A while ago our moderator mentioned much less expensive directory assistance being offered (at around 65c per call) than the current crop of gouging "operators" (at upwards of $1.25 or more for local listings, with out-of-area listings being anywhere from $1.99 to a whopping $3.49). Well, now there's an even better offer.
Page B1 of the Money section of USA Today for today April 4, 2006, lists 3 services providing free directory assistance (DA) if you're willing to listen to (up to) 15-second advertisements. The article by Paul Davidson, "Free 411 info on call if you'll listen to ads," points out that the price of DA is getting so expensive, "Now, calling 411 will nick you for the price of a starbucks coffee."
There are currently three services, and until I saw the article in the paper I didn't know of any of them. 1-FREE-411 (800-373-3411) and
1-800-411-METRO (800-411-6387) debuted last year; 1-800-411-SAVE (800-411-7283) starts today "after trials in Chicago and San Francisco."Directory assistance charges are a whopping $7.2 billion a year. Estimates are that only 7% of customers realize how much a DA call costs them. Telcos have been boosting prices to make up for revenue which is not coming from the calls people aren't making (to paraphrase Yogi Berra). While 69% of all calls are placed from landline phones, Wireless DA is still a big profit center at $1.50 per call.
The 1-800-FREE-411 service got 7 million calls from 2 million users last month. These free services could conceivably reach 1% of all DA calls and 6% by 2011. "Even if the three of us were to split a small piece of the market, that's still a giant number," according to Mike Loftus, who is CEO of 1-800-411-METRO.
Basically they are taking a page out of free services on the Internet by offering targeted ads, e.g. if you're looking for a pizza place, they might also mention Pizza Hut or Papa John's. Too add to the benefits, (especially if the number might be a long distance number),
1-800-411-METRO offers free automatic connections to businesses.I decided to rate the service and tried my own number. I called
1-800-411-METRO and asked for a residential listing, my own number, and gave my street address as there are many people named Paul Robinson in the area. When I ended up with a live operator she reported that the number is unlisted. This is news to me as I have never asked for my number to be unlisted, and it appears in the white pages of our local directory (I just looked), as it has for more than six years.1-800-FREE-411's recording apologized as all circuits are busy now and I should try again later.
1-800-411-SAVE could not find my listing either. It found some others named Paul Robinson and a Paul G (which is not my middle initial).I then tried 411 (which would be Cavalier, the phone company I use) and discovered that *they do not have me listed either*. (They also found the same Mr. Paul G. Robinson too, but not me).
So now I am encouraged to find out why. A relative here suspects she may have given a request for non-listing (or maybe it was marked for listing in the white pages but not in 411) if someone had asked her, as she has always had her number unlisted.
I called Cavalier and there is no special marking on my account so I put in a trouble ticket and the clerk says they will have it fixed but it may take up to 1 business day. Which is okay, mostly I'm concerned that if I didn't make sure it's right I might end up not being listed in the directory. (Since the Verizon white pages were issued July,
2005 it's probably getting close to the deadline so it's a good idea I found out in case there might be a problem.)So making this attempt has allowed me to learn something. I think I'll retry this experiment in a week or two and see what happens, and I'll let the readers of the Digest know, one way or the other.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for the mention of the free D.A. services. Prior to going into the hospital earlier this week I had been thinking about mentioning 800-411-METRO but had not gotten around to it. I had received one piece of email from them asking about possibly becoming a sponsor here at the Digest (but they did not write back again) so naturally, I was going to discuss them, and I shall anyway and just maybe they may decide to favor me also! :) Mike Sandman specifically built and is selling a 'diverter' box for them (I have a couple of them on my PBX lines here at home) which serve the purpose of 'listening for 411' as the first three (and only) digits dialed at which point it breaks the connection and redials out to 1-800-411-METRO. You listen to an advertisement of 10 seconds, then a robot asks you "is this a business or residential listing?" You respond and the robot comes back and asks "what city and state please?" You tell it that information, then the robot asks for the listing desired. You tell it that and it goes away a couple seconds then comes back and advises "please hold for an operator".A live operator then comes on, clarifies what was requested, and tells you "hold for the number". _Then a second ten second advertisement is played out_ and the number is given. But here is the interesting thing about 800-411-METRO: If you do not hang up at that point, having heard the number but stay on the line, it then _dials the number and completes the call_ at apparently no extra charge. They (411-METRO) do not seem to be very good about answering my email: I wrote them and asked if 'auto call completion' (like Cingular Wireless at least around here) was going to be a regular part of the package or if I had stumbled onto a temporary malfunction that day; they did not answer me. It still seeems to do that each time I use it. (Pass the number, then play a _second advertisement_ then connect to the number).
The intercept box Mike Sandman built (he says to their specifications) is necessary, but has a minor problem with it. I will mention the problem first: around this part of the country at least (s.e. Kansas in SW Bell territory) one does _not_ dial '411' for directory; one has to dial '1-411' for directory and if you are accustomed to dialing
1-411 it is a hard habit to break out of and dialing `1-411' bypasses the intercept entirely and goes to, well, SBC's 1-411 service at their dollar and a half charge or whatever. If you are accustomed to only dialing '411' then the intercept box does just what you would expect it to do: no training of your employees is needed. Let them dial as they wish, they always wind up getting 411-METRO as a result. But if your employees/customers/users are traditionally trained to dial into 1-411 and they do that, then the intercept misses the point entirely. I asked Mike if the box could be 'idiot-proofed' for use with or without a leading '1'. He said it could not, unless it was also built to look for '555-1212' combinations and a few other things. But what- ever he sells them for (I think around $30.00 more or less, ask him at snipped-for-privacy@sandman.com orWhy is this sort of 'interceptor box' needed for 411? Well, theoret- ically it should not be. In the Bell divestiture or modifications to it later on, one of the 'services' Bell had to get rid of -- or at least treat at 'arms length' was Directory Assistance. Just as they had to give you your choice of LD carriers, LD operator assistance, and give their own repair service a 'not so easy' number as '611' to remember, they were _supposed_ to do the same thing with '411'; that is let it go to whatever default the customer picked. My 411 went to my choice of service, yours to your choice of service, and something like the ten-ten codes if you wanted something other than your own personal 411 default value. Bell seems to have forgotten all about that part of the deal :( ... and don't bother holding your breath while asking them to default _your_ 411 to METRO or any of the other services other than their own high-priced cash-cow directory bureaus. That's just like twenty years ago when if we wanted to *absolutely insure* that our people sent LD traffic via MCI we had to dial those
950 numbers first. Maybe someday the courts will force Bell to give people a convenient dialing pattern on directory assistance as well. Anyway, for now, either use one of the inexpensive directory services such as 877-EASY-411 (our advertiser here in the Digest) or use 800-411-METRO and listen to advertisements, or best of all, get one or more of the little diverter boxes from Mike Sandman to force your users into doing it the way you want it done. If anyone can get an answer from 800-411-METRO about the 'free auto call completion' thing they do, share that answer with me also. PAT]