NW Technology Team Hires Patrick Alexander as Telecommunications and Video Specialist
The last two years have initiated several changes to the landscape of the Pacific Northwest’s business community, most of those have been in the retail and restaurant industries. A surprising closure has many area businesses baffled, left wondering where or what to do next. In fact, many companies still don’t know that their telecommunication support service closed their doors at the end of 2021. Some found out by visiting their website that has a red banner across it stating, ‘Permanently Closed’ with a tag that says ‘Retirement.’
Baron Telecommunications closed their doors 12/31/2021 to both their clients and their employees after four decades of selling and servicing phone systems in the Pacific Northwest. They left phone numbers for their clients to call representatives of the phone brand’s they might have contracts with or purchased devices.
These companies are left with some serious questions about how they communicate in and out of their offices, and even how they can continue to functionally operate. Imagine: what if your phone system just stopped working, what if you need to add a new employee or location, make some adjustments to your messaging, what if you couldn’t call out or accept in-coming calls? For many companies their businesses would quickly grind to a halt, only to find out their phone service company no longer exists.
What do they do now?
NW Technology has an answer for those companies uncertain about their phone systems and left without a plan. Many businesses know us as a Managed Service Provider that supports a business’ IT, but we also offer VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems. Our staff is trained and certified in the 3CX system, which is a software-based program. It allows you to make phone calls through your internet connection instead of a regular landline or a mobile network. This option is communication of the future available now. Compared to the old analog system, VoIP offers more features, flexibility, reliability, scalability, and cuts costs. With a VoIP system employees can work from anywhere using voice apps on their smartphones. A great feature for remote staff. The software is easily installed and managed on a computer and if you utilize the softphone feature, you won’t need to purchase and maintain desk phones.
Recently added to the NW Technology Team is Patrick Alexander as Telecommunications and Video Specialist. He has over 30 years’ experience in the telecom industry, many of those spent at Baron Telecommunications. In his role as a field service technician, Pat built great working relationships with his customers providing service, moves, adds, and changes to their premise-based PBX equipment. Over the years Pat says he has witnessed the evolution from analog to digital to VoIP. As the progression to VoIP advanced, he says the customers’ needs were being managed more by IT MSPs, like NW Technology and less by traditional PBX vendors.
After 28 years with Baron, Patrick was looking for a new opportunity. At the end of 2021 when Baron decided to close its doors and leave him and his co-workers without a job, Patrick says NW Technology is providing him with the opportunity to continue building his skills with the 3CX VoIP System.
He hopes that any of his former customers, especially those using Toshiba PBX, that were abandoned by Baron will contact NW Technology for service/conversion needs, especially since Toshiba’s telecom division has also closed. The biggest issue for the old Toshiba customers is hard drive failure of the voicemail systems. Patrick says now with NW Technology, he can offer a lower cost VoIP solution called 3CX. If you have questions or need reprogramming of your current phone system, give him a call at NW Technology and he says he should be able to help.
Pat says his ambition has always been to take great care of the customer’s service request by listening to them and coming up with solutions that fit their needs and now he can continue that goal with his new and expanding team at NW Technology.
Interested in learning more about NW Technology and the 3CX VoIP system, contact us at 360.384.6987 or online at www.nwtechnology.com