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Audience participation in the form of song requests, competitions, and phone–in debates
is now widely recognised as being one of the most effective ways for radio broadcasters to
cultivate consumer interest and encourage advertisers to invest.
However, with phone–in participation becoming more popular, radio stations are finding
it increasingly difficult to deal with the growing volume of calls they receive.
Virtual Producer is an affordable alternative to the costly switchboards and multiple
telephone lines that many radio stations currently have to use to cope with the levels of
participation they generate.
How it works
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When a listener rings up, their call is immediately answered at exchange level (thanks to
Crosby's interconnections with BT).
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At exchange level, a pre–recorded message asks the caller to choose from a number
of customised options in order to proceed.
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Depending on their selection, the caller could then be asked to leave a song request or
message, be connected directly to the studio, or be offered further options.
Features
A real–time, internet–based management tool is supplied with Virtual Producer,
enabling the user to control all aspects of the system and view extensive statistical data
about callers.
With the management tool you can:
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Produce loyalty reports profiling your most active listeners.
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Monitor listenership and produce estimates of future trends, updated in real–time.
These can be used to gauge participation levels in future campaigns.
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View the geographical location of each caller and generate a map of your coverage area
(which populates in real–time), showing an accurate,
up–to–the–second geographical distribution of your participants.
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Allow the presenter to see the current queue of callers and decide how much airtime to
allocate each of them.
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Generate graphical interpretations based on audience participation statistics to better
illustrate listener trends and preferences.
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Provide advertisers with reports demonstrating the level of interaction at different times,
helping them to target the most profitable advertising techniques.
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View and produce reports detailing all outbound calls made by telesales staff: including
calls per hour, inbound calls answered, time taken to answer, amount of calls per sales
person per day, average time per call etc.
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Cross–reference audience response statistics with programming schedules to ascertain
the best time to air a certain programme or advertisement.
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Brand and download all statistics for use in advertising campaigns and presentation in
sales meetings.
Additional Benefits
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Answering calls at the local exchange ensures that all calls to your station are answered.
This helps you avoid losing callers because they receive engaged tones during busy periods.
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Automated, option–driven menus mean that you can use a single number for all
services and promotions.
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Callers have a fair chance of being answered. Calls can be routed in the order in which
they are received.
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Live feed or advertising messages can be played from your station to callers who are
waiting to be connected.
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Requests for music can be dealt with automatically. When a caller rings up they are given
the option of leaving a song request. Within seconds a recording of the request is
automatically sent to your presenter's email and/or sent to your
"playout" system in a suitable sound recording format.
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No hardware is required to install Virtual Producer, and no software is needed to run
the system.
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No lines need to be changed at your end; keep your current configuration if you wish.
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Virtual Producer can be linked with existing CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
packages, enabling the cross–referencing of incoming phone numbers with sales
databases to track sales leads and follow up calls.
Cost
Virtual Producer is highly adaptable, and as such all systems are priced individually.
Please contact us for further information.
Case Study
"Merseyside radio is a very competitive market and we're constantly looking to raise
our standards, which is why we got involved with Crosby in the first place.
They're a
young, local company who have really impressed us with their ideas and creative thinking.
Now Juice callers never get an engaged tone when they ring the studio, but are instead met
with a range of options which will allow them to use the station better."
Grainne Landowski
Programme Director, Juice FM
Interested? Contact us today to
find out more.
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