The Freedom to Roam and Still Phone Home

Sunday, 01. 25. 2009  –  Category: Ranger Wireless Solutions

by Mark Yontz, Business Direct Weekly

If you’ve ever had trouble with your cell phone while traveling out of your home calling area you know how frustrating it can be.

Dropped calls, poor reception, spotty service, bad connections – when these things happen, it’s nice to be able to get some service oriented questions answered, regardless of where one is. But contacting a cellular company’s customer service call center while in a roaming area can be problematic, not to mention potentially costly to both the pocketbook and a plan’s bank of allowable minutes.

Many cell phone users, however, have a little-known service available to them, no matter where they are using their phone – and all it takes is dialing *611.

Ranger Wireless Solutions of Holland developed and patented Home Customer Care – a technology platform that allows cellular users to dial *611 and connect to their own carrier’s customer service center without incurring any service charges. To utilize this nationwide service, the individual’s cellular provider must be a participating carrier.

“Cellular research shows only 12 to 15 percent of the population knows *611 is the way to get to their customer service issues taken care of when not in their home market,” explained Ned Timmer, president of Ranger Wireless Solutions. “It’s important for people to understand this is available, so we’re trying to raise consumer awareness.”

Though Ranger has been in business since 1997, Home Customer Care has actually been around for nearly 10 years. The core technology was developed as part of a collaborative effort between a number of different phone companies. This initial company spun-off and privatized to become Ranger Wireless Solutions, which now stands as the only company in the world doing this type of work and remains the sole patent holder of the core technology.

“We hold patents in the U.S. and Mexico, and we have 97 percent of the country covered,” said Timmer, who explained they have 40 participating carriers. This includes five of the country’s top carriers and 14 new ones signed up this past year.

Ranger deals directly with carriers – they are its customers. Any cellular company can participate. This is strongly encouraged because it offers no added expense for consumers and only a small cost for carriers.

When a cellular carrier participates, any time one of its customers wants to talk to their own customer service call center when out of their home calling area, all they need to do is call *611. They are relayed automatically to the appropriate call center by Ranger without incurring roaming charges or using valuable airtime minutes.

If a carrier does not participate in the program, one of two things can happen when someone needs questions answered when in a roaming area. The person may not be able to reach anyone at all, or is directed to a customer service call center, but not his or her own.

When this happens, the person they reach may not be able to help, but the caller is charged for the call – not to mention the $4 to $6 per call it typically costs the cell company trying to help the individual.

“We’re a behind-the-scenes application service provider to the cellular industry,” Timmer said.

Ranger is paid on a per-call basis and handles and redirects one million to two million calls per month.

“Everything is all technology-driven, so we’re not in the delivery of customer service,” Timmer commented.

Not all of the top carriers participate, but Timmer expects more to sign on as networks grow and the popularity of cell phones continues to rise. In fact, Ranger recently purchased and installed its own phone switch to route calls, something it outsourced in the past.

“There’s always going to be a need for this technology,” Timmer said. “So we’re just trying to raise the bar in getting end users to use *611 and understand it’s a win-win situation for them and their cell provider, especially given the new phone number portability law.”

Mark Yontz is a freelance writer in Rockford.