Charter Communications Inc. inked deals to make some music money in its high-speed-data service and to beef up its customer-service operations.
First, the St. Louis-based MSO partnered with FullAudio Corp. to launch a digital music service for its high-speed-data customers.
The FullAudio "Digital Music Service" allows cable-modem customers to download from a library of 100,000 music tracks from record labels including BMG, EMI Recorded Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, along with independent labels Koch Entertainment and Sanctuary Records Group.
The service will use Microsoft Corp.'s "Windows Media Audio" player technology to deliver the tracks to customers.
"By partnering with FullAudio, Charter continues to deliver additional benefits to our high-speed Internet-service customers who take full advantage of the power of our broadband network," said Shahid Butt, Charter's vice president of marketing for new products and channels.
The service allows customers to download up to 50 tracks monthly for $9.95 or 100 tracks monthly for $17.95. Customers have unlimited access to the tracks they download, and they can synch their accounts up to three PCs, allowing them to access music from multiple locations. Early next year, the service will add a feature allowing them to burn songs to CDs.
Meanwhile, Charter will also be using software from TeleDirect International Inc. to better dial into customer service at its regional service centers.
Charter will use TeleDirect's "Liberation 6000" campaign-management and predictive-dialing software to improve customer communication. Dialog guides will supply information about a customer, as well as about promotions that might interest them.
The Liberation package also includes software to help local systems to create, launch and manage promotional campaigns.
