Call directory plans new service

The operator’s kind response came as a surprise to Yim Han-jun, 42, when he dialed directory assistance recently to ask for the number of a furniture store. Before giving him the number, the operator asked: “Dear customer, do you need anything else?” “The additional considerate request made me feel good all day long,” Mr. Yim smiled. The directory assistance service, reached by dialing 114, was introduced to Korea in 1935. At that time, the Kyungsung Central Telephone Office checked individual directories to provide phone numbers. Since then, the service has expanded to provide advice to customers providing an Internet portal. Koreans dial 114 as many as a billion times a year, or roughly 22 times for every man, woman and child in the country. The service was a business of KT Corp. (then Korea Telecom) until July 2001. However, it was showing an annual average loss of 1.3 trillion won ($1.08 billion), forcing KT to spin it off. Korea Internet Service Corp. and Korea Info Data Corp. now jointly provide the nationwide directory assistance service. Korea Internet provides the service in Seoul, Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces. The rest of the country is covered by Korea Info. KT holds a 19 percent stake in both companies, while employees of KT, Korea Internet and Korea Info hold the remainder in the form of an employees’ holding company. Most people provide specific names and areas when they dial up the service to ask for a phone number. However, the service still receives many vague requests such as “Can you give me the numbers of some good Chinese restaurants in my area?” Carefully listening to such requests, Korea Internet and Korea Info have created a “most-favored numbers service,” which is designed to help customers with such general requests. The companies maintain lists of the most frequently requested numbers of, say, Chinese restaurants in a given area and provide the top few numbers when someone calls up asking them to recommend a restaurant. The idea has worked, leading to sales of 3.1 billion won last year, the companies said. The companies are also using the time customers spend waiting for an operator to find a number for advertising, selling simple audio ads that play during the wait. Thanks to the improvements it made to the 114 service, Korea Info was recently asked to run KT’s call center services, which handle subscriptions, consultations and complaints from KT customers. Shin Young-moo, 53, director of Korea Info’s management support division, said, “Competitive prices and know-how gained through operating the 114 service virtually assured us of winning the contract for KT’s own information services.” Korea Internet, meanwhile, is the only call center business in the market that provides 24-hour directory assistance services using operators who work from home. Still, the current fee of 100 won per 114 inquiry, which the firms are loathe to raise for fear of driving away customers, covers only half of the companies’ costs. To streamline the service, wireless tools, including cell phones and personal digital assistants with functions that memorize numbers, will eventually replace the wired 114 service. Accordingly, new types of services will also be developed. Korea Info has already opened an online phone number search engine, www.lets114.co.kr. The company also started an on-line flower-delivery service ― www.lets114flower.co.kr ― on March 5. The company’s “Let’s power screen” service will launch next month offering tailored information through a computer screen saver. An on-line speech recognition service will also be introduced soon. Korea Internet runs a Web site ― www.nice114.co.kr ― which provides users with a variety of information as well as phone numbers. The firm plans to expand its services to global positioning systems, online 3-D maps and online Korean-English and Korean-Japanese translation. by Kim Dong-sup