In his quest to run ”the highest quality answering service in the United States,” Centratel owner Sam Carpenter stands by the principle that the customer comes second.

The 55-year-old self-described ”maverick” says his 30 employees are the most valuable asset his company has and he is dedicated to treating them well.

”Our deal with employees is: ‘Give us 110 percent and we’ll compensate you generously,’” Carpenter said. ”Great service to our clients is the inevitable outcome.”

The company offers telephone answering services, voice mail and paging services to local and national businesses.

Carpenter said the business plan is working well, leading to 100 percent growth in the past three years, despite an 18-month legal battle with a Pakistani group that bought a minority share in Centratel in 2003.

On Sept. 1, Carpenter and co-owner Sam Kirkaldie reacquired 40 percent of company stock from The Resource Group of Lahore, Pakistan. The foreign investment firm came on board in November 2003 to provide backup, offshore answering personnel.

It didn’t work out.

Carpenter and Kirkaldie fought to regain control of the business and now anticipate continued growth as they focus on providing better quality and more accurate services than their competitors.

How did you get into this business and why Bend?

I managed a family-operated publishing business here in Bend in the early ’80s. We didn’t need a secretary but absolutely needed someone to answer the phone courteously and professionally 24/7.

At the time, there were three Central Oregon answering services in Bend. We employed each of them over the course of three years, moving from one to the other. …

It was clear to me, as a business owner who truly needed a cogent and professional human being to handle incoming calls, that I would pay considerably more for quality service – if it was available. So, in December of 1984, I bought one of the ailing Bend answering services and operated it from the first day with the premise that ”we will pay employees more so we have a better staff that will provide great service.”

So that is our niche: capturing the 10 percent of clients who will pay more for real quality. The other 90 percent who don’t put a high value on how their communications are handled would continue to be well-served elsewhere.

Since 1984, our development and operational philosophy has been innovative and even revolutionary, but that one premise of high quality of service/higher pay for staff/higher cost for the clients has never changed.

What kinds of services does your company offer?

We provide advanced-technology telecommunications services, including telephone answering services (TAS) as well as automated services, including voice mail and paging.

We have provided telephone answering services since the company’s inception in 1984 and TAS now comprises over 90 percent of our total revenues. Voice-mail services have been offered since 1987 and make up about 5 percent of revenue and the final 5 percent comes from paging sales and service.

Our purpose is, simply, to take information from callers – either urgent or nonurgent – and deliver the information to the client. Much of our information delivery is of an urgent nature: Life or property is in jeopardy. The remainder of our business is voice mail and paging to Central Oregon accounts only.

Who are your clients and where are they located?

Our TAS clients are scattered all over the United States, 20 percent of whom are in Central Oregon. We have reversed the ratio of local clientele to businesses outside the area since we began our national marketing four years ago.

We have a narrow band of specialty accounts, including medical, veterinary, HVAC, funeral homes, health care, public utilities and other businesses – often high-tech – that require emergency dispatch after hours.

How do you market your company?

It’s a secret. Really. I will say that a large part of our growth is referral based.

Of interest, I think, is that the per capita number of businesses that use answering services has shrunk dramatically over the last 30 years. Paging, cellular, voice mail and unique services offered by telephone companies have filled a large gap that TAS businesses used to fill.

When we started in 1984, with a population below 20,000, there were approximately 800 answering-service clients in the area. Now, with a population exceeding 60,000, I estimate the total available clients at 300 max.

So, we’ve had to find the technology and marketing strategy to reach out to the rest of the country. Although the market is proportionately shrinking, there are certain markets that will always need an outside entity to handle after-hours or overload calls.

What do you see for the future of Centratel?

Continued growth. It’s just fun now, since we got our stock back. As my partner and I savor our resilience to adversity, see our employees prosper, and serve customers who are happy we exist, we see our unique/maverick approach really take off.

Being an outsider has had its advantages and, after 21 years in this business, I am perfectly comfortable wearing that shirt.

I bought the company for $21,000 in 1984. It’s value now exceeds $3 million.

For me personally, I am writing a book on business communication processes/philosophy and I expect to go on the lecture circuit after the book is published next summer.

THE BASICS

What: Centratel telephone answering service

Who: Sam Carpenter and Sam Kirkaldie, owners

Where: 141 NW Greenwood Ave., Suite 200

Telephone: 541-383-8383

Web site: www.centratel.com

Employees: 30