Valentine's Special! Customer Feature: The Duke City Sound

The Duke City Sound is a Barbershop chorus based in New Mexico. They recently switched to OnSIP and we thought it was fitting to feature them now, with Valentine's Day just around the corner. Carlos Aguayo, the vice president of Marketing and PR, spent sometime with us, discussing how OnSIP fits their needs.

What is Duke City Sound?

The Duke City Sound is a barbershop chorus representing the Bernalillo County Chapter in the Rocky Mountain District of the Barbershop Harmony Society, a non-profit. The chorus draws its members from throughout Bernalillo county, including the cities of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. Several award-winning quartets constitute the group. We participate in a number of events through the year.

What kind of phone service did you have previously? Why did you look to change?

We rely on phones to conduct a number of our activities. Previously, we had ordered a group of phone lines installed for one month before Valentines day, and had them deinstalled after the event, at considerable expense. We were looking for ways to reduce operational expenses.

How do you like OnSIP so far?

This year, the group is saving on telecom costs by taking orders online and moving its crew of volunteers to VoIP phones using OnSIP's hosted PBX, which also allows the coordinators to take phone orders from home and after hours.

Valentine's Day and eve must be a very busy time for your organization. Can you describe your events and activities associated with the day?

The Albuquerque Singing Valentines program is part of a nationwide collaboration of the three major barbershop singing organizations - the Barbershop Harmony Society, Sweet Adelines International, and Harmony, Inc. We are coordinating this year's Albuquerque Singing Valentines program, which draws quartets from five local barbershop choruses to deliver sweet sentiments throughout the local area in the form of love songs sung in the barbershop style. Last year, the team delivered 169 singing telegrams, all of which were ordered by phone over the course of two weeks.

OnSIP will also help deliver sweet-sounding sentiments to those outside the Albuquerque area via phone - visit www.singingvalentines.com for more information.

Here's a note from Carlos sent Feb 15:
"We had a fabulously successful Singing Valentines program this year, with 16 quartets delivering about 200 long-stem roses and singing telegrams, up about 18% from last year. (My own quartet, Paramount, did 20 of those in one long day!) The VoIP phones "just worked," and we consider this to have been a wildly successful fundraiser. Thanks again for sharing our story, I hope this puts OnSIP in the minds of many more potential customers!"