Keystone History
By Donna Giering, Office Manager

Keystone Answering Service first opened its doors for business in the fall of 1972. The company was started by Betty and Lou Laubach. The answering service used switchboards and all messages were handwritten. Keystone started with approximately 10 customers in their Hamilton Mall location atop Wetherhold & Metzger, a popular Allentown shoe store at the time.

Betty, a previous employee of Bell Telephone and Ansaphone understood the importance of good customer service and her business quickly grew. In 1977, Betty's former Ansaphone employer, Mrs. Rutledge, contacted her with an offer to buy her answering service upon her retiring. Betty & Lou purchased Ansaphone and merged it with their own. Keystone Answering Service was then relocated to 823 Walnut St. in Allentown.

In 1984, Keystone purchased an Amtelco System and was the first in the Lehigh Valley to stop using switchboards. Operators still had to hand write their messages, but the need to answer from cord boards was no longer necessary. The Amtelco system replaced the traditional cord boards with a monitor to see the incoming call and a phone directory in which to answer. This new system also allowed management to design a ring count for their clients instead of the traditional switchboard methods of counting rings.

My employment at Keystone Answering Service started in March of 1984. I had responded to an ad for a telephone operator. A very simple ad. I only lived less then a mile away and decided to walk to my interview. I actually walked right past the office in search of the company. All the buildings in that block looked like homes. Iturned around and found the address. My first thought was how much it looked like a house, not realizing that Keystone would turn out to be my home for more than 22 years.

I was hired by Betty and within a few days I was allowed to answer the "Keystone Check in line." I can say that from the very first call I was hooked on the job and it quickly became my passion. I got to get to know the customers and it wasnt long before they knew me. I've always enjoyed talking with them.

Shortly after that I was taught how to take a good message. It was no easy task in those days because all the messages were handwritten. On more then one occasion and more times then I care to count, we would all group together trying to figure out another operators handwriting.

In 1986, Keystone purchased a Startel system and was the first in the Lehigh Valley to go paperless. A total of six operator stations were installed and handwritten messages became a thing of the past. I was working the overnight shift when the transition was made and was the very first person to take a call on the new system. We were suprised at the ease of this paperless system. It began a whole new way of doing our work. There would be no more counting messages, tallying them up for billing and all the other manual proccessing that we had to do previously. It was all taken care of by the new Startel System.

I remained on the night shift for a total of 10 years. Most of that time I spend working alone. My responsibilities grew into the maintenance part of the system. I would archive messages and do weekly & monthly maintenance on the system. In 2003, I was promoted to Operations Manager by Lou Laubach. I had already assumed so many different rolls in the company that taking on this additional responsibility wasn't too much different then what I had already done. I was on call for everything: Building, equipment, and agents.

Over the years Keystone evolved through several system upgrades to enhance their quality and performance. The Laubach's worked everyday on the belief that our customers were the most important part of the business. Betty managed the call center, staff and clients. Lou dealt with signing up new customers, billing and equipment. They were commited to their work, sometimes spending snowstorms camped out on the office floor waiting to transport operators to and from work. However, no one ever heard them complain about the 24 hour a day responsibility of owning an answering service.

The Laubach's owned Keystone for 32 years before selling the company to Medcom Professional Services in December of 2004. A year later we moved from Walnut Street to the office suite that we occupy today, 121 N Cedar Crest Ave in Allentown.

MedCom's commitment has been to provide the highest quality services to our clients. Together, we are able to offer the best call center technology available, as well as innovative applications and quality assurance.