
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 27, 1990                   TAG: 9004270132
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

C&P DIRECTORIES FIND THEIR VOICE; COLOR IT TELLE-YELLOW

Tele-Works Inc., a Blacksburg telecommunications firm, is adding a voice dimension to the Yellow Pages in the C&P Telephone directories for the Roanoke and New River valleys.

Starting July 1, the company's "Telle-Yellow" service will enable businesses to give recorded messages on their products or services to consumers who call a code of three digits.

Participating companies will be assigned codes and listed in the Yellow Pages, as well as in newspapers or other advertising, said Steven Critchfield, marketing director for Tele-Works.

Consumers must use a push-button phone to get the access number. They do not pay to hear the one-minute messages.

Companies will be charged $25 per month and a $5 connection fee. The first clients are a restaurant, an auto mechanic, a bank and apartments, Critchfield said.

In a test using Montgomery County companies, the average volume was 700 calls apiece, he said. About 65 percent of the calls were made between 7:30 p.m. and midnight, when most businesses are closed.

The main selling point for the service, Critchfield said, is that it provides information for people who like to shop after they get home from their jobs. Also, a one-minute message may provide more information than a Yellow Pages ad, he said.

Telle-Yellow will offer two choices - a message that never changes or a message with a special offer for the day, as a restaurant menu.

Critchfield said an automated ad for an optometrist has generated 230 telephone calls.

C&P Telephone sees the new service as "a benefit to use of our access lines and perhaps of the Yellow Pages," said Don Reid, C&P manager in Roanoke.

C&P is not allowed to provide this type of service, following the federal court decision dismantling the Bell System and bringing more competition into the telephone industry several years ago.

In Norfolk, Washington and other larger cities, telecommunication companies are offering alternative directories to the Yellow Pages. That is "pretty commonplace," said Paul Rogoski of the U.S. Telephone Association in Washington.

Critchfield said his company "provides a service so a company only has to use one telephone directory."

Tele-Works also is negotiating with several newspapers to automate their ads by offering information in telephone messages, he said.

Tele-Works, owned by 10 investors, started in 1984. It also provides automated information systems for governments including Roanoke, Roanoke County and Blacksburg.

by CNB