CallFire

We are thrilled to announce the release of our newest product: Hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) ! This product fills an important gap in the telephony space allowing quality of conversation that’s much better than traditional automated messages and yet not require a live call center representative. IVRs are widely used for large enterprises, but with this release, we are democratizing the technology space for the smaller to mid-size businesses. Hosted IVR’s robust capabilities offer a comprehensive solution for a large variety of telecom needs.

IVR Designer Interface

Core to our Hosted IVR product is the user-friendly IVR designer, which offers drag and drop functionality for non-technical users empowering them to create complex survey’s,  and meeting reminders via an intuitive, engaging user interface.. This capability widens the range of users who can individually build their own IVRs, something that historically could only be done by a developer.

The ease of use, however, does not decrease the feature set. Features that include reading text from a specific excel column using text to speech, complex dial plans, recording of responses, and more.  These features support a plethora of customer uses creating a high degree of personalization in the conversation. For example, the IVR can be used for a virtual receptionist that will route phone calls, Comprehensive phone surveys that will compile results, or Customized appointment reminders. The IVR can either be sent out to a list of phone numbers or assigned to a specific phone number that can receive incoming calls.

Click for more information about Hosted IVR and IVR designer

For developer documentation, see the Custom Telephony page

CallFire announces a new Do-It-Yourself Debt Collection webinar for businesses interested in using Power Dialing, Opt-in Voice Broadcast, and intelligent Call Tracking to track and increase collection efficacy.   It will take place on 2/25 at 11:00 AM PST.  Our experienced collections consultant will show you how to use CallFire to increase your reach rate and collect more than ever.

The DIY Debt Collection webinar series first aims to educate business owners and collections agents on how to save money by using Cloud Call Centers and Cloud Telephony tools to quickly connect themselves to delinquent accounts to solicit payment. The second half of the seminar covers how to use opt-in Voice Broadcast notification and Call Tracking to communicate important messages to existing clients and track collections campaign efficacy.

Debt Collection Webinar

Session 1 (11 AM): How to use Cloud Call Centers and Power Dialing
* Creating a campaign with an Excel list of delinquent accounts.
* Optimizing ROI by developing a thoughtful callback strategy.
* Monitoring collections agents & reach percentages.

Session 2 (12 PM): How to use Voice Broadcast & Call Tracking.
* Creating a campaign with an Excel list of delinquent accounts.
* Developing an effective recorded message for my voice broadcast campaign.
* Creating Call Tracking campaigns to track callback efficacy & collections efforts.

To Sign up, send an email to sales@callfire.com with DIY Collections in the subject line

* By Signing up ahead of time, you have the opportunity to ask any questions you want answered during the Webinar in your sign-up email.

*Please include which session(s) you wish to attend.

To attend CLICK HERE at 11AM PST 2/25/2010

Sign up for the CallFire Spark newsletter and learn about Cloud Telephony here.

CallFire announces a new Do-It-Yourself Lead Generation webinar for businesses interested in generating leads by using Power Dialing, Opt-in Voice Broadcast & intelligent Call Tracking to drive new business in the United State,  Canada, or Internationally

The DIY Lead Generation webinar series first aims to educate business owners and at-home sales agents on how to save money by using Cloud Call Centers and Cloud Telephony tools to quickly connect themselves to other businesses.  The second half of the seminar covers how to use opt-in Voice Broadcast notification and Call Tracking to communicate important messages to existing clients and track marketing efficacy of your campaigns.

Session 1 How to use Cloud Call Centers and Power Dialing at 11:00 AM

* Preparing an Excel list of my business telephone phone numbers.
* Optimizing ROI by developing a thoughtful callback strategy.
* Monitoring other sales agents that work from home.

Session 2: How to use Voice Broadcast & Call Tracking for notification & lead gen at 12:00 PM

* Preparing an Excel list of my customer phone numbers.
* Developing an effective recorded message for my voice broadcast campaign.
* Creating Call Tracking campaigns to track marketing efficacy & continued notification.

To Sign up, send an email to sales@callfire.com with DIY Lead Gen Webinar in the subject line

* By Signing up ahead of time, you have the opportunity to ask any questions you want answered during the Webinar in your sign-up email.

*Please include which session(s) you wish to attend.

To attend CLICK HERE at 11AM PST 2/18/2010

Sign up for the CallFire Spark newsletter and learn about Cloud Telephony here.

Campaign control from your phone

CallFire Remote Control lets you start, stop, and create campaigns using only your telephone.  To learn about the feature, watch our short video:

Before you try remote control, there are a few items you should look up.

1) Find your ID and Password from the Sound Manager.  Click toolbox to get to the Sound Manager.

2) Look up campaign IDs, and Phone book IDs for any campaigns you will want to create.

Now you’re ready to use Remote Control!

1) Dial the remote control hotline: 213-221 3805

2) Type in user id and password. this is found under toolbox –> sound manager at the top of the page.

3) Listen to the recording- you will need to know the campaign id, phonebook id depending on what it is you are trying to do by remote control.NOTE: Keeping a sheet of all of your IDs may be a helpful tool when using remote control.

We are excited to announce the launch of the International Cloud Call Center.  This new product contains all of the features in the previous version of Cloud Call Center, but now enables agents to be located anywhere and call out to anywhere.

Pricing is based on the phone number making calls, and the phone numbers being called.  If an agent is calling from out of the US, they are billed for the time they are logged into CallFire multiplied by the per minute rate for their phone number.  If an agent is Calling out of the United States, they are billed the per minute rate for the number they are calling multiplied by the total time they are connected to the call.  To see the rates for any given country, international telephone provider or phone number, see the rate table.

Cloud Call Center Pricing

Click here to see an example

Click here to see an example

Click here to see an example

CallFire also offers International Voice Broadcast as part of the international portfolio.

The City of Santa Barbara holds city elections in November of odd years. This year, there were 3 council seats, a mayor’s seat, and an important measure all up on the ballot. Measure B was the hot topic of this year’s election, which would limit building hight limit in downtown Santa Barbara to a maximum of 40 feet. The Democratic party as well as environmentalists were opposed to this measure that limits building height because typically, taller buildings in cities actually lead to a greater level of sustainability as well as affordable workforce housing.

A Texas Republican decided to spearhead a large $700,000 “Yes on B” campaign. In addition to the threat of this campaign, it was also the first year that Santa Barbara’s election was all mail-in. For these two reasons, the Democratic Party knew that they would have to exercise strategic Get Out the Vote (GOTV) tactics.

The GOTV campaigns would be targeted towards Democratic households, who were the majority in Santa Barbara. The campaign consisted of a few printed mailings, and door to door phases. Realizing they would need to contact more people than door to door allowed, the Democratic Party decided to augment this door to door effort with aggressive phonebanking with the “stellar and affordable Callfire autodialer system” (calitics.com article)

The Phonebanking component of this campaign began at the end of August and was used three days a week by approximately twelve volunteers. On the final weekend, the volunteers were able to reach approximately 3,000 self-identified Measure B opponents through a disposition question in an earlier CallFire call. The Volunteers wanted to make sure Voters remembered to turn in their ballots at the drop off station rather than the the usual polling booth. It’s a good thing they did too, because many people still had no idea that there was anything different or new about this election.

By the middle of the day before the elections, voter turnout was 37%, and with the help of the GOTV efforts, including the final round of Cloud Call Center campaigns, total turnout rose to 49.5%. In particular, the result of the Measure B changed dramatically. The day before the end of the election, it was at 49% yes, 51% no. By the end of the election, Measure B was defeated by a whopping 62%. Not only were the Democratic Party’s efforts effective, but they managed to do it with less than $30,000. CallFire’s Cloud Call Center was a significant component of this effective campaign, and the victory was even sweeter when spending 1/23 of the opposition.

Reference : Ancona, Dan, 18 November 2009, “A Tale of One City: How Democrats with Good Data Beat the Odds“

CallFire is pleased to announce the launch of its International Voice Broadcast service.  CallFire listened to client requests and developed arguably  the largest new feature since its founding.  Previously, CallFire campaigns only supported valid US and Canadian phone numbers.  Now, CallFire supports nearly anywhere in the world.

Here’s how to do it:

• Go to settings, then account settings and set the international  to “true” and submit
• All phone numbers in your spreadsheet must include country code (including the US and Canadian country code “1″) without any preceding zeros
• CallFire will dial the international Voice Broadcast campaign as if it were any normal campaign
• Check out the Voice Broadcast tutorial for details on setting up a Broadcast campaign from scratch.

Rates vary based on the destination of the calls, and begin at 3.5 cents per minute.  To find out the rate of a given country, go to the rate lookup page and click on the country, search by the country name, or type in an actual phone number.  To learn more about International Voice Broadcast, watch m0re from the project’s lead developer, Pete Shah:

The Great thing about a hosted dialer is its capability to help a wide array of people.  From non-profits to financial institutions, Medical centers to schools, the Cloud Call Center helps save them all time.

People don’t always realize how much time a web-based autodialer can save them.  The PTA board member calling for donations to a school, or the doctors office reminding patients that they have an appointment are used to conducting calls they way they are used to:  manually.  However, what they all have in common is falling in love with CallFire’s autodialer.

Do you think you could use an automatic phone dialer ?  Watch the video and see just how easy an autodialer can make your life.

CallFire’s new agent interface and feature set offers an enterprise level look and functionality for businesses and organizations of any size.

Here is a detailed view of the new agent interface.  The features have been outlined in a variety of colors, and will be explained individually below.

Tabs

Tabs are location in which URLs stored in the excel spreadsheet can be displayed for agents to see.  If the administrator included columns with a company URL, or a CRM url for each entry, these will be displayed in tabs at the top of the agent interface.  Agents can view the tabs while speaking on the phone, and will increase their knowledge of the party they are speaking to.

Script

Scripts can be provided for agents to assist them with their phone calls.  The campaign administrator has the ability to compose scripts for agents to read during each call. This allows agents to be consistent with their customer contact, and never forget important details.

Disposition

The disposition field allows agents to easily make notes and ask questions.  The new agent interface includes a free text field for general disposition notes as the previous version, but it now offers functionality in adding additional questions and compiling results, making gathering statistics easy for administrators. These can be multiple choice questions with customizable options or short free text questions with an open response.

Connected Box

The connected box enables personal information to be displayed for agents to see while they are on the phone. The box contains all the information that is in the excel spreadsheet used to upload numbers.  Any information the administrator wants agents to see will be its own column in  the file.  A few likely uses for this field are name, company, and phone number. Any type of information the administrator finds useful for agents to see can be included accordingly.

Call Transfer

Call transfer facilitates the transfer of a call if an agent needs to pass on a customer to another party.   If an agent wishes to transfer a phone call at any point, they can enter a phone number and transfer the call to anyone at any time during the call.

SmartDrop

The SmartDrop feature lets agents leave a pre-recorded  message when an answering machine picks up.  This allows users to save time that they would have spent leaving individual messages. For users that choose not to use answering machine detection, the moment they hear an answering machine, they can click SmartDrop and move on to the next call. This will leave a pre-recorded answering machine message on that machine.

Next Call

The next call button is used when a user is ready to move onto a new call.  There was a next call button on the old interface, and it still has essentially the same purpose.  Once a call with an individual is complete, hit next call to reach the next person.  It is also essential to press the next call button after using the SmartDrop feature.

Report an Issue

Agents should use the report an issue button if a user is experiencing an issue while using the Cloud Call Center.  Reporting an issue right when there is a problem is extremely important for troubleshooting.

Call Recording

Call Recording is now available for all Standard and Pro Campaigns.  While it’s not part of the agent interface, a new feature launched with the updated Cloud Call Center is the option for Call Recording. If either the Standard or Pro options are picked, administrators have the option to record all calls, giving them a chance to check up on agent performance or verify the content of specific conversations.

Developers, if you’re like most people and just getting started on your CallFire dating app that was originally due tomorrow, 11/11, you’re in luck!  The deadline has been extended until Monday 11/16 to help people like you!  Same contest, same rules, just new date.

Today, CallFire is announcing a new developer challenge.  The contest is to use any of CallFire’s APIs to develop a dating application, and the winner will win an new Amazon Kindle.  VP Buisness Development, TJ Thinakaran speaks to welcome all developers to the challenge:

Here are the details:

Applications should be submitted here. You must read the rules and regulations outlined here. The best resource for accessing the APIs is the CallFire Developer Wiki. Contact support@callfire.com or send a tweet to @callfire if you have any questions or need assistance with your creation.