Alert Communications/Answering Service

I’ve been meaning to update this review for a while now, but I’ve been stuck in trials and hearings that have kept me away from fully reviewing anything on Unilocal.Today I catch up. Several weeks ago Kim reached out to me about my concerns with Alert. He apologized profusely about missing the conference calls scheduled with me. After finally discussing my issues with him, I sympathized and understood why it had taken so long for him to reach out to me. As a business owner myself, I understand how difficult it can be to finish everything on your plate and answer all the calls that come in. There is not enough hours in a day to fully focus on all the calls and clients that need response back, and he was looking for a time to thoroughly respond.
During our (multiple) conversations, he acknowledged that it was a business decision to grow and move away from more of the family feel. I run my business a different way and I can respect his decision. I understand it completely now. He acknowledged how the growth had brought in different types of clients and their different types of needs and may have frustrated clients like me and I may have out grown them or rather they have outgrown me. Regardless, he was sincere in how he truly wanted to make things work for my business but that he did not know how to fix the problem. He would love to keep my business but felt that in order to keep it true to how I want it run, I may need to look for a more specific answering service.
My discussions with Kim did not feel like a cop out. He explained his business strategy and his vision. And he also explained that it was a tough decision on his part. At the end of the day, he wanted to make everyone happy, and he truly believed that as much as he can try to make it work, it may cause me more headache and missed calls, and he didn’t want me to have to suffer through it. He was extremely apologetic and even went above and beyond and researched his competitors to attempt to find me an answering service that would fit my vision and my needs. He provided me a spreadsheet with information on different types of services that focused on legal calls as as the smaller business feel. He wrote pros and cons as well as why he believed each would fit for me. He had sent me numerous emails to update me, and has set aside time to speak with me about the best case scenario for my particular needs and business needs.
Kim not only provided me with alternatives but he offered to transfer over the local number that I have been using so I can own it myself. He also spent time explaining to me options of where to port my number, how to port the number, and the best telephone companies to use and why. After, he decided to waive the fees for me even after he spent over hundreds of minutes (literally) of training time when he was attempting to re-​train the agents on my account (this was when he was still trying to find ways to keep my account active and going). He truly was disappointed in losing my account and wanted to do what he could to ease the transfer of services.
As much as I was disappointed before, to have the head of a company take the time out of his busy day to handle one account and complaint is beyond accommodating. It is truly bending over backwards to make things work and satisfy a customer even if they know that they are losing them to another company. His focus was my business and his acceptance that his company may not be a good fit for everyone was honest and commendable. He literally held my hand and helped me through to find a suitable placement rather than simply leaving me in the dust.
Kim’s treatment of me made me second guess leaving Alert. However, I know that my business needed to go in a different direction, and I have come to terms with that. As much as I felt passionately about my initial review, I have come to understand Alert’s perspective and business view. It is a very good company with very reliable managers and caring people who fulfills a great service for many businesses. Unfortunately, I have a specific need that they could not necessarily fulfill. That doesn’t take away from their ability to the majority of businesses out there (because thy did try very hard to fit my vision and goals) it simply means that I have a specific way and focus on my business and I would need a smaller service that would be a better fit for my clientele and needs.
So the 5 stars is truly for the customer service, the amount of care, and sincerity shown to me the past several weeks. It was the countless hours spent attempting to find ways to make my service work, and making this transition as easy as possible when it couldn’t. It’s for the head of the company taking the time to personally research their own competitors to find one that is best for me.