Didn’t you used to hate it when you’d come home and find long-winded messages on your answering machine pitching aluminum siding – especially when you could tell you weren’t listening to a live human being?
Despite the Direct Marketing Association’s longtime ban on such practices, one Southern California entrepreneur seems to be making a living through a telemarketing system that communicates only to answering machines and actually hangs up if someone answers the phone.
Jesse Crowe, president of Voice Mail Broadcasting Corp., Irvine, CA, says he’s been able to convince a number of insurance companies, banks and other lending institutions to use this system. Rates can be as low as 12 cents per call vs. 70 cents or more per call when using live telemarketers, and the even higher expense of personalized first class direct mail.
Unlike the banned machine-telemarketing of yore, messages on Crowe’s system last no more than a few seconds and can be targeted to individuals based on database information from clients. They often leave numbers so interested recipients – should they desire – can call a live operator.
Apparently, the company’s system is working. Last month Voice Mail Broadcasting moved from Westlake Village, CA to a larger facility in Irvine that triples its monthly outbound call capacity to 25 million calls.
Crowe also promotes this mechanical system for customer relationship management functions. Maybe that’s why Voice Mail Broadcasting’s machine recordings have “ums” and “ers” built into them – so listeners can be fooled into thinking they are hearing a live operator. After all, most of us don’t want to build a lasting relationship with a machine.
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