Alternative for directory assistance?

[booman]

Just noticed on the back of my BellSouth bill that the are raising the rates for Directory Assistance from $0.95 to $1.25. Anyone out there recommend an alternative directory assistance provider? I figure I'll just strip the digits in the ARS tables for 411 and xxx-555-1212, and insert whatever Company X's number is. We probably make less than 100 directory assistance calls a month, but do need to allow our employees the ability to call and get the information. Online only isn't an option.

 

[BHodgins]

You may want to consider calling the following gentleman:

Roy A. Yurick
888-230-7000 Voice
210-492-8594 Fax

Nice guy - has his own call center. He sent me an email:

The Service Agreement

1. Fixes the price at $0.60 per call
2. No activation or monthly charges
3. No volume or term commitments
4. You only pay for the calls you make

http://www.corporatetel.com/Products/prod1.htm

 

[randyb19]

I'm not sure if this would be right for you business, but we turned off 411 and 555-xxxx. Instead, we allow users to connect to

http://www.smartpages.com

to lookup numbers. We had over 800 directory assistance calls each month and now we've completely cut that cost and the users seem to be OK with the alternative.

 

[lopes1211]

We did an ARS digit conversion sending callers to a vdn/vector playing a painfully long announcement explaining how much $ 411 costs and to please use

http://www.yellowpages.com,

etc., and told them if that was not an option, please hold for directory assistance. The vector then routed to a dummy ars number 9 999, we then did a digit conversion on the 999 to change it back to 411 with no further conversion flagged. I don't know if it was because of the "big brother" effect, the fact the message is painfully long, or the fact that most people just don't realize how much money it is, but our directory assistance was cut by 80% after putting in this simple change! -CL

 

[Toni269]

I was offered .48 cents per minute. They provided me with a toll-free number to make some free test calls to and also they will do Reverse Lookups! Here is their contact Info:

Scott S. Smith
Vice President of Business Development
Corporate Telecom Solutions
Phone: 847-832-9540
Fax: 847-832-9541
email: ssmith@corporatetel.com

http://www.corporatetel.com