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Aussie develops program that sends direct marketing calls straight to voicemail

Nick Black cleared voicemail ads with regulators

Nick Black cleared voicemail ads with regulators

An Australian entrepreneur has developed a system to send direct marketing calls and ads straight to voicemail without making the phone ring.

Nick Black, a telecommunications engineer from Sydney, developed Straight 2 Voicemail – a system that “works on an algorithm in the back end”, bypassing a phone’s alert to place messages directly into a recipient’s inbox where they can replay it “at a time convenient to them”, Black told Mumbrella.

Straight 2 Voicemail lets marketers send voicemail messages to as many recipients as as they choose at one time, even allowing them to record and send marketing voicemails on the run.

Black doesn’t believe people will be annoyed with the service as it allows them to listen to messages in their own time, rather than answer a telemarketing call at an inconvenient time.

He said came up with the idea after speaking with friends in the real estate industry who mentioned “it would be awesome if they could just send messages straight to voicemail, so I got to work on the problem.”

Phones receive a normal voicemail alert – although some people may have their phone ‘ring’ once.

The developer used resources on freelancer website, Freelancer.com, saving himself almost $10,000 in development costs.

Black said users so far include real estate agents and personal trainers, with the first direct voicemail sent by a client six months ago.

Black said he worked with a lawyer to make sure the service adheres to regulations surrounding direct marketing, with all numbers washed through the national Do Not Call database, and the system set up so it cannot be used during outside of hours allowed by telemarketing regulations.

Simon Canning

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