If you’re a frequent 411 user for business numbers, Google is about to save you some money.  If you’ve avoided 411 for the fee on every call, that objection is gone.

Google has introduced it’s FREE information service GOOG-411, currently as experimental.  It’s a voice activated service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411.  You can also find a little more info on Googles 411 web page here. 

I called the number to test it out and verify that Prime’s info was correct.  The automated voiced asked me for city and state and then asked for the business name or business category.  Upon replying with "Maple Grove, Minnesota" and "Prime Advertising & Design", they returned two results, both were ours with the same business info.  I have no idea why the duplicate records.  I then said to call choice "one" and I was connected.  It was easy.  You also can be sent a text message with the number.

I’ll have to give the category search a try next time and put it through the paces, but for the business name search it was a clean process.  I would recommend if you’re a small business, you try it out and make sure your business info is correct!  I’ll also be interested to see if Google maps is the primary information source and if those rankings have effect on category searches.

Very interesting stuff, give it a shot. Feel free to comment if you’ve put GOOG-411 to the test as well or if you do after reading this.

Posted on April 12th, 2007 by Jeff Wagner
Filed under: marketing, prime clients, small business

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