NOTICE TO ALL PASTORSNOTICE TO ALL PASTORS

Please read the following to your members for their interest:

New WATS Line Greeting The telephone operators in the WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service) section of the Mail Processing Center in Pasadena are now greeting callers with the words: "Thank you for calling. May I help you?" If you happened to use the WATS number recently and heard this general greeting, you may have wondered why we are using it.

The reason for this simple salutation is primarily to avoid confusion in the minds of many "first-time"" callers. Unfortunately some new callers have responded to booklet spot commercials only to hang up immediately when hearing our operators greet them with "The World Tomorrow program." They thought they had gotten the wrong number!

With the recent expansion in media, the WATS number is being used extensively in these nationwide Modern Romans spot commercials in addition to many of our other booklets and in the magazines. And so calls to the WATS number come 'from spot ads, booklet cards, PT newsstand copies, as well as from ministers and members. In answering any given call, the operators have no way of knowing the background of the caller, and so we are using this general, non-specific response which will be appropriate for any media source.

This simple salutation, of course, is not intended to obscure the Church or the "World Tomorrow" program. However, it allows us to respond to a wide range of listeners — some who know a great deal about us and some who know very little. Our goal is to serve every response God gives this Work as effectively as we possibly can.

Richard Rice, Mail Processing Center

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Pastor General's ReportAugust 14, 1978Vol 2 No. 31