The Award Winning Services of Tel-Us Call Center began in 1979 when its founder, Susan Krems purchased an old cord board answering service. Picture Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the Operator …”one ringy dingy, two ringy dingies” and a bunch of long cords that plugged into a board with a bunch of holes. It was an era of antiquated switchboards and poorly organized telephone answering procedures. As one of the early adaptors in the advanced technology telecommunications industry, Susan computerized the company in the 1980′s. Since that time, Tel-Us has remained current in its technology and continues to offer the latest options to their customers.

In 1986, Susan’s daughter, Stacy Krems Polinsky joined the business and helped Susan diversify and grow the service offerings. Together, they were pioneers in the industry, transforming the traditional answering service into a full fledged call center that provided more services including: order taking, seminar registrations, and surveys. At that time, the internet did not exist and no one had heard of a website! So, they worked with a customer who developed software that would allow them to create scripting and fields that helped their customers with more sophisticated requests.

During the 1990′s, Tel-Us continued to move forward with it’s capabilities, helping it’s customers with whatever they needed when it came to answering calls. Voicemail was added as another service and could be incorporated into live answer by allowing each customer control over their messages – they could keep the message as long as they wanted, and play them over and over. Digital paging, faxing of messages and email came along later on. More recently, messages can be sent via text as well, and soon customers will access them online whenever they want.

In 1998 when Susan retired, Stacy took the helm as President. Stacy has continued to stay abreast of the developments in the industry by being an active member in several industry groups, serving on several Boards, and even serving as President of her equipment user group and the Western States TeleMessaging Association (WSTA). She served on the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI) Board for many years, and has been one of the people responsible for the Annual Owner’s Forum ATSI members attend each year to learn about growing their business and running a good company where employees choose to stay. By volunteering on countless committees, and serving each of these Boards, Stacy and the company have been very fortunate to have learned so much from friends and colleagues. The answering service industry as a whole is unique, and we have taught and learned from each other so we can assist our wonderful customers in any way that helps them grow and achieve success.