Being in the audio production/voice production business, occasionally we’ll have a client express dissatisfaction with the performance of a voice talent narrating a script. “She didn’t sound like she sounded on the demo.” “There wasn’t enough energy in her read.” “She sounded bored.” Sometimes the complaint is well-founded, sometimes not. Either way, we’ll review the production and sometimes determine that yes, the read was not up to our standards, she did indeed sound different for whatever reason, it was boring.
We would like to thank ALL of our clients for choosing Holdcom as their Message-On-Hold and Voice Production audio marketing provider.
Our appreciation goes out to all of our new clients including:
Google
Infusion
Premier Properties
The Arthritis Medical Clinic
We also extend our gratitude to our loyal, long-time renewal clients such as:
Englewood Hospital
Linens of the Week
Royal Coachman
Our customers choose Holdcom because of the level of quality, responsiveness, and professionalism we provide, and we thank them for making Holdcom the recognized leader in the Message-On-Hold industry.
Does your company have what it takes to be Holdcom’s “Client of the Month”? We think all our clients do, but Holdcom wants to hear why YOU think so. We’d also like to hear how our Audio Marketing Services have made an impact on your business. Simply send us a quick email, telling us why your organization should be named “Client of the Month”. Our nominating committee will review all the submissions, and your organization may be featured in an upcoming edition of the Holdcom Voice!
The Holdcom Voice is a great way to reach new prospects, highlight recent accomplishments, and promote all your organization has to offer. Email us at megana@holdcom.com today.
Historians aren’t 100% sure where or when April Fool’s Day began. Some say Greece, others say Rome. Some argue England, others contend France. What IS known and recorded are some of the most lavish pranks ever. Here are a few of the numerous jokes and gaffs, as reported by the Museum of Hoaxes.
In 1962, Swedish TV viewers were told that if they placed a piece of nylon over their black and white television screens, the picture could be seen in color.
In 1996, the Taco Bell Corporation told the American public that they had purchased the historic Liberty Bell and would rename it The Taco Liberty Bell. After several complaints and much outcry, they revealed that it was a hoax.
National Public Radio announced in 1992 that Richard Nixon would seek another Presidential Term. His campaign slogan would be “I didn’t do anything wrong and I won’t do it again”. It was revealed that comedian Rich Little was in on the joke and came clean during the show.
A British astronomer convinced the U.K that a once in a lifetime astronomical event would take place at 9:47 am one morning in 1976. A planetary alignment would disrupt the Earth’s gravity and if you jumped up in the air at that time, you would temporarily float or get the sensation of floating. According to the BBC, hundreds of Brits fell for it, literally.
For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that their phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.
This spring when you clean out your office or basement, dust off that old computer and recycle it. Many municipalities are adding Computer & Electronic Recycling programs. Check with your town or local municipality to see if there’s a program near you.
Here in Bergen County New Jersey, the Bergen County Utilities Authority has 4 collection days throughout the year. The next scheduled collection is April 19th in Paramus. Visit their website at www.bcua.org or contact their hotline at 201-807-5825 for more information.
Click here for other programs around the country as well as programs sponsored by different manufacturers.
Looking to jazz up your next audio project? Then check out our latest music offering: Jazz! With eclectic samplings from all over the jazz map, you are sure to find the perfect track to make your project swing. Visit www.holdcom.com/music, look under "Light Jazz/Easy Listening".
Cancer has hit close to home for so many of us. My husband Tommy and I have been a part of the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY'S RELAY FOR LIFE for 17 years. Our team, the Night Crawlers participate in the Relay of the Highlands in West Milford, NJ. This year HOLDCOM has decided to join in the fight against cancer by having a team at the Glen Rock, NJ Relay. Tommy and I will be participating at both Relay For Life events.
This year Tommy is celebrating his 24th year of being cancer free! We are also celebrating Ben (our 5 year old nephew) who is celebrating 4 years cancer free, Ronnie (Tommy’s mom) who is celebrating 3 years cancer free, Ronnie (Tommy’s sister) who is celebrating 2 years cancer free along with many family and friends that have won the battle. We continue to do this not only in celebration but also in memory of loved ones gone. The Relay allows a community to grieve for those lost to cancer and to celebrate the lives of those who have survived. Relay For Life is close to our hearts.
The walk will be held May 17th-18th at the Glen Rock High School Track. It's an 18-hour walk, with an overnight camp out. We'll be walking shifts and someone from our team will be on the track at all times during the 18 hours.
It's an amazing event, and we hope that we can count on you for your support
Mail any donations to:
Stacey Caropreso, HOLDCOM, 955 Lincoln Avenue, Glen Rock, NJ 07452.
Please make checks payable to American Cancer Society.
REMEMBER THERE IS NO FINISH LINE UNTIL WE FIND A CURE!!!
Click here to view the team page for HOLDCOM For A CURE
If you would like any additional information on this event please email me;
staceyc@holdcom.com
HOLDCOM 20th Anniversary Article
by HOLDCOM President Neil Fishman
“We have reel-to-reel tapes older than half our production department. Time sure flies when you’re having fun! ” Neil Fishman.
As HOLDCOM celebrates its 20th year I have been asked to provide an overview of technology’s impact on our company during the past two decades.
At the time of our emergence as a Message-On-Hold company in1988, we found ourselves at the cusp of the analog to digital, real to virtual, paradigm shift. Computers were still making a household name for themselves and the Internet had not yet been commercialized for the masses. Phone systems were continuing to evolve and fax machines, although invented over a century earlier, were still a novelty in the workplace. During that nascent period, our Message-On-Hold scripts, composed on typewriters, were actually mailed out to clients in envelopes. Procuring customer feedback, making edits and submitting rewrites was a tedious, time-consuming process, and receiving final approval often took weeks! Voice talents were recorded using analog multi-track tape machines (we had an Otari 8 Track with ½ inch tape format), and editing required a razor blade! Programs were mixed in real time, and crafting their duration to exactly 3 or 6 minutes was a daunting and critical task, since the only continuous playback solution available was the endless loop cassette tape. Message-On-Hold was in its infancy, and, if a phone system had MOH capability, it was utilizing either an FM tuner or nothing at all (dead silence).
At the time, it seemed only a few bold and progressive individuals embraced the idea of promoting their business with custom Message-On-Hold audio programs. Holdcom, along with a handful of other MOH pioneers, clamored for a better “mousetrap” and scrambled to find hardware manufacturers that would develop digital recorder/playback devices (also known as “repeaters” or digital announcers). In retrospect, I sometimes wonder how we were able to sustain and grow Holdcom into a thriving business, given the relatively “primitive” environment of our origins.
Fortunately, rapid advances in technology, along with our penchant for innovation, provided the efficiencies and solutions that paved the way toward success, achieving our vision, and exceeding client expectations. As I like to say, “Technology has been our friend.” I’m sure that many businesses share this view, but as an audio marketing company that delivers information via recorded speech, the relationship between improvements in technology and Holdcom’s progress has been undeniably direct and significant. We relied heavily upon these advances, and our business continues to evolve in concert with technology…from snail mail, to fax, to email and FTP…from cassette tapes and fixed media (CDs) for autoloaders, to digital audio files for remote load systems and Virtual PBXs… from analog production hardware to digital recording/editing software.
In addition to the proliferation of MOH circuits and more comprehensive functionality of IVR and voice mail, the Internet has expanded our markets and provided yet another medium for our services via avatars, Internet radio and rich media web sites. It has fostered Holdcom’s participation in the global market place through our innovative e-commerce online audio production stores, and has enabled access to an international pool of multi-lingual voice talents.
20 years may be an infinitesimal blip on the universal timeline, but it represents two decades of Holdcom history jam packed with technological change, progress and growth. Combined with our exceptional staff dedicated to customer service, we remain confident that future technologies will produce positive results and continued success for Holdcom.
Holdcom is proud to feature Guardian as our April Client of the Month. Guardian, a leader in security products and services for people and their belongings, sells highly innovative products ranging from portable GPS systems, to state of the art vehicle immobilizer systems, as well as young driver safety solutions. Their customers include large retailers such as Future Shop (Owned by Best Buy), Belron (Speedy Auto Glass), over a dozen large automotive insurance companies - including ING and Axa - and hundreds of their insurance brokers in Canada.
Paul Andre Savoie, CEO of Guardian, had the following to say about working with Holdcom, “Holdcom’s team worked diligently with us every step of the way, constantly communicating where we stood, what needed to be done next, and when we would get finished product. In a very short period of time, they professionally scripted and recorded 4 product-specific message-on-hold programs, all of our telephone system’s IVR, personalized voicemails, and very professional RAN Queue messages. Also, we had the Message on Hold scripts translated into French, and professionally narrated here in Quebec. Holdcom took our audio files and mixed them into the same music that was used with the English versions.”
It was important to Paul that Guardian project a ‘big company’ image not only to their customers, but also to the thousands of consumer end-users they sell and provide Guardian’s products to. Holdcom was happy to help Guardian achieve this goal.
“The level of professionalism we now project is orders of magnitude greater than I would have ever imagined”, Paul explains. “I couldn’t get my staff to stop calling into their own office to listen for themselves just how great the system sounds. Less than 24 hours after our deployment, I was certain beyond a doubt that it was one of the best marketing investments we’ve made so far.”
by Toussaint Celestin, Solutions Marketing Director – M5 Networks
M5 Networks Voice as a Service is a breakthrough solution for business phone communications. Industry experts tell us that in ten years, no business will have a phone system – they will acquire phone system capabilities as an on-demand, managed service over the Internet – in other words, Voice as a Service. M5 pioneered Voice as a Service in 2000. Today we serve a rapidly growing base of mid-sized businesses. Our solution is distinguished by the rich capabilities and unmatched service that you would expect from an industry leader.
Ultimately, M5 is very different from most companies that offer hosted or premises-based phone systems. Our network is optimized for voice, our software is customized end-to-end to support Voice as a Service, and our staff are obsessed with delivering business change and client referenceability. The network, systems and people are all very different from what you’ll experience from a hosted offering that from a typical Telco.
M5 partnered with Holdcom because it made sense as a natural fit to service our client better by providing them easy-to-use- professional services that distinguish them from the competition. Although M5 customizes call-flow to minimize on-hold times, if a caller is on hold they receive valuable information regarding special promotions, new services and, at a minimum, professional quality voice responses that improve overall caller experiences.
Standing behind the featured microphone this month is Jason – one of Holdcom’s newest male voice talents.
Jason explains that his entrée into the voice over industry was not as attributable to his degree in broadcast journalism, as it was to his flight attendant experience with a major airline. “I hated hearing the typical sing-song voice of many of my co-workers and wanted to be different… a voice [passengers] would remember,” recalls Jason. “Throughout the years I found my own voice and I have to give credit to the many passengers who have complimented and encouraged me to look into a voice over career. Following the obvious signs helped a great deal.”
Jason also credits Tom Brokaw for inspiring him to follow his dreams. He recollects attending a fundraiser at which Tom Brokaw was the keynote speaker. "He commands such respect…when he speaks you must listen,” says Jason. “At that point I realized the power of the voice and what I wanted out of my career."
Jason has been a professional voice talent for the past four years, but his informal training dates back even further. “I have been imitating actors like Benny Hill and Peter Sellers since I was a kid. I think that’s how I learned character voices,” says Jason.
In addition, Jason’s father was a jazz musician, so recording, editing, and timing became an integral part of life. “Where many are taught to play the piano and must learn production skills, it kinda just ran in my blood naturally,” he says. No surprise that he’s also a pretty good crooner.
Jason appreciates the challenge of every script, stating “I really get a kick out of taking any script… no matter how boring, redundant or just plain silly, and making it come to life. It’s literally your baby! There is so much power in the human voice.”
HOLDCOM was fortunate to have Jason join their roster a little over a year ago. And Jason shares that sentiment, “They found shelter for me and here I am, loving what I do.”
Flip through any magazine, surf any website and you’re sure to come across companies promoting themselves as “Green”. From marketing campaigns to the buildings that companies are leasing, being green is en vogue.
Here at HOLDCOM we’ve always made a concerted effort to operate on the greener side of the middle. There’s always more we can all do, but the key is to change your behavior. Some of the changes we’ve made here are easy things you can introduce at your company.
Recycling – Local code does not require businesses to recycle bottles and cans. We implemented our own internal recycling program. And volunteers from our staff drive our recycling over to the recycling center.
Refuse Removal – Our sanitation company revised our contract to include a cardboard dumpster for our paper and cardboard recycling.
Fluorescent Lighting Upgrade - Since we own our building, we were able to retrofit all our fluorescent lighting fixtures to electronic ballasts and energy efficient bulbs. The company that we worked with helped us offset the cost by showing us how to take advantage of an energy credit from the state.
Computer Recycling - With our storage area bulging from outdated components, out tech department has started a computer recycling program. Stripping down the old computers and removing any usable components for reuse and recycling the rest at a local electronics collection site. (see side bar for details)
PLAY BALL! The 2008 Baseball Season is officially underway. Despite what seemed like a long wait since the World Series and end of the NFL season, baseball fans are back in the swing.
2008 also marks the 100th anniversary of the most famous of baseball themes, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. Written in 1908 by Jack Norworth, this classic was penned during Norworth’s train ride into New York City. Norworth was already a successful vaudeville songwriter and it only took him 15 minutes to write the now famous tune.
In 1971, broadcast legend Harry Caray began singing the song in the reporter’s booth during the White Sox games. Then in 1976, local TV man Jay Scoot decided to turn the microphone up to allow the entire stadium to hear Caray’s rendition. It was at that point that a baseball tradition was born. During the 7th inning stretch, Caray would grab a hand held microphone, lean out the broadcast booth and lead the crowd into a frenzy with his singing.
This year, the MLB will celebrate the anniversary of Norworth’s achievement. The U.S. Postal Service is also set to release a commemorative first-class stamp, which is set to debut in Williamsport Pennsylvania, the home of Little League Baseball.
