CINCINNATI — OneCommand, a provider of automated multi-channel marketing for the automotive industry, is teaming up with BarNone, a provider of specialty finance and consumer services, to increase its Internet lead response rate.

By augmenting its online lead generation and business development center operations with OneCommand's Voice Messaging solution, which is designed to provide timely, relevant and professional communication from a voice of authority at key points in the consumer’s life cycle, BarNone has seen an 8 percent increase in appointment rates.

According to Dan Staub, BarNone Chief Operating Officer, BarNone has been very successful using OneCommand's technology to rapidly reach Internet customers.

"OneCommand has been a wonderful partner to work with. We buy Internet leads that are complete credit applications and try to reach numbers once from our call center and then if that first attempt is unsuccessful we switch to OneCommand. A voice message is then left for the customer to call us back. This has significantly reduced our costs and increased the contact rate with these customers," Staub said.

"The problem is we need to talk to these potential customers in order to schedule appointments. They respond well to our OneCommand voice messages and contact us back on our 800-number. OneCommand has basically built a better mousetrap with good technology and a good concept. It's a great idea."

BarNone was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Columbia, Md., and maintains a 24-hour call center in the Southwestern United States.

"BarNone is a leader in the special finance space and we are very excited to help reduce their costs and increase the effectiveness of their call center. Call centers can be a challenge as 60 to 70 percent of the time the consumer cannot be reached, necessitating several calls. It gets very expensive to make these repeat calls when the costs of the call, pay, benefits, etc., for call center personnel are factored in. OneCommand can get those costs down to a fraction of the cost and reaches 85 to 90 percent of target consumers with an average of just 1.2 phone calls," said Al Babbington, CEO of OneCommand.