Matt Bogan just celebrated his 10 year anniversary at King’s Telemessaging this past August, where he started as a phone agent and moved forward to his current position. He mentioned how thankful he is for not just the business but also the personal connections he has made through CEO.
King’s is an answering service, plain and simple – founded in 1948 as an answering service for local physicians. The business has changed quite a lot since they began in the basement of the AT&T building when you had to be within a short distance of the phone exchanges. Many of their 500 clients are nationwide due to the local branch office being so pleased they got all of the business.
Their main competition are the large call centers that claim live answering but most don’t really offer that. Most service industries they serve see the benefit of after hours answering by a human, most people will not try to reach a plumber or HVAC by answering machine.
Many of their employees are long term, and are highly trained and knowledgeable about their client business to be able to serve them in the most helpful manner. They even offer wakeup services for Shreveport Limousine customers. There are some companies that have lone service workers (oilfield services) that have their workers call in at the end of the work day so someone knows they made it in safe and sound, if they are not heard from King’s will contact them. King’s will also take work hours calls if needed, there are no snow days.
Bob King shared details about his new venture in North Arkansas. He has had the luxury of tele-commuting for the past 5 years and this past year, they were able to buy some additional property and build a vacation retreat. Over these past 5 years many of their friends have visited and returned to buy property of their own. They are about 5.5 hours from Shreveport, but with the new I-49 extension it will cut off some time (he hasn’t driven it yet) 20 miles from the Missouri Border. They are also within an hour of some of the most well known North Arkansas sites.
Bob started off thinking they would build something small, but Carol let him know she would take care of the design. The retreat is 3 bedroom 2 bath, out- side patio with wood burning fireplace. Beautifully appointed kitchen and a rustic but modern decorating. Much of the materials are repurposed and sal- vaged décor, such as a copper sink in a whiskey barrel in the 1⁄2 bath. They expect to be finished with everything in about 2 weeks.
Bob and Carol along with some friends have done all of the finish work them- selves. Bob will send a link to the website to all CEO members and asks that everyone forward to anyone they know that lives within 300 miles of the Ozarks. Nearest commercial airport is in Branson.