For some, their service is the AnSer

Technology has carried us from phone switchboards to a world in which most everyone carries a mobile device and communication always is at the ready. Yet, 72 years after its inception, AnSer answering service continues to play an integral part in relaying messages for its 2,500 or so customers throughout the nation.

After all, a missed call means a missed opportunity. It’s a service that President and Owner Allan Fromm has had a hand in since purchasing the company’s Green Bay office in the early 1970s and its Appleton-based office from the company’s original owner in the early 1990s. “AnSer answers the phone for anybody who wants their phone answered by a live person and can’t answer it all the time,” he said. The AnSer at 2761 Allied St. in Ashwaubenon serves as headquarters for AnSer offices throughout the United States. Today, it counts 17 offices in nine states as part of their business, ranging from Eugene, Ore. to Utica, N.Y. with offices dotting the country throughout Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

The company’s most recent addition is in Des Moines. In all the offices, AnSer’s professional agents act as adjuncts or partners with each client’s business, providing 24/7 customer support not only by answering phones, scheduling appointments and serving as virtual receptionists, but also through functions such as live chats. About 40 percent of the company’s business is in providing phone-answering services for healthcare professionals but their clientele also includes attorneys, HVAC companies, construction companies, funeral homes, property managers, hospice and home health, among others.

Their clients include everyone from local professionals to national companies. That list has included Zappos.com, Motorola and Volvo. For a while, Fromm also dabbled in the paging business but sold it to Ameritech. He’s also endured call forwarding and the accessibility of cheap answering machines, but “people still wanted people to answer their phones live,” he said.

When Fromm first took on the business, he was surprised to learn Vince Lombardi was among the company’s clients (having left about two years before Fromm  purchased the business). He vividly remembers taking care of Bart Starr as well when he was an AnSer client. In the early years, AnSer was more than a convenient answering service for business calls — they also answered calls for the fi re departments in Brown County except for Green Bay and De Pere.

All that began at the property at 416 Crooks St.,Green Bay, which the company moved from in 1994 to gain more space as it grew and ran out of parking space. The  Property in Ashwaubenon was available, and the company moved around the same time it discontinued its alarm-monitoring business but also bought out Bay  Answering Service, the answering service across the street. “A lot of people got into the business without realizing how consuming it can be fielding calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Fromm said.

In the 1970s, there were approximately 4,000 answering services in the country. Today, they number between 750 and 1,000.

Fromm personally contributed to that consolidation, not only purchasing the AnSer locations in Green Bay and Appleton but also acquiring answering services in Manitowoc, Fond du Lac and other locations.

Having employees physically housed together in company offices is an important part of the company’s success, Fromm believes. “There are so many decisions I made

 by walking down the hall and asking, ‘What do you think of this or that,’ ” he said. “As the owner, I have to get buy-in and input. We use Zoom an awful lot with our offices so spread out, but making decisions is so much easier and faster when we’re right down the hall from each other.”

He said one of the best things he’s done is keep the team in the Green Bay office during COVID, taking every precaution to ensure safety through cleanliness, social distancing, temperature checks, etc. “I learned that we are just better together,” he said.

He now counts 180 employees as part of the AnSer family and, “I credit having a great core team with making the company as successful as it is,” he said. Fromm makes a point of interviewing everyone he adds to the team because “the most important thing we have is the people,” he said. “We consider ourselves an advocate for the caller and do what we believe our customers want us to do. As a result, we make a lot of judgment calls.”

Even as a flurry of messages come in, the back-end support is at the ready to accommodate, with each customer having its own message form to ensure brand continuity. AnSer employs technologies including call handling soft ware and seamless integration with clients’ CRMs and software.

Fromm’s involvement in the national trade association has kept him attuned to industry trends and opportunities. He anticipates his future to include absorbing more answering services into the Anser family, continuing to provide a service rooted in the foundational principles that “people need people,” he said. “It’s not an easy way to make a living, but I haven’t lost my interest in it all these years later. I hope to continue to grow.”