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West Virginia

Speed and performance have always been a driving force for Yamaha of Cucamonga, Inc., a certified dealer of Yamaha motorcycles, scooters, ATVs, and generators with a 2,500-square-foot retail store and repair center in Rancho Cucamonga, California. While business was revving along strongly with annual sales running north of $4 million, President Jay Conaway recently decided the store's telecommunications also needed to come up to speed.

The challenge

Conaway's first goal was to add TV displays for the main showroom floor and in customer waiting room areas. There were also problems with Yamaha of Cucamonga's existing telecommunications services-the mission-critical DSL broadband connection was prone to service outages, and sometimes it was hard to hear customers on the frequently static-filled voice lines. All of that led Conaway to evaluate his entire telecommunications strategy and explore whether he could also improve his telephone and internet service with a triple-play bundle from a local cable provider. As luck would have it, a Charter Business sales representative called. The representative quickly provided Conaway with a bid that included TV service, five phone lines, and high-speed cable modem service. After looking at the proposal, says Conaway, "It just made sense. We put the package together and looked at the cost savings, and it just made sense to do it."

Flawless installation

With the contract signed, the next step was the transition from local telephone service to Charter Business. After the phone porting process was complete, a Charter technician came out and installed the voice, Cable TV, and data connections, and it was up and running that same day. For a business that deals in fast machines, that quick turnaround was nevertheless surprising for Conaway. "It went flawlessly - I was amazed. It didn't really cause me downtime with the business," Conaway said. "They flipped the switch and it was switched over. It was that easy." On top of that, the weekend following the installation Conaway decided to make some long-needed upgrades to the building, which was built sometime in the late 1800s and had phone wiring to match. After replacing all of the internal wiring and phone lines, Conaway found that the Charter voice, Cable TV, and data services weathered the upgrade without a hitch.

Clearly better voice, broadband

Fast installation was followed by reliable, high-quality service. Right off the bat, Conaway noticed a marked improvement every time he picked up the phone. "The clarity on the phone was much better than before," he said. "We used to have a lot of interference and static. Now the phones are crystal clear, and it's quite noticeable on our end just listening to a customer - it's much easier to hear them. " Another plus for Yamaha of Cucamonga was being able to keep the same phone number. Perhaps more importantly, Charter Business^® Internet service has proven far more reliable compared to Yamaha of Cucamonga's DSL line. "We had quite a lot of outages with the DSL service," Conaway said. The Charter cable modem service is not only faster, "but it appears to be far more reliable." That is crucial, given how internet-dependent Conaway's business has become. Nearly all of his inventory and vendor orders are managed online, and the store racks up $40,000 monthly in online sales. Inside the store, the Charter data connection feeds 13 sales workstations and the store's main server. "You really, literally, cannot run my business anymore without a high-speed connection. When it goes offline, we're down," Conaway said. "So reliability of that service is actually, from my perspective, almost more important than the speed."

Superior service

The great connections also extend to the customer support provided by Charter Business. "Charter has been great to work with," Conaway said, adding that his primary contact is his local Charter sales representative, giving him one number to call when there is any kind of service issue. That came into play shortly after making the switch over to Charter services. Conaway hadn't realized that unlike his old telco-powered phone service, his Charter Business^® Phone system didn't require dialing a "9" to get an outside line. That posed a problem for his credit card transaction and security systems, so he immediately called his Charter sales representative. It turns out all he needed to do was reprogram those systems to eliminate the "9" when dialing. "It was simply not knowing, and Charter handled it immediately," Conaway said. "It has been great."

Lower cost

The service has been so good that Conaway is now in the process of switching his 800-toll-free call service from the local phone company to Charter once that service is launched. With that, he expects to further drop his service costs. "Once that moves over to Charter, I anticipate almost a 50 percent savings over what I was paying before," Conaway said. Not surprisingly, Conaway also doesn't hesitate to recommend Charter Business for voice, Cable TV, and data. "I am a creature of habit, so I don't like change. If I was talking to someone like myself, I would say, don't stress over it - just do it, because it's trouble free, it's hands off, and you won't have to worry about it," he said. "It's been up and functional without a single problem. And I'm totally satisfied. So really, it's a no-brainer." Click here to see more Case Studies.