How do you build your business, if you have to depend on 130 independent franchisees to build it for you? Voice-Tel Enterprises, of Cleveland, Ohio, the largest voice messaging company in North America, is solving this problem in a unique way. Voice-Tel operates a digital telecommunications network that connects people within and outside their companies, wherever there is a touch tone phone.
Voice-Tel was founded in 1986 and serves 3,500 cities in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is used by Realtors to communicate easily with banks and mortgage firms, by sales managers to talk with hundreds of agents in the field, by national associations to talk to members and field offices.
The Voice-Tel customer development program is called PACER — a Process for Acquiring Customers and Enhancing Retention. It combines a prospect database, contact management software, and a retention and referral program designed to provide a real service to franchise owners. PACER was designed by Andy Birol, Senior Marketing Manager, and a graduate of the Database Marketing Institute Seminar. He developed it by modifying sales management software from WinSales Corp. in Kent Washington. RCS Management of Cuyahoga Falls did the program modifications.
Frequent communications with the same people?
Frequently notifies others of new information?
Your customer gave a positive referral?
Is the customer buying multiple boxes?
Is the customer making effective use of Voice-Tel?
Is there a champion at your customer's office?
Does your customer have affinity groups to message with?
Is your customer classified in a high priority SIC code?
Does your customer have more than one location to communicate with?
Does your customer have more than 10 employees?
Do less than 50% of the employees have a Voice-Tel mailbox?
If three or more of these questions are answered with a yes, then the franchisee can justify assigning a Retention Specialist to follow up with mailings, outbound calls and messages and, in some cases, on site visits. Experience shows that customers who leave are those for whom the messaging habit has not been developed — they have not become dependent on Voice-Tel service.
What has been the result of two years work on this program? Forty franchisees have joined the program, purchased the software and necessary hardware, and trained their employees in the system. Using the system, inside salespeople can handle as much as 50% more calls than before. In addition, they can quickly screen out the worthless leads so as to concentrate on those that have the potential to pay off. Active user Bud Field has found his 1995 sales were up more than 60% over 1994, half of which is due to the PACER system. The system "allows us to spend more time on those prospects that our salespeople should see", he explained.
Voice-Tel's size is now doubling every two years. Network usage is growing by 10% each month. Voice-Tel is ranked as the ninth most valuable franchise to own by Success Magazine. How much of this success is due to PACER, and how much to the general dynamism of a very active new company? It is hard to tell, because of the decentralized nature of Voice-Tel's distribution system. PACER, however, is clearly an example of combining the best principles of database marketing and sales automation.