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NISC to host more than 3,500 attendees at annual user conference. National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) - a leading provider of enterprise software and solutions for energy and communications companies - will host its annual premier learning event, the Member Information Conference (MIC), September 14-17 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the event, 3,500 individuals from across the U.S. and Canada will connect with NISC staff, network with their peers, and enjoy a week of learning about leading-edge technologies. The four-day event will feature more than 160 sessions, many led by NISC Members. The event will kick off with an opening general session led by NISC's President and CEO Doug Remboldt, along with guest speaker Scott Klososky, a technology entrepreneur and author specializing in digital transformation, AI, and the intersection of technology and humanity. "The best part of the MIC is simply being together," Remboldt said. "It is the one time of year when thousands of people from our Member sites - all with the same dedication to their communities - come together to learn. After more than 50 years of hosting the MIC, we know that the sessions are very valuable, but it's just as important to learn from each other, and we always come away with just as much information from our Members as they get from us. It's an amazing event that I look forward to every year." The theme for this year's MIC is "Innovation built together." In a time when technology is evolving faster than ever, the best solutions arise from collective effort - because together, Telecompetitor can create far more than any of Telecompetitor could alone. Below are a few highlights from the event's agenda: Sessions. From Financials to Operations and all points in between, the 2026 MIC will host more than 160 sessions on the latest enhancements to NISC solutions, technology roadmap updates, and issues facing the energy and communications industries. NISC is excited to present 42 Member experience sessions again this year, where Members share best practices with fellow attendees, revealing tips, tricks, and personal experiences with the NISC enterprise software. Opening general session | monday, sept. 14. Join NISC President and CEO Doug Remboldt as he sets the stage for an engaging week of learning by sharing NISC's vision for the future and the key role its Members play in the next generation of technology solutions. His years of experience uniquely shape his outlook on the industry and his belief that together, Telecompetitor can create something much greater than any of Telecompetitor could alone. Partner Pavilion. As the hub for the MIC's events, the Partner Pavilion is home to NISC's consulting and demo booth and Solutions Lab, where attendees can meet with NISC subject matter experts and 50 projected partner organizations showcasing a variety of solutions and services valuable to NISC Members. Co-Op Strong at the 2026 MIC. Co-Op Strong has supported NISC Members through natural disasters, raising money to rebuild local communities when they need it most. With the 2026 MIC, Members, Partners, guests, and employees will have the opportunity to give back by purchasing T-shirts and making donations to the fund. Closing general session | thursday, sept. 17. NISC will wrap up the week of learning and present the Member Spotlight Awards. Nominated by NISC Members and staff and selected by the Member Advisory Committees, the Member Spotlight Awards recognize Members who are exemplary partners and solve problems through NISC solutions. Closing keynote speaker Keelan Leyser, a world-leading technology magician and published author, will leverage his innovative use of technology to create captivating illusions, combining iPads, robotics, and AI to engage audiences and show how, with a magician's mindset, you can reimagine the impossible. Additional information about NISC's 2026 MIC can be found at www.niscmic.coop. About NISC. National Information Solutions Cooperative (NISC) is an information technology cooperative that delivers advanced solutions, services and support to more than 1,200 independent communications companies, energy cooperatives and other public power entities. NISC is an industry leader providing enterprise solutions including financials, service, operations and marketing as well as many business services. With facilities in Mandan, North Dakota, Lake Saint Louis, Missouri, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Atlanta, Georgia and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, NISC and its subsidiaries employ more than 1,900 professionals between the five locations and remotely throughout the United States. Learn more at www.nisc.coop.

Service starts before the truck roll. How Triangle Communications modernized customer communication. Rural broadband providers rarely win on price against national companies; a local broadband provider's real advantage has always been service. Customers trust that their local provider will answer their calls and solve their problems. That advantage still holds, but members now expect to reach their provider the way they reach every other business in their lives: by text, by web chat, through social media, or inside an app - all on their own schedule rather than the company's. Making those communication tools available is now expected. The experience of Triangle Communications, a cooperative serving roughly 24,000 square miles of rural Montana, offers a useful window into how communication tools are reshaping what service means. Service is the differentiator, and the bar keeps rising. Triangle's Executive Vice President of Member Experience Bethany Chinadle is blunt about where the cooperative competes. The company will rarely be cheaper than the Starlinks and large cable operators in its territory, she says, so service is what sets it apart. But members now arrive with expectations formed everywhere else they do business. Chinadle points to her own frustration as a customer of other companies, experiencing a real inconvenience when a business forces her to step away from her desk and call during a narrow window of office hours. She assumes her members feel the same way about Triangle, and she's clear that this is a legitimate expectation. A communications company, of all businesses, should give members several ways to get in touch and make each of them as easy as possible. That assumption leads to a practical conclusion that many providers underrate. A company can deliver flawless service once a technician is on-site, but lose members at the front door. As Chinadle puts it, the best technicians in the world don't make a difference if a provider hasn't made it easy to do business in the first place, because the interaction never reaches the install. In other words, service begins long before the truck rolls. It starts with whether a member can ask a quick question, report a suspected outage, or schedule an appointment in the moment, on the channel they prefer, without waiting on hold or memorizing business hours. For rural providers, modern communication channels are now a precondition for good service and meeting customers' expectations. A member who can't reach you easily will form a judgment about your service before a technician has the chance to prove otherwise. The advantage is consolidation. The instinct to add channels - a chat widget here, a social inbox there - can work against a provider. Chinadle says Triangle evaluated chat options for years but walked away for the same reason every time: None of them connected to the systems the cooperative already used, which would have meant staff hunting across multiple places to piece together a member's history. Fragmented tools can create the very problem they're meant to solve. Triangle's answer was to consolidate rather than accumulate. The consolidation offers three benefits: * Everything in a single view. Using NISC's Multi-Channel Messenger integrated with the SmartHub app, the cooperative pulled text messaging, web chat, Facebook Messenger, emails, in-app conversations, and phone call notes into one place. Representatives respond faster because they aren't toggling between platforms. Instead, every exchange lives in a single member record. * Improved efficiency. Chinadle says that seeing a member's entire communication history in one location improves efficiency and reduces the risk of missed messages. Because the interaction is documented in the same place regardless of how it started, a representative picking up a thread doesn't have to figure out how the member last reached Triangle. A unified view also lets a representative resolve a quick question in a single exchange rather than tying up a phone line for a question that can be answered in one sentence. * Matching behavior. Consolidation matches how members interact with the cooperative. Triangle finds that channel preference shifts by time of day: Web form submissions and phone calls tend to come in during business hours, but social media messages are often sent in the evening as members report suspected outages via Facebook to see whether the problem is the network or just their house. The same member might move between channels depending on the moment. Where automation pays off most: distance. For a provider spread across 24,000 square miles, the cost of communication is partly measured in miles driven. That's where automation earns its keep. Triangle found time savings in several areas via proactive notifications delivered through Multi-Channel Messenger's Ticket Events feature: * Reminder calls. The cooperative once had dispatch spend an hour every day phoning the next day's appointments with reminders - an hour that is now automated away. Day-before reminders have also reduced no-shows, keeping schedules intact and crews productive. * Rescheduled appointments. A technician now sends an automatic "on my way" message upon reaching the nearest central office, giving members a chance to reschedule before a truck has driven what could be a three-hour trip to a single home. Every avoided truck roll, Chinadle notes, is a meaningful cost saving in a large geographical service area. * Automated communications. The automation condensed a chain of manual phone calls. A technician used to call dispatch, who would then call the member; any change ran the relay in reverse. Now the technician triggers the update directly. The notifications also keep members informed during the wait, which sets expectations and quietly reduces the inbound calls asking where the technician is and when they will arrive. * Bonus: New contact details. Automated reminder notifications produced an unexpected dividend for Triangle: Members willingly share their cell phone numbers because they want the alerts. This is steadily improving the provider's contact data. None of this is about replacing people. In a rural territory, where every unnecessary trip carries an outsized cost, automating routine communications frees staff for the work that genuinely requires a human - like diagnosing a tricky problem or reassuring an anxious member - while protecting the operating margins that keep an independent provider viable. Used this way, automation makes the service feel smoother and more personal. Summary: start before you feel ready. Providers weighing a similar move often wait for the perfect tool and/or the perfect plan. But Chinadle recommends not letting "perfect" get in the way, because offering something while you work out the kinks beats not offering anything at all. Triangle rolled out chat gradually, let employees practice on a demo site, and leaned on its IT team to make the new system easy to use. Triangle now finds new uses for Messenger almost every month, automating member notices they once printed, folded, and mailed by hand.