The First 800 Number on the Face of the World

Ellen Snoddy

Not too long ago travellers had to call their hotels and car rentals directly for reservations, paying for each call separately. One might have to make many calls.

    The well known dial O for operator could get you a motel phone number, but after that it was all up to you.

    Enter Telemax in the 1970's where customers could call one toll free 800 number and make multiple 

reservations. This new reservation facility was located at the center of the United States in Omaha Nebraska.  Middle America was thought to have no regional accent and therefore should be universally easy to understand.

     There were at the time  free-standing "schools" that purported to train students to work for the airlines and they charged a heafty tuition. The airlines wisely preferred to train their own agents and would not hire them. Therefore, many of these reservation graduates flocked to Omaha looking for work. Scores of them were hired and lent their regional accents to the mix.

    To begin, first came the laying of miles of WATS and power line cables and the wiring of electronics newly invented. One big expense was the CRT's (cathode ray tubes) for each station. (Think of a CRT as a personal monitor mounted at eye level. A type of early computer with a keyboard.) 

There were the ACD's  (automatic call distributors.) This was a system that took all the hundreds of incoming calls  and evenly distributed them among the agents who had an open line.

      Telemax had one fax machine. The first fax call was between New York City and Omaha and took all day to transmit. To say it was of poor quality would be a gross understatement.  If memory serves, black lines were what came over the phone line. ( No sentences or pictures.) 

     The first agents worked with the sounds of hammering and loud bangs in the background, as the building was nailed into place while they strained to hear and be heard.

    Some of the first businesses to come onboard were Marriott, Best Western, Avis, Budget Rent a Car, and a company selling nights at Bed and Breakfasts in Ireland.  Other hotels/motels and car rental companies came and went. 

     There was a possibly first Psychic Hotline that played tinkling "fairy" or "celestial" music to announce the infrequent calls. These calls were the exception. An actual telephone was picked up and answered. Telemax called the company with the message and they called back the caller.  No psychic advice was ever meted out by Telemax.

     It was not unexpected to see agents conscripted to hand crank the mimeograph machine. This prehistoric concoction utilized a "nice smelling ink" and made copies from an inked stencil.

Typos had to be corrected by wielding  a mean razor blade to cut out the errant letter or paragraph from the stencil. One stencil could make many copies. Then one had to get the stencil correctly realined to finish typing  the missive, and you can imagine the resulting mess of a document. Not to mention the colossal waste of time and resultant bad feelings between employee and writer. (Or the boss and the hand-cranker/typist.)  ("Whataya mean you want to make a change? Over my dead body! said employee to boss. Well, it might have been only a thought. But still...!)

     The machine itself is difficult to imagine and describe. Somehow it made "copies" by moving a piece of paper over an inked stencil.  Over and over the tubular machine, the papers were rolled over the original, imprinting the copy onto the paper as it rapidly was turned.  (You have to see it yourself to grasp with modern eyes how it operated.)

    Every agent had to readjust day by day as policies were put in place on Monday, and on Tuesday re-

moved and something new expected on Wednesday. 

    It loosely worked like this:  A Marriott customer say, would call the Marriott toll free dedicated number, maybe found through an advertisement, and say they wanted to stay at the Marriott downtown at a certain date in Phoenix. The agent would type in the Marriott code and add the airport code (PHX) and  the date. All pertinent information needed by the caller would appear on the CRT to be shared with the caller. Availability, rates, exact address, directions, cancellation policies, credit card requirements, smoking policy, and airport services.  Was there a restaurant on premises, free breakfasts, a pool? Client requests (needing a cot or crib?) would be noted for the property's manager pneed to know. Important were facts like number of beds, how many people and children, how many nights, and were handicapped accessible rooms available? The  confirmation number would be given and might be needed.  (There were some glitches here and there and having that number might give you a room even during  a sold out situation.) If the location was already sold out  an attempt was made to book at another nearby Phoenix Marriott location. In addition, did the caller need another reservation at another city, another future date? 

     The travel department for a business, making many reservations around the country,  could reserve many different places  for many people in short order.  Reservations were made in that self/same CRT.

     The next call to fall into the ear of the reservation agent (thanks to the Automatic Call Distributor) might be for a car rental. Thechosen by that company would be announced to the customer. One such salutation was, "Budget Rent a Car, we feature General Motors and other fine cars. How may l help you?" Every Budget caller would hear that phrase. Names were not used. Your moniker if asked was B27 or B52 for instance. Telemax agents became a well oiled machine.

    This center was open 24 hours a day 365 days a year, and all holidays. One winter blizzard kept employees stuck there working several shifts after their own time was over. All streets were impassable. There was no food or relief for two days.  

    The very late night shifts had their fair share of wacky hijinks.

One memorable 3AM featured Ginger who was on a routine call when a prankster threw a fake, plastic, life-like snake into her lap.  Her shrieking and hollering could've woke the dead.  The phone mouth-

piece was located right in front of her lips and after the resultant hilarity calmed down, she was asked how the customer had reacted to all that screaming.

    Ginger reported that the man hadn't missed a beat, kept on talking and never inquired after her well being. We later thought possibly he had been rendered deaf.  

     Telemax had the best headsets. Instead of big bulky earphones with a connector squishing the bouffant hair do's of the day,

a lightweight device hung off one ear. The earbud fit nicely therein. The receiver or microphone hung right in front of the mouth leaving both hands free to type into the CRT.

     There was another workplace incident that was far from humorous.  At the time, smoking was allowed and a heavily hair sprayed agent got the flame of a cigarette too close to her head.  With a gigantic  Whoosh, her hair caught fire in a most dramatic way! The main injuries sustained were not from the flames but from the efforts of others near by who vigorously beat out the fire from around her face and head. She looked like she'd been assaulted by five gorillas, but was fine except for those minor details.

    Some of the other big players only used Telemax services after hours i.e. Western Union and 

Holiday Inn Holidex. One might think such a good idea would be successful, but after all that effort, it did come to pass that this great experiment was felled by bankruptcy.  All the chains then opened their own reservation centers.  And as they say the rest is history!