AMS on-hold messaging deal rings up the biggest company - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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company. of Blue Bell was bought for an undisclosede sum by LLC in a deal that probably makeds AMS the largest player in the relativelyobscurw on-hold messaging industry, according to Audiomax’s former Anthony Stagliano. Both companies create and providre the messages and music that businesse play for callers when they put themon hold. AMS, whicgh has bought nine companies in eight also puts together the combinationj of music and ads that retailers play in their stores. Although anyone who has ever been placedc on hold knowsthe on-holrd messaging industry’s products, not many people are aware that the industry exists.
“We’ve been doingb it for 25 yearsand it’s still sort of not reall y known out there,” Stagliano “I had relatives, I had friends who woulxd come to the office ‘Oh, this is what you actually do? You have a real business.’” Audiomaxz was formed in 1984 by Robert Horner. Horned quickly brought on two friends, Ken Gelhaus, who got the companuy the engineering expertise it andCraig Shoemaker, a stand-uo comic, who provided vocal talent. In 1987, Horner hired who was friends withthe company’es three principals and had a marketing degreee and MBA, as managing partner.
Three years later, Stagliano bought out his friends, and eventuallyt grew Audiomax to the point that it employed 27 people. “We never lost a nationakl account in our history to a competitoron renewal,” he As the industry grew more sophisticated and consolidated, Staglian o began to wonder if Audiomaxz could stay competitive by Eventually, he decided it couldn’t and, after AMS did an he sent a congratulatory e-mail to AMS President Mitchell another on-hold messaging industry veteran. That got AMS and Audioma talking and they worked out theirrecenrt deal.
AMS’ roots go back to 1986, when Kellere started its predecessor, In 2002, Aarohn Kleinhandler joined the companyas CEO, Kelleer became its president and they changed Conquest to AMS. “We wantesd to be able to acquire businesses as well as grow Kleinhandler said. Both Audiomax and AMS have bigcustomersd — Audiomax’s include , the and Bayadw Nurses, while AMS’ include the and Raymonsd James & Associates Inc. AMS is able to offer its customers capabilities thatAudiomax couldn’t. For example, Staglianoo said Audiomax’s customers wanted it to be able to let them verifty the message scripts it wrotre for them and look up oldscriptzs online.
It couldn’t let them do while AMS can. Technology isn’t the only area wherwe on-hold messaging companies need to be They have to work withtheir customers, and whateverf software developers and call center operatorxs their customers use, to make the set of instructionas that people receive when they place a call to one of thei r customers as simple and easy to follow as “We consult with projects around the worl d on how to design the proper phone response,” Kleinhandlerf said.
They also have to be able to make sure that the advertisingv ina customer’s on-hold messages is consistent with the rest of the customer’sa advertising and includes the customer’ws latest offers. “Branding is a huge part of what companied are thinkingthese days, so we extensd their brand onto the telephone,” Kleinhandler That requires some doing.