Moorestown Tech Company Helped Guide Businesses Through Pandemic

MOORESTOWN, NJ — The coronavirus pandemic left businesses across the country scrambling to find ways to stay in touch with customers, and do so in a timely and efficient way.

For example, Moorestown restaurants who could suddenly only do pickup and delivery had to find a way to handle a sudden influx of calls from people who otherwise would have just stopped in.

Fortunately for them, they were able to find a new company to help them do that. And when it comes to the term “new”: they were brand-new.

“We publicly announced three days before the shutdown,” said Moorestown resident Hala Barson, CEO and co-founder of VoIP Doctors. “We had no idea what was coming.”

Barson and her husband, Michael, formed the company with the goal of providing a more efficient way for businesses to handle their telecommunications needs.

“We spoke to restaurant owners to help them figure out how to handle a flood of calls from people asking if they were open, what specials they had, and wanting to place orders,” Barson said. “It was chaotic. Customers were getting busy signals, calls were getting dropped. We had to help them capture every order.”

VoIP helped them install a tech system that can be used for between 5 and 20 phone extensions.

“We created order out of chaos,” Barson said.

Barson called it a “quick pivot,” in an industry she was just getting familiar with. While Michael had a background in tech, and worked in the corporate world for 20 years, Barson’s background was in arts and banking.

But she also knows the immediate area, having spent most of her life in Moorestown. Her husband grew up in Manalapan.

They knew how they wanted to bring their skills together, and at launch, VoIP Doctors was initially geared to help large corporations. Michael, who runs the tech side of things, was working with large services. Of course, that changed.

“It took a quick regrouping on our side,” Barson said. “We asked our business owner friends what they needed, and what we can do.”

They got responses from restaurant owners. Real estate brokers who needed to close their offices temporarily, but who still needed to close deals in a housing market that saw an unexpected boom.

They heard from insurance agents, environmental inspection companies, and they heard from school districts.

“Everyone is different, and that makes our job exciting,” Barson said.

A year after going public and being faced with a global health pandemic, VoIP Doctors is in a rhythm now, Barson said.

“We don’t anticipate it will be the same in 6 to 12 months, or in five years,” Barson said. “We found that businesses that put a stop-gap in place or held on by the skin of their teeth but didn’t love their solution realize they need a new system in place.”

VoIP Doctors is taking the time to work with businesses to build a system, find out what their needs are and draft necessary contingency plans. It is also beginning to work with larger corporations again, including well-known media and retail companies. A list of the services VoIP provides is available on its website.

“We’re taking the time to help businesses build systems,” Barson said. “We’re finding out what their needs are, and we’re helping them build contingency plans.”

They’re also building their own path forward as a company. In addition to their website, VoIP Doctors can be reached on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.