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Dialing a cellular phone while driving is a potentiallyhazardous affair. But wireless service providers are attempting tosolve the problem for entrepreneurs who have to travel frequentlyby offering voice-recognition dialing services.
The services allow you to preprogram your phone with an array offrequently called numbers and simply call whomever you want withone vocal command, or you can vocalize a string of numbers--nospecial phones required. Two companies that currently offervoice-recognition dialing are Bell Atlantic (http://www.bam.com) and AT&T Wireless(http://www.attws.com). Bellcharges $2.99 per month for the service while AT&T charges$6.99 per month--both prices are in addition to your usual servicefees.
Gene Koprowski has covered the tech industry for 10 years andwrites a monthly computing column for The Wall Street JournalInteractive Edition. Contact him at 74203.1677@compuserve.com.
Don't Call Us . . .
The ultimate in customer service: Your clients don't evenhave to dial.
Many consumers hesitate when asked to enter a credit card numberon the Internet. Large sites like Amazon.com and Priceline.comcombat the problem by telling shoppers they can call a toll-freenumber and leave their credit card data with a customer servicerepresentative. But why not call customers yourself and save themthe trouble? That's exactly what a new software program calledWeb Callback from WebCentric (http://www.webcentric.net)does.
Here's how it works: Your company simply installs aWeb-to-Phone icon on your Web site. When customers want to buysomething with a credit card or have a question about using acertain product, they simply click on the icon and enter theirphone number. A few seconds later, representatives from your firmcall those customers to answer their queries.
The service provides many benefits: Prospects can speak with arepresentative at the point when they're really interested inyour products, problems can be solved quickly, and your companyseems more responsive.
Adding the phone icon is simple: It's just HTML code you canincorporate into your Web site and customize to your requirements.There's no setup charge for the service, and calls within theUnited States and Canada cost you 20 cents per minute;international rates are higher.
Telecom Translations
DSL, ISDN, T1--which is best for you? Click here.
You run your business, focusing on your core competencies, buttelecommunications costs are increasingly eating away at yourprofits. You might be able to reduce your costs on cellular orlong-distance service, but how on earth can you figure out the costbenefits of DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), ISDN (IntegratedServices Digital Network) or T1 (One Trunk) lines?
VoicePro (http://www.voicepro.com), atelecommunications consulting firm in San Ramon, California, nowoffers a network services department that can filter through bothlocal and national telecommunications offerings and make abest-price or best-service recommendation to you. It can alsotranslate mind-numbing telecom jargon into plain English so youknow what you're getting into (or can at least impresscolleagues at a business lunch). Other consultants, like MGCCommunications Inc. (http://www.mgci.com) and Teligent(http://www.teligent.com),offer similar services for about $100 per month.
Why should you pay for an analysis of your telecommunicationscosts? Because there's a lot you can do to modernize yournetworks and achieve cost savings that you're probably notaware of--and you probably don't have time to sift through thejargon yourself.
