Select Phone Book
review by Ray Martin, Alamo PC

Select Phone Book by ProCD is one of the top three advertised USA telephone "books" on CD ROM. The other two are PhoneDisc USA by Digital Directory Assistance, Inc. (DDA), and a series by American Business Information (ABI). I have been using a 1994 release by DDA, a 1995 release by ABI, and am evaluating the 1996 release by ProCD so any implied comparisons should be discounted accordingly.

Telephone "book," by the way, refers to the data source. It is not very telling for the current products: The "book" is rather a data base on individuals, businesses, and government.

Why use a magnetic phone book/data base? The obvious reason is to replace the bulky soft-cover paper publications that graced some of the best outhouses in the country in years past and pile up in recycling containers today. Saves trees, or at least could. It is more fun for most us in Alamo P.C. to get the answer from a computer than it is to wade through all that paper. If we have to retransmit or print the data, we don't have to retype. All good stuff, but probably not worth the $99 street price for the occasional user, especially if looking for residential phone numbers.

Business Usage

My focus is on using the Select Phone data base and retrieval for business. I agree with ProCD in that Select Phone can be used for "direct mail and telemarketing, lead generation, lead qualification, research, market testing, surveys, fund raising, collections, libraries, sales reps, realtors, and service businesses." Why use Select Phone for business? Virtually all businesses, government offices, and residences have a phone. Ten years ago I weighed phone books to estimate the number of people in a locale. Today I would have my PC count them on Select Phone much more accurate than 25,000 per ounce.

Select Phone uses six CD ROMs, with a total of 95 million listings, segregated geographically. Residential, business and government are on the same CD ROM.

The Select Phone data base includes name, complete address (complete zip code), phone number and standard industrial code (SIC) for business. This gives considerable business potential. For example, the number of residences in a zip code area can be compared with the number of potential competitors to screen a location. The overlay of income and spending pattern increases value further.

If you decide to open the business, the mailing addresses for an open house or introductory showing are already loaded. Others undoubtedly are interested in targeted telemarketing lists or in building mailing lists. (I have built mailing lists, but do not do telemarketing (or clean windows).

Installation

Select Phone installs and runs fine on an AST 486/66 with 16MB of RAM. The instructions say 4MB minimum RAM. I use Windows 95, but it should also run under Windows 3.1, Mac System, 7 or later versions of DOS, according to the instructions. The minimum installation my preference took 1.24MB on my hard drive. It installed quickly. I appreciated the fact that Select Phone did not, at any time, attempt to take over my computer as some software does. Select Phone installed and ran without my having to look at the instructions. That's good. If we don't want to look up a number in the phone book, why would we want to read instructions to install and run software?

Running Select Phone

Select Phone does a fine job of categorizing and selecting the data, sliced about any way you would want. It reliably and quickly exports the data in formats readable by essentially all popular data base managers, spreadsheets, and word processors. There is no ridiculous counter screen and speaker blast: "you have only 4,255 of 5,000 downloads remaining. Are you sure you want to proceed with this major decision?"

The box Select Phone comes in says it "Runs under Windows 95," which it does. It lacks the Designed for Microsoft Windows 95 logo though not fully compliant. For example, when I tried to save a selection to a data base, Select Phone wouldn't work without closing an information window first. But these are minor difficulties. Overall, Select Phone does a fine job of selecting and exporting the data. The telling consideration for business use, though, is the data base itself.

Data Base Limitations

The state of the art in developing phone book data bases is to scan paper pages from telephone books or manually enter it. There will, of course, be scanning errors even with the best equipment. Pro CD uses manual entry, but enters it twice. Scanned or keyed twice, there are going to be some errors with 95 million entries.

The main limitation of Select Phone and others centers around accumulated address changes and delay in getting them on CD ROM and distributed. I am reviewing the "New 1996 Edition" of Select Phone. The San Antonio directory used for the data base is dated September 1994. It is a real plus for ProCD that they provide the phone book publication date. The data in it was several months old when it was published. Distribution of the phone book, data entry, and product distribution takes more time.

We Americans move a lot. I made two sample comparisons between Select Phone "New 1996 Edition (using 1994 data)" and the Greater San Antonio Southwestern Bell telephone book for 1995. Using a last name and one first initial gave me hits in Select Phone. The current SW Bell phone book had 85.

In other words, if everything else were perfect, there is greater than a 10 percent likelihood of not finding a resident listing using Select Phone, 1996. Some Select Phone listings, almost 25%, are no longer valid relative to the phone book, which is also outdated.

Government and Business

. The picture gets better here. I compared United States Post Office substation hits because substations tend to have stable addresses and phone numbers. Sure enough, Select Phone hit all 31 substations in the SW Bell phone book, with no leftovers: perfect score. Incidently, PhoneDisc USA, two years old, did the same. This suggests good data quality for both products. I only spot checked business, but my experience is that we will find a mixed bag. Banks, large institutions and the like will be more like post office substations. Smaller firms, with a higher mobility and mortality, will be closer to residential.

One single-record business search was a critical failure, though. Our favorite Sushi restaurant wasn't in Select Phone. Neither was our backup. Since we both go into withdrawal after two weeks with no Sushi, the 1994 data base Select Phone uses would have failed us. Still, Select Phone has as a good retrieval and as reliable a data base as any better than most.

Support

ProCD has a pretty standard high-end support setup: voice mail, fax back, fax on demand, WWW, bulletin board, telephone. Fax back works great. Technical support is about four screens deep on their WWW site, but is fine when you get to it. I'm downloading a printer patch while finishing this review, but won't install the patch unless I have a problem. The FAQ (frequently asked questions) listings suggests minor problems typical of fundamentally good software. Didn't try their bulletin board or telephone support. Support should not be a problem, though.

Conclusion

The focus of this review is on using Select Phone as a data base retrieval for business. It does that as well as the data base permits. It is now my tool of choice for business use, running neck-and-neck to slightly ahead of PhoneDisk USA. We will use the phone book printed by SW Bell for residential or critical, one-at-a-time business selections, like finding a Sushi bar.

Price and Availability.

Select Phone Book is available direct from Pro CD, Inc., POB 32, Norton, VT 05907-9900; 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923-4520. Six CD ROMs, 93 page User Guide. List price: $99. New orders: 800-99-CD-ROM; Fax on Demand 800-FX-PROCD. Customer service & sales: 508-750-0055. Technical Support Fax: 508-750-0070. WWW: http://www.procd.com. It lists for the same $99 at Computer City, but Alamo PC members should be able to get a discount.

Select Phone Book review by Ray Martin, Alamo PC