CallFire

Attention Call Tracking & Inbound IVR users
This is the fastest way for you to port Toll Free or Local telephone numbers to your CallFire account:

Step 1 - Download the phone number transfer form.
Step 2 - Fill it out and email it to support@callfire.com or fax to 310.943.0415.
Step 3 - Wait for a confirmation email from CallFire support.

It’s that simple.  By transferring your inbound phone numbers to CallFire you get:

Happy porting!

CallFire API developers get exclusive access to Voice XML with answering machine detection. This powerful new feature allows you to specify completely different execution paths for either when a live person answers or an answering machines picks up.

As our API customers know, Voice XML is our way of giving you full control of the call. The moment the phone’s picked up, your Voice XML script is executed. This new feature now allows you to specify two separate scripts. One to be executed in case of a live answer, and another in case of an answering machine. This ensures that applications like weather notifications, mass volunteer mobilizations can ensure full coverage regardless of a human or machine answer. The no-frills technical details are available here.

As always, if you have any questions do let our developers know at techsupport (at) callfire.com. It gets lonely at our Skunkworks lab, and they’d love to hear from you.

CallFire’s Cloud Telephony platform affords SMBs and nonprofits the ability to accommodate an inbound & outbound, geographically distributed call center. The financial and environmental benefits are undeniable, but what are the affects of homesourcing on agent job satisfaction?

As the digital divide dwindles, human interaction seems to increase exponentially.   This begs the question: How can Cloud Call Center agents leverage social media to become one with their company cause?  Agents love working from home, but is it really possible to build community and synergy without “IRL” interactions?

@Callfireceo went to Santa Monica’s BlobLive event last week, seeking answers to these questions. Thanks to @ErickB and the entire BlobLive team for letting me speak on such short notice!

I spent this Sunday afternoon at Eco Fabulous in Newport Coast. My interest in the relationship between tech & sustainability, got me here.  Green conferences like Opportunity Green are pushing businesses to embrace sustainable business practices, while outlining the business benefits of doing so. A homesourcing analysis by IDC forecasts 300,000 ‘homesourced’ workers in the U.S. by 2010. It’s no wonder Cloud Call Center platforms like CallFire are considered serious players in “Green Tech”.

Cloud Call Centers and Hosted IVRs seem to be the #1 way to reduce the overall carbon footprint of your call center or small business workforce.

Reduce emissions by hiring from home

The average US call center agent commutes 24 miles via automobile.
In a 50-week year, this agent will account for 6,000 miles/yr.
The average agent carbon footprint is about 2 tons of C02 each year!

Slash call center startup costs & reduce waste

The average call center requires 130-200 square feet per agent.
Agents require a PC, telephone & high speed internet connection.*
A 100-seat call center can save 168,000 kWh/yr by homsourcing.
*Note: Utilizing idle computing hardware seems to be a green trend.  Watch “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard.

Cloud Call Centers lead to happy agents

Improve employee satisfaction by reducing commuter costs, reducing parking frustration & vehicle wear.
Hire the best agents anywhere in the world, while targeting low-cost geographies.
Increase agent productivity & decrease sick-leave as it did for Holland America Cruise Lines.

Now that Cloud Call Center agents can use their own home office, PC and internet connection, the barriers to develop call centers for the enterprise and SMB markets are reducing quickly.  With $0 hardware and no recurring infrastructure costs, hiring from home is both sustainable & preferable to most US business owners.  

Hi Everyone!

My name is Tina and If you use CallFire then you may have participated in my Webinar.  :)  I get a lot of calls about “best practices” for using CallFire’s Virtual Call Center, Voice Broadcast & various Cloud Telephony tools for outbound call center sales.   Here they are:

Outbound Call Center Sales Tips:

1. Creativity is important
   Phone interactions are impersonal, so be sure to smile in the message. ;)   Feel free to use humor, wit & charisma to engage your potential customer over the phone.   Building trust & relationships is key to making sales.
2. Use fresh data & scrubbed lists
   Generating leads & sales can only be accomplished if you have a great list to call.   Existing customer databases, InfoUSA business listings, and online lead-gen are great sources for high-quality data.
3. Use a woman’s touch
   Try using a woman’s voice for your recordings. :)  Many DIY’ers use their own voice to save a few bucks.  Check out services like Voice123.com to get a professionally recorded greetings.  Your target demographic may react differently to voices of varying gender.  Try to diversify every aspect of your outbound effort!
4. Communicate with your customers
   We all get wrapped up in our amazing sales vision, but don’t forget to ask your customers what matters to them.  For example, you might want to figure out what time of day each of your customers prefer to receive telephone updates & callbacks.  Use this data to schedule your campaigns accordingly.
5. Try Call Tracking & Text-To-Speech
   A balanced outbound sales effort strives to track it’s efficacy over time.   Call Tracking & Hosted IVRs are a great way to track your marketing efforts, at the campaign level!  If you haven’t checked out advanced voice services, give us a call, or watch this video to learn more.

Thanks everyone!  ~Tina

CallFire’s Answering Machine Detection technology (AMD) just got a little better! We worked with schools, emergency service companies, and even automobile dealerships to improve our detection algorithm.

When your campaigns use a sound file longer than 15 seconds, Callfire automatically switches to the newer engine. We hope you are able to experience the difference our beta customers have.

So, what changed?

Old AMD:

Callfire would listen to the customer as they picked up the phone. During the first few seconds, AMD decides whether it’s listening to an answering machine, voicemail box, or live person. In the case of an answering machine or a voicemail, CallFire AMD would wait until after the beep and leave your recorded message.

New AMD:

While playing your message, AMD listens for a voicemail or answering machine. Any such indication will interrupt the playback of the live answer message, and start the answering machine message after the beep. To ensure accuracy, CallFire’s AMD engine requires a 15 second message, or longer, to make it’s decision.

The result?

In some cases, the accuracy of Answering Machine detection jumped to 95%!   This is staggering compared to the 90% accuracy in prior revisions of CallFire’s AMD.  I hope the new engine increases your ROI as it has for our alpha clients already.

For you API developers there’s a way to switch your campaigns to the new answering machine detection as well! Take a look at the “useAnsweringMachineDetectionType2” function in the CampaignService API.

Watch the video: Toll Free Call Tracking
Email us: calltracking@callfire.com
Call: 877.888.4515

This weekend, CallFire developers rolled out a great new feature: Inbound telephone service.  Now, you can buy Toll Free & Local telephone numbers with only a few clicks on our website!

This powerful new feature allows you to track which advertising campaigns generate you the most sales calls.

Screenshot:

So, what does this mean for you?

Buy Toll Free or Local numbers

Purchase one, or thousands of numbers for your business.  By displaying unique phone numbers to each of your advertising campaigns, your sales team can monitor which ads are driving the most phone calls.  And of course, with CallFire’s pay-as-you-go platform, you can stop receiving calls on your new number at any time.

Nationwide Call Forwarding

All local & toll free phone numbers can forward to your existing phone number.   Your cost during a forwarded call is 5c/minute for local numbers and 8c/minute for Toll Free.

Know which ADs make your phones ring

Create useful reports and visualize your callers patterns.  You may find that some campaigns drive more sales calls than others.  This data can be used to make valuable marketing decisions.

Developer tools and APIs

Integrators, please visit http://www.CallFire.com/dev to learn more about CallFire’s Voice APIs.  Publishers & large advertisers can use APIs to purchase & provision DIDs.  Call us to learn more at 877.897.FIRE.

Only $2/month + 8c/min

For Toll Free numbers… for local numbers, it’s only: $1/month + 5c/min.

Cloud telephony platforms can help your business generate inbound sales calls.  Here’s a few different ways our customers are making their sales lines ring, using VoIP.

Use Toll Free numbers to reveal ads that drive the most sales calls
Say you have 100 different online advertisements but aren’t sure which impressions eventually turn into phone calls.   Use call tracking to purchase 100 phone numbers for each ad-campaign (each number simply forwards to your sales line).  As the calls come in, you can easily visualize which ads are driving the most sales calls.  These advanced reports can be used to further strengthen your ad-campaign.

Use a hosted predictive dialer to free up salespeople’s time
Automate the way your agents make outbound calls and save hundreds of hours every month.   By using a hosted predictive dialer and your existing telephone system, your agents can fly through 100’s of calls every hour.  Agents can take lives calls immediately, and if they get an answering machine they can click a button to leave a prerecorded message, allowing them to move on to the next LIVE call.

Voice blast your PBX’s missed/abandoned list
Call centers occasionally get overloaded and you may have customers who (for whatever reason) hang up while waiting.   Don’t let these leads go to waste.  Export them to create an automated, press-1 voice broadcast.   Example: “This is an automated callback from ABC Inc. We are sorry nobody was available to take your call.  Please press 1 now, to speak with a sales agent.  He or She will be with you shortly.  Thank you.”   This automation ensures that customers get a follow up & further strengthens your customer service offering.

Add “Click-To-Call” to your website
The idea is simple – add another way for a customer to call you.  By adding a click-to-call option to your website , users can enter a phone number and in moments they can receive a live call from one of your sales agents.  How does it work?  After your lead submits their phone number in the “click to call” form, your sales agent receives a call that says “Press-1 now to speak to connect to a new lead.”   In moments both parties are connected and your sales team does the rest.

Create a unique phone experience using Text-To-Speech
Your client may appreciate an automated phone call that can read them their: account balance, schedules & timings for events, and even driving directions.  Developers can try using VoiceXML to send phone calls that can create a unique experience for users while reducing the volume of trivial phone inquiries your agents must field.

Have you used VoIP in other interesting ways?   Tell us how, using info@callfire.com.  Your story, and links to your business, could end up on the CallFire blog.   ~DR

Do you use a hosted-CRM utility? Do you use CallFire’s Virtual Call Center? If your answer is ‘Yes’ to both of these questions, your VCC agents might benefit from a link to your CRM platform, directly within the CallFire Agent Popup screen. Here’s how:

If you embed this code in your Excel list, for each phone number, it will place a clickable link in the Agent pop-up window.   The link will open your browser based CRM. Example code:

<a href=”#” onclick=”window.open(’<<<put link here>>>’, ‘littleWindow’, ‘location=no,width=450,scrollbars=yes,height=250′);return false;”>Open CRM</a>

<a href=”<<<insert crm link here>>>”><img src=”<<<insert image location here>>>” alt=”Call Me Now!” /></a>

Want even more control? You can take your integration a step further with CallFire Voice APIs.   Developers can easily use SOAP web services calls to inject data directly to your Agent’s CRM interface, in real time!   Visit the CallFire Developer Wiki or call 877.897.3473.

If you don’t want to use javascript, you can also use: <a href=”<<<put link here>>>” target=”callfireCrm”>Open CRM</a>