By William Bradford, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF UNITED COMMUNICATIONS
For over 75 years, United Communications has been building connections in our communities. We have built our reputation on providing the highest quality of service for our friends and neighbors. Today, our purpose still rings true, and as we have expanded into new parts of Middle TN, we’re shaking up the old provider-customer relationship, placing our employees and our customers firmly at the heart of everything we do.
Our commitment to our customers was recently recognized when we were awarded the 2023 BBB Torch Award for Ethics by the Better Business Bureau Serving Middle TN and Southern KY. The BBB Torch Awards for Ethics honors organizations whose leaders live and lead with high character, work toward a culture of trust, and build better customer relationships. United Communications was one of two Middle Tennessee businesses recognized with this prestigious award for 2023.
Doubling Down on Our Commitment to Customers
As President and CEO at United Communications, it means so much to receive this award because it honors the dedication that our employees exhibit each day. At United Communications, our Core Values include Service and Integrity, and this award demonstrates that these aren’t just words on the breakroom wall. Receiving the 2023 BBB Torch Award for Ethics only fuels our ongoing commitment to providing exceptional customer experiences with each customer interaction.
Here are a few specific initiatives that we’re investing in to genuinely connect with our community and put our ethics into action:
- Provide customers with personal, friendly service. We treat our customers the same way we would our friends—by making and maintaining real connections that lead to positive, personal moments. We employ a local customer service team, and it’s not unusual for our employees to know many of our customers on a first-name basis.
- Continue to invest in employee development. Our commitment to empowering our employees with the resources they need to grow as professionals is one of the things that makes our company such a great place to work. To ensure the success of individual employees, we’ve increased our training and development budget by 70% to support our employees.
- Offer our customers industry-leading solutions. Our team works hard to think ahead and take action to anticipate and address our customers’ future needs and expectations. For example, we’ve proactively invested in building a world-class fiber optic network capable of multi-gig speeds with connections to the major data centers and content providers throughout the region.
- Invest time, effort, and resources to provide high-speed internet access to more Middle Tennesseeans. There are still hundreds of thousands of people across Tennessee who don’t have access to a high-speed internet connection. Building upon 75 years of supporting customers, we launched Project UNITE to specifically help these individuals and business owners in underserved communities gain access to high-speed internet. To date, this initiative has impacted thousands of lives across our service areas. Through a combination of grant funding and our own financial resources, we’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build out the infrastructure that’s needed to close the digital divide in Middle Tennessee.
- Continue to find ways to serve our customers better. Earlier this year, we launched our Proactive Support Program to identify potential issues for our customers. Our goal is to identify potential issues before they cause problems for our customers and work to proactively find solutions. If a customer does need to call, 80% of our calls are connected to a local service representative in under 30 seconds. As an internet service provider that listens to our customers, our team is empowered to take immediate action to help solve their problems.
Experience Our Award-Winning Customer Experience for Yourself
United Communications was built on honest dealing, providing outstanding value, and advocating for connectivity in cities, towns, and rural communities. We will uphold these values as we continue fulfilling our mission to ensure every home and business in Middle Tennessee has fast, reliable internet access backed by world-class customer service.
If you’re looking for a local internet service provider, we’d love for you to join the United Communications family. You can learn more about how we serve our customers and support local communities across Middle Tennessee on our blog. To learn more about our internet plans or bundle packages, you can check availability here.
Author Bio:
William Bradford
President and CEO of United Communications
With over 20 years of executive experience in telecommunications management, William Bradford has guided United Communications to become a leading provider of internet, digital TV, and phone services for enterprise-class businesses and residential customers in Middle Tennessee. His passion for bridging the digital divide in rural communities led to Project UNITE, an initiative to provide fast, reliable broadband service to every under-connected home or business in the Tennessee mid-state region. William was recently recognized as one of the most influential technology leaders by Nashville Post’s In Charge List. He is the past president of the Tennessee Broadband Association and is actively involved in industry trade groups. William graduated with honors from Wake Forest University with a degree in Mathematical Economics. He and his family live in Brentwood, Tennessee.