An interview with Co-Founder, Chenara Coetzee

The lockdown has forced many business owners to re-evaluate both how their business runs and their available budget. In this Q&A article, I interview co-founder of ARC Technology, Chenara Coetzee, to learn more about how they can benefit small to medium businesses in South Africa. 

Many companies have recently been cutting cost by:

• Allowing employees to work from home, saving on office rentals and overheads.
• Reducing wages by incorporating flexi-time, or – more severely – retrenching staff.
• Starting to look for more affordable suppliers.

ARC Technology, as a voice and internet consulting and service provider for South African businesses, thus endeavoured to offer affordable and flexible internet, Cloud PBX and telephone reception services. The best part is the flexibility! No more 36x month contracts, especially not now when the economy is in such flux.

Aside from being one of the three founding partners of ARC Technology, Chenara is also a “Solutions Architect”. Her job is to evaluate a client’s business, their needs and desires, plan the best possible solution, and assist in implementing these solutions as quickly and attentively as possible. Here’s what she had to say…

How can ARC Technology improve my business?

“Arc Technology can improve your business in a number of ways:

• We can free customers from traditional long-term PBX hardware contracts generally signed over 60-months by moving them onto shorter term, more flexible, service-based contracts with any required hardware either being purchased cash or amortised over 12- or 24-months according to client preference.

• We can save the client money by utilising VoIP, which offers less expensive call rates and pure per second billing.

• We can provide the client with a solution that allows remote workers and office-based workers to make use of the same unified Cloud PBX system so that, wherever they are, they can be part of the company telecommunications system to make, receive and transfer calls both internally and with their customers, suppliers and other stakeholders without anyone knowing they’re not sitting in the same geographic location.

• We can manage the client’s internet communications through our partnerships with South Africa’s best business ISP’s (internet service providers), so that small clients do not feel intimidated or side-lined by those large enterprises who provide their internet connectivity. Due to our good relations with SA ISPs, we can handle client queries on their behalf, plus we can offer managed secondary (or failover) internet connections to keep clients online during provider outages.”

Why should I choose ARC Technology above its competitors?

“We are small enough to be able to offer personal service to our clients, to be dynamic and reactive and to stay abreast of new technologies. Many of the large enterprise service providers in the industry don’t offer personal service – clients have to call in to call centres and never speak to the same person twice – their decision making processes are long and clients often become frustrated by the long turnaround times required. At ARC Technology, we know our clients and they know our team. Our relatively compact size and structure means we can make quick decisions and act with more agility!

“The best reason, however, is that we are able to integrate your Cloud PBX with CRM or support software such as Freshdesk, Zendesk, Ghost Practice, Legal Suite and other similar products. We can also incorporate your telephony into your Microsoft Teams environment if you’re making use of Office 365 for Business or Enterprise. Properly integrated systems can save employees a lot of time on menial tasks.”

As a freelancer, I work alone. Would ARC Technology still be able to improve my business, and how?

“So many freelancers operate exclusively from mobile phones. Advertising a mobile phone number can create an unprofessional impression and can also mean that “switching off” will be very difficult. ARC Technology can provide freelancers with a landline number that they can use on the go or at their regular premises or both. We offer cheaper call rates than their mobile phone service provider (for outbound calls), improve their customers’ perception and offer features like voicemail-to-email, live telephone answering services, and call recording. These are really handy for any business no matter the size.”

What would happen if I needed to pause my account due to unforeseen circumstances, perhaps Covid-19 related downsizing?

“Our Cloud PBX is scalable, so our month-to-month customers are able to cancel or suspend some of their Cloud PBX extensions and not pay for those during this period until the team is back to full size and they are required again. 

“Scalability is one of the key features of our Cloud PBX. Unlike hardware-based long-term contracts, it is very easy to grow or shrink your Cloud PBX to suit your current business needs. In most cases where customers requested it, we were able to reduce their number of billing extensions from the next billing cycle. We can resume those suspended extensions easily and will not charge customers a connection fee to resume, we will just charge pro-rata for the remainder of the month.

“It’s a bit more difficult with internet connectivity contracts as these are usually entered into between our client and a third party Enterprise connectivity provider. As larger organisations that are very much contract-based, they do not offer much relief as far as pausing or cancelling goes. This is why we strive to offer more flexibility with our in-house products.”

In conclusion…

Remote working, improved telephonic customer service, professional business internet and communication infrastructure, these are all needed to run a business these days. With the current need to adapt how businesses operate, having a trusted system in place for internal and external communications is vital to retain customer loyalty. 

You can contact ARC Technology today for a free consultation on how they can boost your business without breaking the bank or signing a long-term contract.