Topic: Professionally Recorded Voice Prompts

[PacificVoiceWare]

Hello,

I joined this forum, yes, in hopes of getting some new business... but even if I don't get any new business, I'm hoping to learn a little more about how vendors deal with clients who request professionally recorded voice prompts.

A brief introduction. In the Navy I was an Interior Communications Tech, which I'm sure many of you know is the rate which, among other things, takes care of all the phones on the ship and/or shore. I was a Dimension 2000 Tech and administered a system with over 1,000 extensions (USS McKee AS-41) and several dozen different classes of service. Sorry... I said brief...

I got out of the Navy in '91 and began working as a voice talent in Los Angeles. But my experience in phones often had me recording voice prompts for phone systems. This led me to work for a company that produced Music and Message On Hold Productions. Soon I started my own company which provides professionally recorded voice prompts. First it was just me but then I added a female talent. Eventually I added Spanish male and female talent and then began offering French Canadian prompts as well.

Today I provide voices for hundreds of end-users, several dozen IT departments and a hand full of phone vendors... from large companies to ma and pa operations. The ones I work with are frequent return customers but I'm surprised I don't work with more.

I usually receive a script from the vendor, record the files and deliver them in the file format/sampling/bit rate requested. Sometimes I will call into a phone system and load the file by playing it back over the phone using a Telephone Interface Gadget I have that connects the phone directly to my computer's audio output.

My questions: Do most all phone vendors use services like mine? If not, why?
Do your clients ask for professionally recorded voice prompts or do they generally just record them on their own?
Do you, as a phone tech/vendor, resell voice prompts and use that as an additional revenue stream?

These are just a few of the questions I have and I appreciate hearing back from you.

[hbiss]

I use a service such as yours for auto attendant prompts and message on hold but don't expect to retire early if I were to give you all my business. And yeah, I do push professionally recorded prompts but customers just don't see the value. Matter of fact there are many systems out there which if you call you will hear me delivering the AA prompts. If you are getting business from end users and IT weenies you need to look at where they are finding you but I would be grateful for what you have. I really don't think us dealers are the pot of gold you might think.

-Hal

[KENB]

Same answer as Hal above,logic seems to me that a customer would want a professional recording
on there greetings .
i only had one request for voice talent in 30 years and used a girl at one of my customers who did voice overs.

with this economy its not a time to add additional $$ to proposals.

My .02 cents

[CMDL_GUY]

My large customer with multiple sires use a professional service.  These professional services provide recordings and hardware as a package.  My smaller customer do to a local radio station and pay a small fee to get professional recordings. This all refers to on-hold services.  Auto attendant issues are handled by a designated employee with a good speaking voice or using a local radio DJ.

[PacificVoiceWare]

That's great information. Thank you. I understand not wanting to add more charges to your product. Voice Prompts could be to phone systems what "under-coating" is to car sales.

Wow! KENB... one request in 30 years? That's scary... to me at least. It's really interesting... I've come across a few customers who hire me for MOH and then realize I do prompts too... they seem surprised and say they never even knew businesses existed that do that... so I'm thinking if they never new the service existed... of course they would never ask for it. They just, as you have pointed out, get by with having the person in the office with a nice voice record for them.

I guess that would explain why the majority of my customers are larger outfits. I do prompts for the Virginia Lottery and Oregon Lottery, for example. Nice to have the big accounts... but I'm thinking it would be better to have 1,000 small accounts rather than 20 large accounts.

I know a lot of my customers find me by Google Searches... usually a search term like "voice prompt" will lead them to me... which oftens means my customers are IT people... people who would be familair with terminology like "voice prompt".  I guess this is another reason my customer base is limited to larger accounts...

Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.