Human touch: Voce offers mobile phone service that can arrange a massage or send flowers.

VOCE'S high-profile billboard, radio ads and TV commercials feature jokes about lining up a veterinarian in Botswana.

But as Angelenos know, snagging a lunch reservation at a popular restaurant can be pretty difficult. And that's the customer the high-end mobile phone company hopes to reach with its high-touch personal assistant service--the kind of busy executive types who may not have their own personal assistant on the payroll.

"Unfortunately, the human touch has been lost in the customer service equation," said Roy Kosuge, Voce's 31-year-old chief operating officer for the Beverly Hills-based service. "What we're trying to do at Voce is interlace the latest technology with real, live personal mobile assistants."

Voce operators can make restaurant and gift recommendations or provide driving directions and weather reports. They can make reservations for massage or even arrange for flowers to be delivered to a client or significant other. In short, the kind of stuff a personal assistant would handle.

Voce is an MVNO--or mobile virtual network operator--which does not own its own licensed frequency spectrum but resells another mobile phone operator's network under its own brand name and adds its own bells and whistles. A well known and successful MVNO is Virgin Mobile, which launched in 1999 as a pre-paid service targeting hip, budget-conscious 20-somethings.

Like Virgin, Voce buys its capacity from Sprint, but that's where the similarities end. Voce's premium service targets a well-heeled customer base, the kind of Hollywood player who needs to download the overnight Japanese box office, make a follow-up call to a Tokyo colleague, reserve a table for two at the Grill on the Alley and book the next red-eye to New York--all in a matter of minutes.

The package includes unlimited voice calls, data downloads and directory assistance, plus the much ballyhooed live 24-hour customer service. In addition, customers can trade in their phone for a new model every four months if they choose. Current choices range from a Motorola RAZR to a Palm Treo 650. This level of service costs, of course. Whereas a Virgin customer can stay active by "topping-up" their account a minimum $20 every three months, Voce costs $200 a month--on top of the $500 set-up fee.

While high-volume users would consider the monthly fee for unlimited calls reasonable, the up-front charge is one reason why the company has gotten off to a relatively slow start, adding only about 2,500 subscribers in its first 18 months.

The company was founded in September 2005 by the Japanese cellular company Faith Inc. through its U.S. division. Faith was the first company to design and offer "ring tones" for mobile telephones.

Voce's Tokyo-based chief executive, Masato Nakanishi, projects the company should break even at 50,000 to 75,000 subscribers, a goal he hopes to hit by 2009. It's a relative drop in the bucket of the universe of 225 million or so U.S. cell phones users.

"We are the world's first premium wireless provider, all available in the palm of your hands," Kosuge said philosophically. "But you can't be everything to everybody."

Voce now has about 70 full-time employees. Roughly 30 of them are assistants, managing the phones around the clock at a Glendale customer service center. The rest work at Voce's office and retail store in Beverly Hills.

Whether Voce will take off is an open question. Aric Ackerman, the chief executive at post-production house L.A. Studios, is sold. "Voce started as a luxury and now I feel like it's a necessity," he said. "Almost embarrassingly, I use the service so much, I know many of the assistants by name."

An informal survey of the after-work crowd at Hollywood's Four Seasons found interest in promise of unlimited minutes and personal assistance, but the upfront fee was a drawback. Still, new takes on the concierge business are growing.

"It's not a service that's just for the wealthy any more," said Sherri Durbin, owner of Consider It Done Inc., a local personal concierge service. "People are always trying to find ways to save time and be efficient. Whether it works for the cell phone market is still unclear."

Voce

Core Business: Providing 24-hour concierge and premium cell phone service

Employees in 2006: 70

Employees in 2007: 100

Goal: To have 50,000 subscribers by 2009

Driving Force: Desire to capitalize on executives seeking highest-end cell phone service

By DAN COX

Staff Reporter