For years a staple on the Iola town square, KwiKom Communications has moved to a roomier venue on West Miller Road.
With its large fleet of trucks and vans, its warehouse full of hardware, its nearly 30 employees, and its 140 radio towers — stretching from Topeka to Thayer, Lawrence to St. Paul — the rapidly growing company seems poised to push its brand name into an arena of even greater attention.
Formed by John Vogel and Zach Peres via a merger in January of 2010, KwiKom rapidly gained a reputation for its superior delivery of high-speed internet and phone services; for its transparent pricing; and for its commitment to maintaining a local support staff.
“When you call us for help,” said Peres on Wednesday, “you actually get a real, local person on the phone. … The technology alone is great, but you need good people on the back end to support it.”
It’s not a fact lost on its clients. The company, whose service area comprises a 9,000 square mile network, has posted growth each year since its formation, and is on track to record a 100 percent growth rate for this calendar year, too.
Such momentum, agree Vogel and Peres — company president and vice president, respectively — is due in large part to the eagerness by which KwiKom is willing to place itself at the forefront of innovation.
For instance, KwiKom — not Cox, not Verizon — was one the first companies to offer customers an “end-to-end” solution. Meaning: If you order internet service from KwiKom, the company includes support, equipment, installation and equipment protection — all bundled under a single price point. “So all you have to do,” said Peres, “is go home and have internet that works. … If you buy a plan from us and we advertise $65, for instance — you’re paying $65. We don’t charge you a $2 lease fee and a $5 equipment protection fee or whatever else other companies do. It’s just $65.” Those other companies to which Peres refers? They all eventually followed suit.
Continuing that spirit of innovation, the Iola-based internet and phone company is 1) adding digital TV to its menu of services in the coming months; 2) embracing the soon-to-be-released next generation of equipment, which will provide KwiKom internet customers with still higher speeds; and 3) coordinating a future that will soon allow them to offer fiber optic technology to both its residential and business customers. “We have a lot on the horizon,” said Peres, “and we’re not done growing.”
MANY MONTHS before KwiKom made its move from downtown Iola to their new warehouse space on the northwest edge of town, Vogel and Peres were presented with an opportunity to relocate the business to Ottawa. The move would have meant a larger facility and would have placed them nearer the heart of northeast Kansas’s population centers.
But it wasn’t for them. Vogel has called Elsmore home for nearly 40 years. Peres grew up in LaHarpe. Whatever expansion their main offices would enjoy, it would take place in Iola. The company has relocated several employees to Allen County since their cross-town move and has plans to welcome several more in the coming weeks.
No matter its size, say the company’s founders, KwiKom refuses to lose touch with the needs and desires of the individual customer: “What does the average internet user want?” “What technologies will make a small business most efficient?”
This isn’t a talking point in KwiKom’s case; it’s a central tenet in their origin story.
In the early 2000s, Vogel found himself frustrated with his dial-up internet connection. As far as dial-up went, recalls Vogel, it was fine. But it was hindered by the structural limitations of that technology. He reached out to his local telephone provider, hoping they could provide him a high-speed solution. They couldn’t. In the end, he banded together with a handful of like-minded neighbors and the group installed the necessary equipment to outfit their homes with a swifter internet. Before long, his neighbors’ neighbors began to beat a path to his door, and then their neighbors did the same. In 2004, the Elsmore native started Vogel Enterprises, which eventually became KwiKom.
Asked about his internet connection these days, Vogel concedes: “Pretty good.”
