When I first heard the idea of a free paging service where the caller pays the charges, I wasn't really impressed. On the contrary, I had serious doubts.
Why should I embarrass myself giving a pager number to friends, relatives and business partners that costs them money to reach me?

Down the line I formed a different opinion. I have to admit that there are several situations when this service has absolutely great value.

My Experience: I first realized the great potential when I sold 34 pagers to a maintenance group serving a big apartment complex. Different blocks were assigned to different maintenance workers to handle customer's complaints. They were all supplied with cellular phones giving immediate access to reach them up on tenant complaints. The company spent enormous amount on monthly air time fees. According to their statistics, 85% of the calls were unreasonable. Some people called five, ten times within an hour to urge the arrival of the worker without any serious reason. The company replaced the cellular phones with Forever Page voice pagers. The tenants still have immediate access to deliver voice messages to the appropriate person. When the call is reasonable the tenant receives a prompt response, and gets reimbursement for the paging fees. If the call is unreasonable, the caller has to pay the price. The workers receive much lower call volume, their work is more efficient due to less interruption while performing their duties. The company has radically reduced the high cost of "communicating with complaining clients".

Travelling People: I sold an alphanumeric pager to a flight attendant a few months ago. She has referred 23 customers since. She works for American Airlines traveling around the country. Most of her friends have similar occupation. She had been using regular paging service for a long time. Even though she had nationwide coverage ($19.95 per month) she hardly ever received a page. Why? Her friends are usually in a different area. They are also travelling people. They also spend most of their time far away from their home, so they have to use calling cards to reach their friends. It can cost $1 to $5 dollars depending on the type of the calling card just to dial the pager number, not to mention the inconveniences of using a calling card. (Dial the access number, punch in the pin number, enter the number to call, then leave your message, if the line is busy start it all over again....) The Forever Page beeper has a toll free access number, there is no charge to use it from a payphone from anywhere in the country to anywhere in the country. Forever Page has nationwide coverage. Just like for flight attendants this service is suitable for other hundreds of thousands of people frequently travelling around the country.

How I caught myself hooked on this service? Well, in the beginning, my basic concept was: "...I can afford to pay monthly fees for paging service. Why should I embarrass myself giving a pager number to friends, relatives and business partners that costs them money to reach me?..." I haven't changed my concept too much. I never give my Forever Page number to my business partners as a primary contact number. I realized, however, that this is the most effective way to keep in touch with my family. My wife's job requires local travelling in the city between different offices. Even though booth of us has regular pagers, we can never communicate each other when it is necessary. She just never has a quarter on her when it's important to reach me. Since I always have a few hundred Forever Page pagers at home, finally I decided to carry one of them on me. Now she can send me voice messages without depositing a quarter from any payphone. My daughter is a college student. She also takes advantage of this free service since I carry the unit. It's also very useful when we take a weekend trip. My wife and daughter like to spend hours in shopping malls. Since I enjoy other avenues of pleasure, I don't always stay with them. They can conveniently reach me at any time from any payphone in the mall.

Young People: The majority of my customers are young people between the age of 15 to 25. They usually don't have serious business partners, only similar aged friends. They consider it a "cool idea" to carry the nice looking pager. Youngsters can't afford to pay monthly charges, but they still want to have that fancy beeper. They're not embarrassed to give out the number that costs money to the caller, why should they be? There is no catch. The caller is always able to avoid the charges. The page goes through the line, the caller gets charged only, if the caller accepts the charges by pressing the assigned number given by automated voice instruction. One of my young customers said: "...the best part since I switched to Forever Page, my mom stopped beeping me once every hour."