Batts Communications
This NUSO Partner Spotlight shares insights from Jacob Bunton, of Batts Communications. A trusted source for cutting-edge telecommunication solutions since 1989, Batts focuses on customer relationships, ensuring the best service, infrastructure, and performance in telecommunications and networking. Serving West Texas and beyond, Jacob and his team install and maintain systems with hands-on support as well as 24/7 access to technical support.
In This Edition of the NUSO Partner Spotlight
- Batts Communications (Introductions)
- Technology Moves Faster Than Humans
- Customer Support
- The Shift to Recurring Revenue
- Why Partner with NUSO?
- 2 Phones to 2,800
- A Willingness to Listen
- Mobility vs Remote
- The Future: Building Awareness
NUSO collaborates with our Partners to deliver enterprise-class unified communications, contact center solutions, and CPaaS enablement to organizations and businesses of all sizes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7y-Lq2hmjY
Excerpts from the Conversation
Moving to the Cloud
Jacob Bunton: Our active customer base includes several thousand phone systems we've maintained over the years. Many of these have transitioned into hybrid solutions.
NUSO: Hybrid solutions? Can you elaborate on that?
Jacob Bunton: Absolutely. We’ve integrated SIP trunks into existing platforms as a kind of "crawl, walk, run" approach to moving customers into the Cloud. Many people in this area are hesitant about making that leap—they don’t fully understand it, or they’ve been burned by it in the past, or they know someone who has.
NUSO: So the hybrid approach helps them feel more confident?
Jacob Bunton: Exactly. We show them, “Hey, it works.” Once they see that, it's easier to roll them into the full Cloud suite (UCaaS) with all the features. And once they’re there, they’re extremely happy.
NUSO: What percentage of your customer base is hybrid versus fully Cloud-based?
Jacob Bunton: Good question. I’d say about 30% are hybrid, another 30% are fully Cloud-based, and the rest—well, we’re knocking on their doors, trying to get in front of them.
NUSO: That’s promising—it sounds like there’s still significant opportunity for growth.
Jacob Bunton: Exactly. There’s definitely some white space left for digital transformation. In our 35–36 years of operation, most of our customer base is now on their third or fourth generation of phone systems with us.
NUSO: So these are long-term relationships?
Jacob Bunton: Yes, very much so. That’s how we’ve sustained our business—by building and maintaining those long-term relationships. It’s really the only way to do it. Companies that don’t focus on that don’t last very long around here.
Technology Moves Faster Than Humans
NUSO: Trust seems to be a recurring theme in conversations about technology. How important is trust in your business
Jacob Bunton: I think trust is more important now than ever before. Unfortunately, it seems to have fallen by the wayside too often. Technology moves faster than we do as humans—someone creates it and gets it running, but once it’s rolling, it’s hard to keep up. Our customer base often looks at all of this and says, "We don’t even know what this means," so they put their trust in us.
NUSO: That’s a big responsibility. How do you ensure you maintain that trust?
Jacob Bunton: It’s paramount for us. We’ve always prioritized the relationship with our customers. For example, we did our research and built several years of strong relationships on the SIP trunk side, which has opened doors to where we are now. Our customers know that if we say it’s going to work, they can count on us.
NUSO: Are you seeing much adoption of the Microsoft Teams™ platform among your customers?
Jacob Bunton: We are, but not as much as I hear from our counterparts around the country. It’s becoming more common in school districts, especially those dealing with budget constraints since COVID.
NUSO: Do those customers typically stick with Teams, or do they come back to you?
Jacob Bunton: Many come back. It could take six weeks or two years, but they often realize Teams isn’t meeting their needs. They’ll tell us, “It didn’t work out; we need a phone system and better service that fits our operations.” That’s a trend we’ve seen not just with Teams but with other hosted platforms as well. Customers often get stuck in contracts, and the service just doesn’t work for them—they can’t even get their phones to ring sometimes.
NUSO: What do you think is missing from the Teams experience that drives customers back to you?
Jacob Bunton: The biggest gap is the personal touch. With Teams, you can swipe a credit card, turn on voice services, and you’re set—but who do you call when something goes wrong? It’s often just a generic 1-800 number, and you’re lucky if you get a human on the other end.
NUSO: That lack of personal support must be frustrating for customers.
Jacob Bunton: Absolutely, especially in Central West Texas. People here like to talk to other people, not auto-attendants. They don’t want to call an 800 number. For us, our sales pitch isn’t about the system or the type of phone on the desk—it’s about us. You get us with it. There’s no 800 number; you can text, call, or email, and we’re there.
NUSO: That’s a very hands-on approach.
Jacob Bunton: It is. Our customers don’t need someone in-house to manage their phones—we handle that for them, just like we always have. Trust may have gotten left behind in the industry, but we’re actively rebuilding it.Watch the complete NUSO Partner Spotlight on YouTube.
NUSO Partner Spotlight Series
Our job is to make our Partners successful with their customers, and ultimately, to help them succeed with theirs. The NUSO Partner Spotlight is an opportunity for us to catch up with our Partners. Their experiences and feedback provide valuable insights on what’s happening in the market with the rapid pace of change in technology. Meeting customers where they’re at and democratizing communications technology, no matter the size of the business, are key goals for NUSO and for our MSP Partners. Learn more Batts Communications.Contact us if you have questions or comments about our Partner Spotlight series. We value the feedback!
