Private Phone Information Service Hopes to Compete With Yellow Pages
A brother and sister in Garden Grove are aiming to give the various telephone company yellow pages a run for their money.
Infotel--a private, for-profit business information service--not only lists and cross-references county businesses in its computer bank but, for a price, allows businesses to have live operators read callers what Vice President Nelson Otero describes as “their own personal radio advertisement.”
The idea for Infotel came from Rena Otero, Nelson’s sister and president of the 4-month-old company.
When she moved to Dana Point in 1980, she recalls, the settling-in process included checking out area garage sales to find bargains for her new home. Local advertising supplements helped her locate a few, but once she made it to the sales she was almost always disappointed.
“I’d get there with money in hand, and the sale was over,” she recalled. “It was frustrating.”
Five Years of Research
She said she thought that someone should start a business telling people where they could go to get things. Five years later, after hundreds of hours of research, Otero and her brother rented an office, hired four operators, installed seven computer terminals and went into business.
The telephone information service is out to help consumers in search of virtually anything: from garage sales to garages to the cars to park in them. Callers pay no fee--the company’s income comes from business subscribers.
And more than 200 merchants countywide have responded to the company’s marketing efforts by signing up with the service, helping Infotel in its plan to become a contender in the market now ruled by yellow pages books and classified ad publications.
Callers who dial Infotel’s toll-free number ask for a particular item or service in their area and an Infotel operator uses a computer terminal to call up a listing of companies offering the merchandise or service. The operator then puts that information together to provide the customer with a personalized reference list.
The Oteros like the word “personalized” and liberally sprinkle it throughout their conversations. They like to think of Infotel as a personalized 411 service for callers.
Response from callers and advertisers so far has been positive, Nelson Otero said. While only 200 businesses pay Infotel’s rates, the company has 2,000 listings in its computer and expects to expand its catalogue of stores and services to 7,000 by the end of the month, Otero said.
By comparison, the three Pacific Bell yellow pages books for Orange County have a total of 180,000 listings--many of them duplicates from book to book.
Provides Details
Infotel services its paying customers by providing callers with detailed information about the businesses, including notification of sales and special offers. The listings culled from telephone books include only the name and phone number of the business.
John Vairo, the owner of Perry’s Pizza in Garden Grove and one of Infotel’s clients, said the cost of a year of Infotel is less than one-twelfth that of a half-page display ad in the Pacific Bell’s yellow pages. Infotel’s prices are based on six-month and one-year contracts, the Oteros said, and are “considerably” lower than Pacific Bell’s rate of $653 per month for a half-page display ad in the North County Yellow Pages.
“It’s a great deal,” Vairo said. “People can get a complete summary of our business hours, our menu, our specials and it’s especially helpful in telling new people in the neighborhood that we’re here. In the first two weeks, I got 12 referrals.”
The owner of a local ticket agency said his company also has received several calls from people who learned of his business from Infotel.
Private information services like Infotel have been popping up across the country since the AT&T; divestiture in 1983.
In Southern California, Nelson Otero said, the Information Bank in Agoura provides services that are comparable to Infotel. A similar service in Houston claims to receive about 20,000 calls a day, he said. Infotel has received about 200 calls a day since opening Dec. 1, he said.
The potential for success is illustrated by Pacific Bell’s interest in the concept.
Telephone Company Interested
The telephone company would like to enhance its directory assistance service by including the kind of services Infotel and other companies offer “and is watching how competitors in the field perform,” said spokesman Michael Runzler. But the phone company must jump the hurdles created by divestiture before doing so, and Runzler said that nothing will happen for a while. “Our hands are tied,” Runzler said.
Pacific Bell’s 411 number receives 360,000 calls a day in Orange County but offers only telephone numbers to callers. And those numbers, the Oteros like to point out, are given by a monotone computerized voice--a money and time-saving feature used by Pacific Bell since April, 1984.
But, Nelson Otero said: “People like to talk to a human voice. . . . they’re very thankful and pleasantly surprised when they call us.”
The Oteros said they found that out between 1980 and 1985, when they surveyed consumers and businesses throughout the county to gauge interest in a service like Infotel.
While Nelson Otero worked full time as a supervisor at a credit-card authorization center and his sister worked in a variety of positions in finance and management, the two spent what Nelson Otero called “the wee hours and our weekends” conducting telephone interviews with county consumers to find out their buying habits. “Our phone bills were incredible,” he said.
“When we described this service to people over the phone they wanted it right now,” he said. “The response was really overwhelming.”
Favorable Response
Businesses also responded favorably to the Infotel idea during the research period, Rena Otero said, giving the brother-and-sister team the courage to begin their company.
Currently, firms ranging from Dial One to South Coast Repertory Theatre to mom-and-pop grocery stores advertise with Infotel.
Infotel, Rena Otero said, gives the “little guy” a better chance against larger businesses.
Private party listings are available from Infotel for individuals selling their cars or other items, but those listings aren’t emphasized in the company’s marketing strategy. Most of the company’s clients are private businesses.
The Oteros have high hopes for the service and have poured $50,000 into a marketing program that has approached more than 1,200 Orange County businesses and solicited “tens of thousands” of prospective callers through newspaper ads and direct mail, Nelson Otero said. The company recently began running ads on radio station KWIZ.
