There is always something you wish every customer knew. That the kitchen stops at nine. That there is a quiz on Thursday. That the cakes are made on the premises. It goes on a chalkboard nobody reads, or it depends on a member of staff remembering to mention it at the till, which they will do beautifully at ten in the morning and not at all during the lunch rush.
This page is about a different way of doing it, and it is honest about where it has got to: in development, coming soon.
Your music player already knows how to dip the music, speak a line or two and bring the music back up. That is the DJ voice, it is live today, and it says general things that suit any room.
Venue announcements are the same mechanism saying something only true of your venue. Written by you. A handful of lines, each a few seconds long, dropped into the day so the room hears them a few times without anybody having to remember anything.
Because asking staff works right up until the room is busy, which is exactly when it matters most and exactly when it stops happening. It is also a real thing to ask of somebody: saying the same sentence to strangers forty times a shift, with warmth, is a performance, and not everybody wants to give it.
A recorded line is the same every time, arrives whether the room is quiet or three deep at the bar, and asks nothing of anybody. It also lands differently: coming out of the music rather than across the counter, it reads as part of the place instead of as a member of staff selling something.
The things you want every customer to know are the things nobody has time to say.
Where this has got to, so you know exactly what you are looking at:
It is a modest piece of work rather than a rebuild, which is why we would rather shape it around what venues actually ask for than guess and get it wrong.
Announcements would inherit the same handling that keeps the DJ voice easy to live with:
How often your announcements play would be your call, set the same way the DJ voice frequency is set, and changed whenever you like. You know your room and your regulars far better than we do.
A short script, in your own words, is genuinely all of it. Not marketing copy, not something written to sound like an advert, just the sentence you would say if you had the chance to say it to everybody. Short works better than clever, because the music only steps aside for a few seconds.
Right now, though, the more useful thing is simply hearing that you want it, and what you would want it for. That is what decides whether this gets built next or in six months.
Not yet. It is in development, so it is not something you can switch on today. The player already knows how to dip the music and speak a line, because that is how the DJ voice works, and the remaining work is giving each venue its own set of lines. If you want it, tell us what you would like it to say.
Whatever you would otherwise ask a member of staff to remember to say. A short welcome using your venue’s name, what is on this month, that the kitchen stops taking orders at nine, that the cakes are baked on the premises, or that you are open later on Fridays. Short lines work best, because the music only dips for a few seconds.
That is not decided yet. It would need a script from you and some production work at our end, and how it would be offered is what we are working out. Telling us what you would want it for helps us decide.
The same handling that keeps the DJ voice easy to live with would apply. Nothing spoken in the first or last twenty minutes of trading, nothing spoken across the join between two tracks, nothing straight after somebody has skipped, and an off switch on the screen that works immediately. How often your announcements play would be your own setting, changed whenever you like, because you know your room and your regulars better than we do.
One line is enough. It goes straight into the decision about what gets built next, and there is nothing to sign up to.
Email hello@soundpour.co.ukAlready on the beta? Say so and you can help shape it.