The outgrowth of a local "mom and pop" traditional telephone answering service created in the late 70's, Centratel has developed into an advanced-technology, vertical market-specific high tech answering service with service throughout the United States and the world. Headquarters are in Bend, Oregon. The company has been under Sam Carpenter's primary ownership since its incorporation in 1984. On December 1, 2007 Centratel celebrated its twenty third anniversary. Despite the general decline in the telecom service industry, Centratel has experienced dramatic growth, especially over the past five years.

With a history of industry innovation and leadership, our strategic objective is based on:

1. Impeccable staff performance through written documentation and procedures, training, testing and a generous pay-by-performance employee compensation and benefit package.
2. Cutting-edge technical call center innovation and state-of-the-art digital equipment.
3. Constant improvement/adjustment based on client feedback.

Approximately 95% of our customers use "traditional live" service in which our TSR's directly answer all incoming calls. The advantage of this type of service is that the caller will be immediately talking to a secretary; the call is instantly “captured” by a real person. This is critical for companies that are selling a product or service. The other 5% of Centratel customers use "Gold Service" in which the call is answered initially by an automated, voice mail greeting. The greeting provides basic information (such as office hours or directions to the client's office) and the caller is then given a chance to leave a message in his or her own voice. The caller also has the option of pressing a key to reach a Centratel TSR. The advantages of Gold Service: It is approximately 20-30% less expensive than "traditional live" answering service and it quickly and efficiently offers basic information to the caller. It is a popular service for medical and veterinary offices. Whichever service you choose, your account will be customized exactly to fill your needs. Centratel telephone answering service is active 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, including holidays.

It is possible we are quite knowledgeable about your business, as our company specializes only in certain business categories. For the business categories in which we specialize, we are answering service experts.

A highly dedicated, long-term staff is the simple, key element in providing superb quality answering service. Each Telephone Service Representative is a career professional. Pay rates/benefits are higher than 98% of competing telephone answering services throughout the United States. As a result, staff turnover is low and dedication is high. The caller is treated in a courteous, professional manner and leaves the line confident that the message will be delivered. Names and numbers are correct, messages are complete. The caliber of service is "front office." This is quality so high that, unless we inform them otherwise, callers assume we are not an answering service at all, but that our TSR is actually part of the account's front office staff.

To insure quality answering service, a stable staff is essential. For this industry, Centratel Telephone Service Representatives enjoy the highest rates of pay in the western United States. The average length of service for staff members is over five years which is a unique statistic for an industry plagued by employee turnover. Training and monitoring of the Telephone Service Representative is constant with the goal of near zero-defect performance. Compiled statistics for October through December 2007, show a client reported error rate of one error per 13,900 message transactions.

Yes! In the operation of Centratel, administrative and operations personnel use the same answering service tools and processes that are provided to clients. Internally, we face the same business challenges as our clients and we use the same tools to operate our own internal communications. Many of the products we offer were born out of internal necessity, right here at Centratel. We don’t just sell our answering service products; we use them and steadfastly believe in them.

The bottom line is that our technology is profoundly more advanced than 98% of all answering services in the US and Canada. this means solid reliability, superior voice quality, numerous options for clients and a more flexible, user-friendly operating system for our telephone Service Representatives. Our philosophy is this: In order to provide superior answering service to our clients, the people who handle your calls must come first; therefore, we provide them with the best call center tools available.

The switched telephone network in the United States and Canada is more reliable than ever and long-distance rates, absorbed by Centratel, are at historic lows. Since the year 2000 it has been common for a business or professional office in one state to use a telephone answering service located in a distant state. Telephone conversations and data travel at light speed; There are no delays. The distance between the client and the call center simply does not matter. This is fortunate for you because now the highest quality telephone answering service available anywhere is at your doorstep.

Informally, we ask for a three month minimum for new answering service customers. Subsequently, service is on a month-to-month basis. We don’t ask for long-term contracts. This is a philosophical issue. If your answering service is working for you, you will choose to continue each month. If it doesn’t work for you, then you are free to cease using it. We have numerous clients who have worked with this month-to-month arrangement for over twenty years.

Through various telephone company call forwarding switching features. By dialing a special code on your keypad, calls can be call-forwarded to Centratel. When you are ready to take your own calls again, the system can be de-programmed by dialing another simple code. Other options include routing your calls to the telephone answering service only after a given number of rings, or if your lines are busy. Also, for some businesses, toll-free service which altogether bypasses the client’s offices is a popular option.

Hollee Wilson. Hollee is ready and willing to talk to you about any operational questions or concerns you may have. Hollee's regular office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00 PST. You may call her at our main office telephone number (1-800-639-1818) or email her at holleew@centratel.com.

Routine message delivery options include voice mail, Email, fax, alpha-numeric pager and text-to-cell phone. Various combinations are possible.

If there is an urgent situation our secretaries will choose your "E relay" in which they follow a series of 1-2-3 steps to reach you directly. The "E relay" is custom designed for your answering service account. For instance, the first step might be to try to reach you at home. If there is no answer, the second step may be to try your cellular phone or the home of an associate, a third step might be to send a page to another member of your staff, etc. The fourth step may be to repeat the entire process. With E relays, our Telephone Service Representatives tenaciously follow the established answering service relay protocol until the goal of delivering the message has been accomplished. Our answering service system is set up so that no message goes undelivered. If there should ever be a problem delivering a message, we work with the client to change the message relay format to one that works more effectively.

Operational questions are handled by Operations Supervisors, one of whom is always on duty and/or available. You will also be contacted regularly by your Customer Service Representative in order to keep your answering service account information up to date and to insure that you are getting the most from your telephone answering service with Centratel.