267-0700 x 635
contact: Linda Harden
Lindah@incoming.com 
Provides comprehensive educational resources to call centers.

Professional Teledata

800-344-9944 
contact: Patricia Kalik 
Pkalik@proteledata.com  
www.professionalteledata.com  
PI-2000: order-entry software package, TBS: billing and invoicing system, and FMDS II: fax delivery system.

Record/Play Tek Inc.

574-848-5233 
contact: Michael Stoll 
Stoll@recordplaytek.com 
www.recordplaytek.com  
Provides voice logging digital recorders featuring continuous record, automatic back up, and featuring event screens.

Southern Telemessaging Association

800-475-0857 
contact: Daniel L 'Heureux 
www.sta-assoc.org  
Offers CBIT CD-ROM programs for the teleservices industry.

Startel Corporation 

800-782-7835 
contact: Barbara Willis 
BarbaraWillis@startelcorp.com 
www.startelcorp.com  
Sells intelligent consoles for managed call centers. 

Szeto Technologies Inc.

888-421-3737
contact: Sherry Gouel 
Info@szeto.ca  
www.szeto.ca Linux-based messaging system, Call Linx, provides businesses with complete teleservices options. 

TASbiller

321-951-2273
contact: Chris Twigg 
Info@TASbill.com 
www.TASbill.com  
TASbiller profitability analyzer billing software.

TAS Marketing

800-369-6126
contact: Steve Michaels 
Tas@tasmarketing.com 
www.tasmarketing.com  
Brokerage firm specializing in the mergers and acquisitions of telephone answering services nationwide.

Telescan, LLC

800-770-7662 
contact: Patty Anderson 
patty@telescan.net  
www.telescan.net  
EarthNet telemessaging system and custom computer telephony integration application. 

2002 ATSI Award of Excellence

Connections Magazine salutes the following companies for winning the Award of Excellence which was announced at the 2002 ATSI  convention. 

Year 1

AAMCOM, Redondo Beach, CA

Ambs Message Center, Inc. Jackson, MI

An-Ser Services, Green Bay, WI

Answer Connecticut, Inc., Newington, CT

Answer Midwest, Alton, IL

Aztec Answering Service Inc. Mesa, AZ

Bay Area Medical Exchange / Callstar, St. Petersburgh, FL

Business Service Center, Wausau, WI

Champaign Telephone Co., Champaign, IL

Chesapeake Teleservices, Inc., Baltimore, MD

Continental Message Solutions, Columbus, OH

Direct Line Tele Response, Berkeley, CA

Druid City Answering Service, Tuscaloosa, AL

King Communications, Saginaw, MI

Message Plex & Callogistix, Columbus, OH

Nova Communications, Inc. San Diego, CA

Omni Enterprises, Inc., Carrolton, GA

Phonepower, Inc., Altoona, PA

Telecom Answering Service, Homewood, IL

Year 2 Bronze

Allegheny Answering Service, Pittsburgh, PA

Ansaphone Service, Inc., Quincy, MA

Answer-All Secretarial Service Inc., Westminster, CO

Communications Business Service, INC. Marieta, GA

Crocker Communications, Greenfield, MA

Cross Country Automotive Service, Tucson, AZ

Focus Telecommunications, Inc., Burtonsville, MD

Message Linx, San Diego, CA

Year 3 Silver

Combined Communications, Inc., Bowling Green, KY

Pro Phone Communications, Inc. Muskegon, MI

TAS Communications, Inc., Madison, WI

TEL-US Call Center, Beverly Hills, CA

Year 4 Silver Plus

A Better Answer, Dallas, TX

On Call Message Centre, Inc. Ottawa, ON

STAT Communications Inc., Watertown, NY

Year 5 Gold

Answer Plus by PasWord, Hamilton, ON

Business Connections, Salem & Portland, OR

MedCom Professional Services, Inc., Levittown, PA

Year 6 - Pearl Award

Fallon Communications, Houston, TX

Hastings Communications Services, Austin, TX

Michigan Message Center, Kalamazoo, MI

Rochester Telemessaging Center, Rochester, MI

The Answer System, Inc., Phoenix, AZ

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