WKRK Christian Radio

Making Calls with NocTel since June 2010

Contrary to the image of a contemporary world where most of our entertainment and information is delivered through the cloud, many continue to turn to the radio airwaves for listening and participating. Bearing this in mind, reliable phone systems that have more capability than simply allowing listeners to call in are a crucial component to operations. Radio personalities and operations staff can agree: operation is much more than being heard, it’s also sharing with others to be heard as well.

For a community in the foot hills of the Great Smoky mountains in North Carolina, WKRK is a well-known radio station providing many services to its listeners and community. Along with its popular caller driven trade show Party Line, WKRK provides the community with local news, hazard warnings, weather updates, and a forum for finding and reporting community problems such as missing pets in addition to normal scheduled music. WKRK owner and host Tim Radford came on board with NocTel 2010 in the hope of a better way to manage calls on air and off.

WKRK's Situation

In 2015 WKRK was seeking a way to gather feedback from their listeners on the idea of changing their national format. For WKRK, getting this feedback was an issue since the presumed average age of listeners was higher, and therefore less likely to be willing to respond to online surveys. WKRK turned to NocTel in seeking to find a way to collect survey data from its listener base to plan changes with accurate feedback.

Our Solution

With feedback from WKRK, NocTel’s development team worked on creating a solution within the software allowing listeners to call in to a hotline and answer a few automated questions with the press of a button allowing WKRK to conduct its surveys as idealized. With guidance from our development team and our customized call behavior control panel, Tim Radford was able to implement the phone-based survey his listeners felt comfortable using. After deploying the phone-based survey for its listeners to respond to, NocTel supplied the compiled results that guided WKRK to its better informed decisions on what future programming would include. In this case, with some modifications to the system and Tim’s ingenuity to utilize NocTel’s inbound calling behavior through the web-based control panel for the survey, WKRK’s viewers’ opinions were able to be heard. With the data from the phone based survey WKRK was able to make a well-informed decision on what type of programing their listeners wanted to hear and delivered thrilling their listeners as a station that is responsive to their preferences.

Results and Continued Partnership

NocTel didn’t stop being an asset to WKRK after the survey was conducted. One benefit of NocTel’s hosted service WKRK experienced firsthand occurred when WKRK relocated offices. With NocTel hosted VoIP service, the WKRK staff simply connected their handsets up to PoE active ports and waited briefly for the devices to power on. Voice service was operational again in about as long as it would take for a laptop to boot.

Unlike traditional PBX systems that require additional components to be installed at a business location to work, NocTel’s system is hosted offsite in secure, reliable facilities in geographically disperse areas of the United States and internationally. As Tim and WKRK experienced, this makes it easy for users to move their phone system to new locations or even take a phone home when the need arises.

Summary of Benefits Provided

While phone service is an integral part of daily business operations, not everyone has the same needs and not all providers are able or willing to step outside the defined norm. With NocTel’s solution, WKRK has seen the following benefits and improvements:

• Direct collaboration with development engineers to deliver call-in survey functionality maintaining usage listeners were familiar with
• Improved audio quality into studio and office
• Responsive support and assistance with advanced configuration management
• Support triage of ISP service disruptions on behalf of WKRK

With NocTel, customers have the flexibility to move and grow without worrying if their voice system can keep pace with normal and extraordinary business operations.