Gateway Recovery Associates
"We couldn't have added the number of people we have without Aptela. Aptela has been our partner right along the way."
- Sam Archie, Owner, Gateway Recovery Associates
Challenge: Running a phone-intensive company on a new business budget.
Gateway Recovery Associates is a debt recovery business headquartered in Kenmore, New York.Phones are mission-critical to debt collection. Each of Sam Archie's collectors makes, on average, 100 outbound calls every day. In addition, the company receives 200 to 250 inbound calls per day. "If the phones go down, we go down," he says.
When he founded Gateway Recovery Associates in 2009, Arci researched phone services carefully. While working for another company, he had used a VoIP system-but the company's internet service lacked the necessary bandwidth to use VoIP successfully. With his new company and Verizon FIOS, however, he knew he would have the bandwidth he needed. In addition, he discovered that Aptela offered lower rates and more flexible expansion capabilities than conventional land lines.
"I could not have afforded to start my business without Aptela," said Archie. "If I had required landlines, I would have lost money."
Solution: Deploying a user-friendly system that can be expanded as needed.
Gateway is a new and growing business. Arci has 29 collectors on staff now but plans to double that number over the next year. He says his Aptela system will be critical to that growth. "With Aptela, I can add another extension in less than two minutes. With a land line, you have to wait two weeks or longer." Employee turnover is a fact of life in the debt recovery business as well, ands Aptela allows Arci to add and delete users on the fly whenever it is necessary.
With Aptela's phone service, Gateway has the tools a growing business needs:
- Extensions are assigned to all employees-including those who work at home-and all outbound calls appear as though they are coming from the main office.
- Call Blast rings incoming calls on all employee extensions so anyone available can answer the call.
- Voicemail to Email Integration allows any collector to access the general voice mail account and return messages.
- Seamless Remote Connectivity means Gateway can add remote employees and telecommuters without adding to office overhead.
- Web-based Administrator Portal lets Arci make changes to his Aptela account in real-time with one-click simplicity.
"I was petrified going in and wondered what I had gotten myself into. But using Aptela was so simple. It's very user friendly."
Results: Getting the flexibility and pay-as-you-go affordability needed to grow a new company.
Aptela has given Gateway a robust phone system at a price a new business can afford-and with the adaptability a new business needs in order to grow. Arci notes that with Aptela he pays for just the extensions he currently uses. He's not locked into more service than he needs, but he can expand his Aptela service within minutes, whenever necessary.
Arci has also upgraded Gateway to Aptela's newly-launched A5 platform. The new platform's expanded Call Blast feature has been a boon to his collectors. Before, Gateway could only blast incoming calls to the first five extensions. That limitation was unfair to the other collectors, who didn't have the same opportunity to answer calls - and make money. Aptela's new platform now enables incoming calls to be blasted to all extensions simultaneously. All of Gateway's collectors now have the same opportunity to answer calls and collect on accounts. "It's the quickest to the draw now," says Arci. "Everyone is on equal footing."
