I'm not sure if you recall this or not, but there was an actual phone system at this National Discount Brokers that actually had this on their phone tree:
Welcome to National Discount Brokers!
This call may be recorded and/or monitored for quality assurance.
For trading, press 1
For a new account kit, press 2
For quotes, press 3
For customer service, press 4
If you are a netlink soft benefits plan customer, press 5
To hear more about our buy-for-free program, where you can buy your own company stock, commission free, press 6
If you would like to hear a duck quack, press 7
If you know your party's extension, press 8 and dial it
To return to the main menu, press 9
Or stay on the line for the next available customer service representative.
Thank you.
Editor's note, May 2006: Ameritrade Plus has bought out National Discount Brokers, and removed the duck quacking from their menu.
According to an article in a recent New York Daily News, this interesting menu choice has led to 8 million calls and a 75 percent increase in new accounts. The article credits CEO Chris McQuilken with voicing the duck via a duck caller. It goes on to state, "Now there's a CEO who has earned his salary."
Capitalism is far from dead, my friends. There's hope left if those aiming to service adherents of the Consumer Manifesto keep their senses of humor.
There are just some things that are just plain funny, the idea of having a duck quack at you, then hang up the phone? Well I suppose from having to sit on hold hour after hour if AT&T would give us a choice to hear a duck quack? At least we would have something nice to say about them.
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Nearly half a million people a day called National Discount Brokers' voice mail just to hear the sound of a duck quacking.
Callers dialed into the toll-free number and heard an automated reception that began with typical corporate prompts such as: "To request a new account kit, press two." But the seventh option piqued the interest of people around the world. "If you would like to hear a duck quack, press seven," the automated attendant said.
At its peak, nearly 500,000 people called the line to hear the sound of the duck, tying up the company's phone system in the process.
NDB has used a mallard as its mascot for more than 60 years, but it never thought option seven would garner so much attention.
Word spread quickly, passed along by the more than 270,000 customers who regularly called the company's toll-free line, reaching across North America through e-mail. According to NDB, "We didn't do anything - we just left it on our voice mail. The Internet took care of the rest."
The number of calls to the 800 number cost the company about $8,000 a day, but the money well spent. "The exposure is the equivalent of 100 television commercials," NDB said. "And that would cost us millions." NDB saw a 75% increase in new customers during the duck quack's heyday and the feedback has been almost entirely positive.
"We've got e-mails from all over," said NDB, adding that the number works in North America only. "People just love it. We're supposed to be a stiff, Wall Street company, but we've gotten calls telling us that every company should have an option seven."
This is an aside note and what the company that had the 'duck' sound and what it had done for them.
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