Back in March, when the pandemic started, our small business customers were united in two ways: they needed to immediately find a way to manage their business differently and they knew they could turn to us for help. This was particularly true among the small businesses that found themselves on the front lines in the fight to protect the health of U.S. citizens.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our community and economy. And at AT&T, we serve more than 2.5 million small business customers: helping them connect and engage customers, suppliers, and employees; protecting their networks from cybersecurity attacks; and helping to ensure they have access to the data they need to succeed. Our customers have unique needs and there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to managing their businesses.
Here’s a look at a few of our small business customers who innovated their way through the pandemic with our help:
Dallas-based Access Physicians is one of the largest providers of inpatient telemedicine in the U.S. They moved quickly to the front lines to help COVID-19 patients. They found they needed mobility devices to enable patient care and turned to us for 100 tablets: an order that takes a few weeks to fill under normal circumstances. Recognizing that circumstances were anything but normal and the vital importance of enabling our brave healthcare workers, our teams prioritized the order and filled it within a week.
DownHome Pharmacy in Monticello, Mississippi was planning to open for business just as federal, state and local government quarantine orders were being issued. Before opening they required a network that was stable enough to allow them to train their team on their software program remotely so that they could open and be ready to serve customers when appropriate. They turned to us and we were able to deliver an order for dedicated fiber to their location in less than 30 days. They opened for business on May 18.
We’re proud to help our heroes on the front lines to protect our safety and help us stay physically healthy. We’ve also been helping small business customers like Soul’s Harbor United Pentecostal Church in Rockport, Texas. They are among the heroes that tend to our spiritual needs.
The Church was struggling to reach its congregation as the pandemic unfolded and they turned to pre-recorded tapings of sermons and bible studies rather than offering a live viewing. We proactively reached out to them to help and delivered our fiber-based dedicated internet solution to them within 10 days. As a result, they have been able to congregate virtually, online, since mid-April.
In addition to promptly meeting the very specific requirements of our small business customers in their greatest time of need, we’ve joined the “Stand for Small” coalition to help support small businesses impacted by COVID-19. This coalition includes 40 companies committed to providing millions of U.S. small businesses access to support through valuable services, offers, tools and expertise among other benefits.
When they write the books about the “Great Pandemic of 2020,” let’s hope they include the specific stories of the individuals and small businesses who got creative, innovated on the fly, and bravely faced down the Coronavirus.
