John Macuga, the operations manager of the Falconi family of car dealerships, was recently interviewed about their experiences using Advertel.

“The unique thing about Ads On Hold, when we first came on board, we thought, well, it’s a small company, probably won’t be around in the next three to four years, but they seem to have good services, let’s give them a shot.”

Macuga was pleasantly surprised, though: “It was excellent service, and longevity is important to us. It’s turned out to be more of a partnership than just a client relationship.” Longevity indeed, as the company has been clients of Advertel for over 20 years now. As Macuga said, “You don’t stay with someone for over 20 years and not have a partnership with them.”

“When we started out we thought it was going to be a one-time deal, but the service, the creativity on our phone messages,” kept them with the provider, Macuga said. “They always came up with something a little different, something to help us out in a situation. They would listen to what we were doing and come back to us and say hey, you guys ought to try this. That being innovative is important. You can’t just sit back and answer the phone one simple way, and our customers enjoy it. They tell us they don’t mind hanging on for a few seconds.”

Read more here.

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A recent study from Monet Software compares the cloud-based and the on premise software model, illustrating “how the different models would impact the cost, implementation, usage and success of the Workforce Management solution in your organization.”

Set up and implementation. Cloud: Fast set up, vendor creates new account. Users access the solution through a web browser. On Premise: Takes time to purchase, install and configure both the hardware and software.

Score one for cloud there.

Upfront investment. Cloud: No upfront investment for software/hardware. Subscription fee typically includes support, maintenance and upgrades. On Premise: Large upfront investment for hardware and software, installation, configuration and implementation.

Be sure to check the ongoing subscription fee to see which works for you here.

Operating costs. Cloud: Shared services infrastructure dramatically reduces the cost for operating and maintaining servers. On Premise: Running your own server operation, including back ups, maintenance, upgrades and hardware replacement result in higher costs.

Read more here.

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According to officials of TSG Global, 91 percent of Americans carry a cell phone with them 15-24 hours a day.

This statistic helps explain why mobile marketing is on the rise: “People will leave home without their wallet before they would leave without their phone,” TSG officials say, and they sound like people speaking from experience on this.

But the marketing is undeniable. “For product promotion, voting, polling, announcements, interactive information distribution, there are many reasons a company may want to reach out to people on their phones,” company officials say, adding “the question becomes -- what is the best technology to deliver and receive this information?”

According to TSG, the answer is “quite simple,” because in their eyes, “there are really only two options when using SMS text messaging; the Short Code or the Long Code. In most cases the Long Code is the more cost effective and efficient way; however, the Short Code still has its place.”

Read more here.

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A recent report finds that “mobile services should hit $870 billion in 2014 as mobile broadband, messaging expand.”

That’s from Infonetics Research, which has updated its “Mobile Services and Subscribers: Voice, SMS/MMS, and Broadband” report based on revenue reported for the first half of 2010 (1H10), resulting in increased short- and long-term revenue forecasts.

"The overall wireless industry performed above expectations during a period of economic stress -- albeit unevenly across various world regions -- and will continue to grow as macroeconomic conditions improve,” said Stephane Teral, Infonetics Research's principal analyst for mobile and FMC infrastructure.

Teral noted that only the western European telecom services market was “significantly affected” by the economic crisis, and “still struggles to recover as Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal continue to suffer.” He said that means mobile broadband and mobile messaging service revenues are “growing rapidly and will help operators offset declining voice revenues, but voice service isn’t going away anytime soon; in fact, voice will still account for almost 60 percent of the mobile pie in 2014.”

Read more here.