A good story from Kokomo, Indiana today – the Telephone Time & Temperature service that had been discontinued in the town has been returned.  The previous provider of the service had shut it down – and that's when community and business leaders got involved, after hearing from town residents who missed the convenience of the service.  They combined their efforts and resources to bring time and temp back (working with another time and temp company), and expect to get over 100,000 calls per month.  An example of what those of us in the Time & Temp industry have been saying all along – millions of people nationwide depend on time and temp services every day, and it's still a great marketing tool.  I wonder how many Kokomo-based websites get over 100,000 hits per month?

Interesting survey from Consumer Reports – confirming  something we probably already know – customers aren't willing to wait in limbo to get someone on the phone. Just one reason to have an informative message on hold recording, and to take care in setting up the Auto Attendant greetings that answer your phone.  If your Auto Attendant has 6, or 7 or more choices for callers to make when their call is answered, you are probably losing customers.  The objective of a properly set up Auto Attendant is to give callers the information they need to deal with your company quickly, easily and clearly.  Then once you are speaking with them and you put them on hold for a moment – provide some useful information in an on hold recording so they aren't wasting their time while waiting!

When we are surrounded by news of the Internet, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees.  Example: much more business is done on the telephone than on the Web.  Interesting article in one of my favorite magazines: Target Marketing – quotes a telemarketing tools producer:

"CEO Irv Shapiro  of Skokie, Ill.-based telemarketing software provider Ifbyphone. "Generally what we find is over the last 15 years the people who are experts on target marketing are spending the majority of their time working on the visual and tech side," he says. "These same people have forgotten that in the United States today, in terms of dollar volumes, 70 percent of all commerce involves phone calls."

Shapiro says "the telephone is the Rodney Dangerfield of technology – it gets no respect."  We sometimes see that issue with the telephone music\message on hold services that our sister company offers.  Business owners will spend thousands of dollars on a website, then ignore the opportunity to provide information to callers on hold (when a music\message on hold system and recording might cost a few hundred dollars). The website gets a few dozen or a few hundred hits per week, while the number of callers on hold might be into the thousands each week.  Plus – the on hold information can be used to drive traffic to the website.

Read the full Target Marketing article here.

Interesting article in Target Marketing Magazine pointing out that many marketers are incorrectly assuming the only way to market their products is with search engine marketing or social media marketing.  In other words, they are abandoning "tried and true" methods that worked in past years:

"The rise of social networking platforms and the autonomous rule of search engines have led marketers to prematurely declare the death of several forms of personal and mass communications."

We learned in Marketing 101 that effective marketing means using ALL possible means of communicating with potential customers – and there is no "one size fits all."  And often, the most non-traditional way of reaching customers may be the most effective. That can include traditional radio, TV, newspapers, direct mail – and of course – telephone time and temperature.  Just as online marketers would never rely solely on Google to reach their prospects (thus ignoring the 1\3rd of web users who don't turn to Google for search) – effective marketers know they have to be creative in their use of all media to get the job done. 

The Target Marketing article focuses on one important aspect of business marketing – your phone number.  Does it spell out your business name?  Or is it memorable?  Lots of customers still want to call you to ask questions.  How hard will you make it for them?  Are you using the phone effectively?  You can find the full article here. 

Do people still call time and temperature phone numbers on the telephone? One of our customers (a rural telecom company) recently gathered calling statistics for the time and temp system we provided to them.  In a town of 3500, they received over 3800 calls in a 6 day period. 

The details provide some interesting insights:

Local Calls:  1242
Extended Area Service Calls: 1055
Toll Calls: 1022
Cell Calls: 576

The "Local" calls are coming from within the town limits. 

"Extended Area Service" means the callers live just outside of town, but they pay the phone company to be able to make toll-free calls into town. 

"Toll Calls" are callers who are calling long distance from a landline phone.

"Cell Calls" came in from cell phones. 

We already knew that a number of calls are made from cell phones to Time & Temp systems – what is interesting are the number of calls coming from long distance customers – who may be paying long distance charges to call the Time & Temp service. 

If we apply these same usage statistics to other methods of communicating with the public, you can assume that Time & Temp in this small town is a very effective service.  For example, what would you say about a website that had 3800 hits per week in a town of 3500?  You would say it was a rather effective website!

Is it still time for time and temperature services on the telephone?  It's easy to suggest that time and temp may no longer be needed – after all, we have the Internet and smartphones.  Information, including weather information, is easy to obtain these days.

However – there are still millions of calls made to time and temperature telephone numbers every day, and there is still a need for strictly audio information on the phone.  Smartphones are great, and they can display all kinds of information on those little screens.  But not if you're driving!  That may be one reason we see evidence of numerous calls made to time and temp services from cellphone users.

It's also easy to forget those who may not be quite as "connected" as others.  Recent studies show that about 1\3rd of Americans don't have Internet access at home, and as many as 21% of Americans are not on the Internet at all, and have no wish to be.  With a population exceeding 300 million, that means many millions of people don't have the instant access to information many others have.   A potential market of 100 million is still an attractive market to any business.

In addition, history has shown us that Americans don't abandon one form of media when another one comes along.  When radio arrived in the 1920's, the predictions were that radio would be the "death" of newspapers (it wasn't).  When TV was invented, it would be the "death" of radio (it wasn't).  And when the Internet arrived, it would mean the end of newspapers, radio and television.  True enough, the Internet has forced changes on all those industries, but if they play their cards right, they'll be here many years from now.  

In other words, when a new form of communicating arrives, we  just add it to our "media mix" – we don't abandon what we have used to that point.  The same can be said of time & temperature on the telephone – it remains a valuable and appreciated public service for millions of people every day.  

In the future, we'll give you some examples!

With the addition of new products to our line of time and temperature systems, we're also pleased to unveil our new website.  A video on the home page provides an overview of our products, and each product has a separate video to provide more details.  RTI Media Inc. manufactures the most advanced telephone time and temperature products in the world – and unlike many technology-related products – we have used the latest advances to dramatically cut the cost of time and temperature.

Let us know what you think of our updated website, and thanks for visiting!