CallFire

by Natalia Klishina


The topic for this article was actually a suggestion from one of our employees. He thought it would be interesting for you guys to get an idea of what keeps us grounded and balanced, so that we can be happy, functioning human beings here at the office. It’s weird how much, or how little, some of us have in common. Anyway, without further ado, and in no particular order…


TJ
TJ loves yoga for the focus it brings to his day: “90 minutes of staying in the moment and pushing the mind and body to its limits creates a constant improvement that helps with the tremendous challenges and learning experiences that the day job brings.” TJ also bikes, which, too, requires discipline and focus on form — which is somehow freeing? (Beats me.)



Kim
When she comes home, Kim likes to watch TV, especially when her sports teams are on. She’s a huge sports buff and was the one who rallied us to participate in an office pool for March Madness. I’m sure it also helps that Tucker, her dog, loves to snuggle up next to her.


Ed
Ed seems all nice and harmless, but he is one of those people you don’t mess with. He does BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) and Muay Thai — so that he doesn’t “have have to punch [his] coworkers in the face at work.” To each his own.

Dinesh
Dinesh likes a lot of things, from cooking at home, to hiking the Santa Monica mountains, to meditating (which he learned from his grandfather). Here’s the CEO-like part of his answer, though: Every couple of years, Dinesh does a non-profit volunteer trip, the last of which was to an impoverished area of Nicaragua to work with children with speech pathology disorders.


Pete
Pete likes to write poetry, play video games, shoot pool, play basketball, and – wait for it – help his wife with her interior design business. I asked how doing more work helps get away from work, but Pete says that it’s a good break from the norm for him, thinking about what will make a space feel more comfortable and how to make it into a reality for clients.


James
James like to take long trips in his car (which I guess is a good thing since he goes back to Irvine on weekends), with the top down and blasting his CDs. He says it gets him away from technology and all his server work.

Vijesh
Vijesh likes to spend time exercising or with his friends and family (and his wife is pretty awesome, so I can see how that is). The surprising part of his answer, though, is that the first thing he mentioned was coding. When I pointed out that coding was his job, he said that yes, but that he likes that part of his work; it’s the management aspect that is stressful. How many people can call their job their hobby?

Ryan
Ryan had a pretty simple answer: math. He’s currently taking a class on the calculus of variations… for fun…




Dan
For Dan, just being outdoors does it. That usually means cycling or trail running (Dan actually also bikes to work every day), but even road trips through scenic country do the trick for him. Considering I’ve never seen anyone else with such single-minded focus at work, I’d say he’s doing something right.


Daniel
Daniel, like TJ, is a big fan of yoga. Beyond that, he says running, swimming, and playing music helps.




Jeff
Jeff goes to the gym every day – Crunch, to be precise. I actually go to the same gym, and it’s definitely a great place to de-stress.




Jacob
Jacob likes to read and play ultimate frisbee, but his favorite way to stay grounded is actually cycling (like a few other people at the office). He says cycling is “humbling” and a “quasi-metaphor for life – with all the hills, and fast descents.” Uhm… sure, why not.

Bill
Bill likes playing music, as in playing his guitar, keyboard, or violin. He actually spends a bit of time composing.




Adam
This was an interesting revelation: Adam said almost the same thing as Bill. Adam is also a musician who plays guitar and piano (and he likes J.S. Bach by the way). Interesting coincidence. On top of that, Adam also likes to go running. He says those two things keep him from losing his mind.


Komnieve
Komnieve likes endurance sports (he bikes with the rest of our cycling enthusiasts), and spending time with family and friends. He loves traveling around the globe, and generally gets away at least once a year (he just went to Chili in December). He also reads quite a bit, usually something psychology-, economics-, or technology-related; he tries to get through three books a month (which is definitely more than I manage these days).

Natalia (me)
I actually struggled with this question for a bit, since I’m not a very grounded person, and I don’t try to be. I had a “zen” phase where I tried to go to yoga and learn to meditate and generally be a more balanced person, but then I just said “F it.” So I suppose the closest I get to being grounded is when I visit my parents in San Francisco (which I try to do once a month or so). When you’re an immigrant who’s moved around a few times, family becomes the only real constant.

by Natalia Klishina


As per one of our customers’ requests this morning, here is a blog post about the CallFire dogs.

First we have Lucky, the Jack Russel Terrier — or as we like to call him, Crazy Dog.

Lucky is our CEO’s dog, and he likes to pretend he owns the place. I would say his hobby is running around with a business card in his mouth, but it’s more of an addiction than a hobby. If he doesn’t get a hit every half hour or so, he becomes very upset. He also has this strange compulsion of spastically running around in circles whenever he hears a motorcycle outside. Hobbies include jumping onto people’s chairs when they’re not there and growling when he’s told to get off, eating Chinese food left unattended on anyone’s desk, and generally ignoring all instruction.

This is our CEO playing with Lucky. Lucky looks unamused.

Why Crazy Dog, you ask?

It’s hard to believe that he used to be a sweet little puppy.

You can find Lucky on Twitter as LuckyJRTPup.

Then there’s Ronak, the English Chocolate Lab — or Sad Dog.

Ronak is our President’s dog — or puppy, rather. Ronak isn’t even a year old yet, and people still remember him running around the office as a little furball. With his droopy eyes and slow, lopey walk, Ronak tends to look sad all the time. We plan to dress him up as Eeyore next Halloween.

He probably is sad since he harbors an unrequited love for Lucky, who growls at him and lunges at his face with his tiny little jaws open whenever he’s approached; and yet, Ronak hopelessly keeps trying to win him over.

Ronak’s hobbies include sleeping in beds that are way too small for him.

The things he lets you do to him without even protesting definitely point at depression.

This is probably the only time Lucky has allowed Ronak to get this close. I think they were both on a timeout.

You can find Ronak on Twitter as SadDogRonak.

And our newest addition: Tucker, the Pitbull mix.

Tucker is the newest dog in the office. He joined us when our new Marketing Director started working here. If Tucker’s energy could be harnessed, he could probably power all the appliances here. His tail alone is like a windmill. Hobbies include smothering other peopler with love and destroying tennis balls in record time.

This is our Marketing Director, Kim, with Tucker. He’s definitely the most affectionate of the bunch.

Chaos reigns when all three dogs are in the office at once.





Some other dogs that have come around have been Latte the Bulldog (whose owner used to work here part-time), and Marley the Golden Doodle (my old roommate’s dog that I brought in):

by Kimberly Kohatsu, Director of Marketing

Marketers tend to think of opt-in marketing as a limitation, but I honestly think it’s a benefit. For one, opt-in means you’re communicating with people who say it’s okay for you to communicate with them. That means you’re not annoying them, which will help the success of your campaigns. And perhaps more importantly, opt-in voice broadcasts and text blasts save you money in the end. You’re not paying for calls or texts to people who don’t want them, which is only going to help control costs. So how should you get your opt-in list to grow? Here’s 10 suggestions:

1. Tell your customers what they’ll get if they opt in

Are you planning on sending a monthly discount code? What about exclusive, text-only invites to sales? Give your customers a good reason to opt in, as well as an idea of how frequently you plan to contact them (monthly, weekly, daily, etc). You can also incentivize opt-ins by offering an immediate benefit, such as a discount or free gift.

2. Make sure they know they can always opt out

Sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but customers will be a lot less hesitant to sign up if you reassure them they can push 8 or text STOP at any time to unsubscribe. CallFire will automatically add your unsubscribes to your internal DNC list, making your list easier to manage, and making your customers more comfortable in joining.

3. Use your existing sign-up pages to drive subscriptions

If your customers use any sort of form on your website, include a check box to opt in to your text or marketing campaigns. You might want to put this directly below the field where your customers input their phone number, like in the example below:

4. Create an email marketing campaign

Email your customers and tell them about your great new marketing initiative. Tell them what you plan to send to them via phone calls or texts, and include an opt-in call-to-action such as “click here to subscribe” or “Text SMSFIRE to 88202.”

5. Drive subscriptions with social media

Encourage your Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn contacts to subscribe to your list. Have your whole team share these posts with their contacts, so that their contacts can tell their contacts, and so on.

6. Get their attention with point-of-purchase signage

Got a physical storefront? What better place to reach your existing customers? Make a sign to hang near the register, in the window, or on tabletops. One note of caution, however—don’t simply have a clipboard where people can add their phone numbers, because most carriers won’t accept a paper sign-up as a valid opt-in should you ever face a complaint. Instead, encourage your customers to subscribe with their cell phones, such as “Text SMSFIRE to 88202.”

7. Hold an employee competition for signups

Do your employees spend a lot of time interacting with customers? Run a month-long competition to see who can get the most subscriptions, and offer a great prize to the winner, like a gift certificate or a paid day off.

8. Append an opt-in message to your sales receipts

Include a short message about your voice and text promotions every time the register rings.

9. Design a CallFire IVR to solicit opt-ins from customers who call your business

When customers call your business, add an option to your phone menu to subscribe to your list. Example: “Press 1 to receive discounts via text message, and Press 2 to speak to a representative.” When callers press 1, design your IVR to record the calls and prompt the caller to leave the cell phone number he’d like to subscribe. If you need help doing this, my colleague Ryan can show you how in this video.

10. Keep an online archive for reference

Once you’ve been doing voice or text broadcasts for a while, house some of your past deals somewhere on your website. Then, when prospective subscribers are considering  opting in, they will have a good idea of whether they’d benefit from your company’s messages. Visit “Past Deals” on LivingSocial if you need an example.

If you have your own tips to share, please do so in the comments. And if you have success with any of these suggestions, please share your stories too. Good luck with your marketing campaigns!

There’s a number of ways to learn about CallFire’s Cloud Call Center, such as joining our twice-weekly webinars or downloading this useful PDF, but if you want a demonstration on-demand, follow these simple steps:

1. Visit CallFire.com, and in the upper right-hand corner, click on “Agents Login.”

2. In the Campaign Name or ID field, type “CallFire demo” and scroll down to the demo most applicable to your business.

3. In the “Your Phone Number” field, type the 10-digit phone number you’d like to use for the demonstration. You can use any phone, like your cell phone or landline.

4. For the Campaign Passcode, type “demo” – all lowercase.

5. Enter your email address.

6. Select the kind of music you’d like to listen to in between calls, or choose “Silence” if you don’t want any.

7. Subscribe to our newsletter if you want more great tips on using CallFire.

8. Click “Next” in the lower right-hand corner. Your phone will ring with a pre-recorded message from CallFire, and once you press #, this message will give you your Agent ID number. Enter that number into the box.

9. The demo will walk you through the rest. You’ll see how each CallFire feature works, including call transfer, SmartDrop, and how to disposition each person’s answers.

by Kimberly Kohatsu

A number of customers have asked how they can use their CallFire phone numbers together with their Google AdWords campaigns. In the video below, I explain two ways to incorporate your call tracking phone numbers. The first is Phone Extensions, which you can read more about here. The second is simply adding the phone number to the Google ad text. Keep in mind if you choose to use a Phone Extension and you enable the “call-only” format, clicking on your ad will not bring the user to your mobile landing page; it will only give them the option to call your business.

If you add the phone number to your ad text, you probably also want to include a phone number on your landing page. This way, if someone clicks on your ad and then wants to call your business, they can.

Questions? Fire away in the comments section.

by Kimberly Kohatsu

“Wake up and get ready for class.”

If you’re a teenager, you might expect to hear this from your mom or dad. But from your principal?

That’s exactly what happened to 500 chronically tardy students at B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River, MA.

The goal is to have 95% of students in class before the first bell rings. Last year, Durfee reached 89% attendance, when the goal was set at 92%. Administrators note that they do not rely solely on the automated calls; some go so far as to knock on doors. “We’re looking to get whatever hooks the students,” Ross Thibault, Durfee’s vice principal, told Boston.com.

Durfee is just one of the many schools employing voice broadcast to combat absenteeism. In New York City, a campaign named “WakeUp!NYC” launched last month, where chronically absent students in 25 schools received automated calls from celebrities including Magic Johnson, Jose Reyes, Big Boi, Terrence J and Rosci, and Trey Songz. “To make it big,” Trey Songz warns, “you gotta go to school and get your education, just like I did. It’s the key to a better future, better job, better money, better life.”

“Through WakeUp! NYC we’re putting on a full-court press, using mass media and digital media to drive home the point that every student should be in school every day,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “It’s the next step in our efforts to cut absenteeism and put more students on the road to success, in school and in life.” Early results from the truancy program showed improvements in many participating schools. Elementary schools registered the largest improvement, with a collective 24% decrease in the number of absences. At Isaac Newton Middle School, the drop was nearly 39%. Among high schools, the High School for Teaching and the Professions in the Bronx showed the highest decline of 9%.

WakeUp!NYC is also including a “good news” component, where students will be congratulated by celebrity partners for strong or improved attendance, because research suggests celebrating improved attendance helps further improve attendance.

“We almost caused a stampede when we played the inspirational ‘stay-in-school’ messages from Trey Songz over the loudspeaker,” Camille Jacobs, assistant principal at Pathways College Preparatory School in Saint Albans, NY, said. “My students thought a celebrity was in the building and ran to the office to see him. It really seemed to make an impression on them!”

If you are interested in implementing a similar program for your school, district, or non-profit group, CallFire is an eager and enthusiastic partner. Our Voice Broadcast product makes it simple to upload a message and pre-schedule it to go out to a list of contacts. Call 877-897-FIRE to get started.

by Kimberly Kohatsu, Director of Marketing

** This is the first in an occasional series about optimizing your Google AdWords account. Since most of CallFire’s clientele is made up of small business owners, I hope to share my marketing expertise to help them become better marketers for their businesses. To keep up on future AdWords lessons, be sure to follow me on Twitter @CallFireMktg, like CallFire on Facebook, or subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed. **

I’ve consulted with a number of businesses about their Google AdWords accounts. Usually their first questions include, “Why aren’t my ads working?”, “What am I doing wrong?”, and, “I’m completely overwhelmed, help me!” Okay, that last one’s not a question, but I do hear it a lot. The fact of the matter is, Google can greatly increase your business’s revenue, but if you’re not using it correctly, it can quickly become a money pit.

I put together this video lesson to help you through what I consider the universal Step One. CHECK YOUR CAMPAIGN SETTINGS. These alone can help you better target your ads and save you from a lot of worthless clicks. I’ve also provided some additional resources below once you finish watching the video. Even if you ultimately contract someone to manage your AdWords account for you, it’s a good idea to know what to look for, so I truly hope these videos help. Feel free to leave questions in the comments and I’ll try to address them all in future episodes.

Location Settings:

Adwords Language and Location Targeting - Adwords Help

Google Search Network:

Info on the Google Search Network – keep in mind this post is from 2006.

Here’s the official explanation: “Ads are targeted based on a user’s search terms. For example, if you search for “Italian coffee” on a search engine powered by Google, such as AOL.com, you’ll see related coffee ads next to the search results.” The AdWords interface adds this:

“On the Search Network, ads are shown both on Google search results pages and the search results pages of other properties (Google’s search partners) within the Search Network. On our search partners, your ads may appear alongside or above search results, as part of a results page as a user navigates through a site’s directory, or on other relevant search pages.”

If you want to see what traffic the search network is giving you, go to your “Networks” tab on the AdWords interface and you’ll see it separated out between Google search (meaning Google proper) and the Search partners.

Bidding (another episode dedicated on bidding strategies to come)

Manual Bidding versus Automatic Bidding – AdWords Help

Ad Extensions

Ad Extensions – AdWords Help

You can check the performance of your extensions by navigating to the “Ad extensions” tab in the AdWords interface. In the sub-nav menu on the left, it will default to “Location Extensions,” but you can click any of the extension types and see its status, clicks, impressions, CTR, Avg CPC, Cost, and Avg Pos.

Product extensions require a Google Merchant Center account. Location extensions can work with a manually entered address, but are easier to manage if you have a Google Places account. It takes about 2 weeks to activate your account via postcard verification.

Ad Scheduling

Ad Scheduling – AdWords Help

by Kimberly Kohatsu

The protests in the Wisconsin state Capitol are now in their second week, and the political dialogue has gone beyond collective bargaining and the state budget. Now, there are calls for the recall of certain Wisconsin lawmakers.

Two national liberal political groups, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy for America (DFA), used CallFire’s Hosted IVR to send automated calls to 50,000 constituents in five Wisconsin state-senate districts.

Aimee Auer, a New London, WI schoolteacher, recorded the message, and it was uploaded into the CallFire interface. The voter interest poll was then programmed using CallFire’s drag-and-drop IVR Designer. Each keypad input is recorded for reporting, and listeners can be connected directly to their state senators office using a call transfer command. Listen to the result below:

Adam Green, co-founder of PCCC, sums up the strategy in three words: “Offense, offense, offense.” Green revealed to MSNBC that initial results of the calls show 59.7% of Republican voters would support recall efforts if the targeted state senators ultimately support Gov. Scott Walker’s bill, S.B.11. Green was able to see these survey results in real-time through CallFire’s campaign dashboard.

Michael Snook, Director of Targeting and Analytics for PCCC, noted, “CallFire made it possible for us to produce and deploy this effective advocacy campaign—quickly, and on budget. With CallFire’s simple, flexible XML environment, we were able to design a campaign that would connect with thousands of Wisconsin voters to voice their support for working families against Republican class warfare, and offer them the opportunity to connect directly with their elected officials.”

For a recall to be successful, petitioners must gather a number of signatures equal to 25% of the general electorate. If enough signatures are gathered, an election is held, and the official must run for his/her job again.

A conservative group, the American Patriot Recall Coalition, is also testing the waters for recall—except they are hoping to recall seven of the 14 Democratic state senators who fled the capitol in protest of Walker’s bill.

There are currently labor disputes in Ohio, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and even the NFL. Any of these political groups could use CallFire’s intuitive platform for voter outreach and education, volunteer phone banking, and text messaging campaigns. Watch CallFire’s CEO, Dinesh Ravishanker, explain how political campaigns have benefitted from using CallFire.

by Dinesh Ravishanker

Steve Krug does a great job communicating what he calls “A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.” The book was not only an easy read, but turned out to be a good reminder of web design basics. Krug delves knee-deep into basic usability but strays from tackling information layout practices and data visualization techniques. Nonetheless, Ed (CallFire’s lead UI Designer) and I took a weekend to rip through it. It should be noted, Don’t Make Me Think has over 540 customer reviews and a 4.5-star rating on Amazon.

I have been designing websites since high school. Mostly sites with my own with photos of friends, links to music, favorite websites and links to my design work. In time, I began designing websites for neighbors and family. At UC Irvine I helped design a flash video game complete with photoshop graphics of monkeys and flying bananas. Vijesh (our CTO) and I also designed TaxiJet – a flight management system. My first job out of college was with Unisys Corporation, where we designed an in-house website for source code management. Pete (our CIO) and I even designed the UI for many of our previously failed startups including BrainBuy. Later, I had a large hand in the branding, UI design and marketing strategy for DaisyView, AsteriskDialer and of course, CallFire. Long story short, I have designed quite a few sites, so I’m always a little skeptical whenever anyone claims to know anything about design or data visualization. That being said, here are a few things I learned from Mr. Krug: 

• 30%-40% of all browser clicks are the back button. Not surprising, but this statistic serves as a solid reminder that there is always room for design improvement. Users should feel like they’re making progress – not hunting.
• Convention is good. Designers and entrepreneurs often become carried away with novel design and incremental improvement. However, using standard conventions can augment speed and heighten a user’s sense of control. Dan (our VP of Engineering) and I recently battled over placing a “Filter” button next to a campaign filter text box. Despite AJAX-style filtering, Dan insisted we keep the button. I argued for a minimalist design – just the text field with light-grey text prompting the user to “begin typing to filter.” Convention won. Why? Little time to test and faith in Google. Despite the popularity of Google’s instant search, Google decided to keep the “Search” button. The lesson: when you can’t prove a hunch via R&D, lean on giants who have large usability budgets. (e.g. Google’s “search” button is probably there for a reason.)
  
• Capturing video is effective for usability testing. Never tried it. Now that we have Camtasia and Screenflow at the office, we’ll be recording how my 12-year old cousin performs common tasks on CallFire, like buying a phone number or creating a new campaign. 
• Successful companies use taglines. CallFire’s original tagline was composed by Pete. The tagline was “Make Contact.” Krug points out several well known brands that use tag lines, despite the fact that they’re household names. The tag lines further cement what your brand stands for. Time for a new one: “Phone Tools for Smart Business People,” perhaps?

The most complex UI I have worked on is Pfizer’s Informacare system – a HIPPA compliant Patient Health website used to manage chronic illness, electronic medical records and health outcomes reporting for large populations. The system was developed by one of the highest-caliber (and well-paid) teams of engineers, designers, researchers and physicians I have ever worked with. Not only did these interfaces touch millions of patients, clinicians and doctors throughout the United States – they were developed using rigorous UX testing, a 15-person QA team, agile-development processes, and countless focus groups. Needless to say, UI design has become second nature to me, but reading Krug’s book reminded me of the basics:

• Omit needless words. Enough said.
• Don’t just optimize for fewer clicks. Instead, optimize for ease-of-click (how easy is it to decide what to click vs. total clicks) which will eventually lead to time savings. Sometimes the non-optimal click solution is the optimal time-saving solution.
  
• Navigation should naturally communicate your user’s current state. User’s feel more in control and enjoy using interfaces that indicate their location within the system. Use color-coded tabs and controls whenever applicable and useful.
• Use tabs. They also work well when they’re color-coded, cleverly named and easy to read.
• Usability testing is essential. As smart as we all think we are, you’ll learn the most by watching children, at-home dads, power users, and the elderly pound away at your UI.
• Focus groups are not usability tests. Customers can tell you what they want all day long but rarely does that feedback directly result in good design decisions. Listen carefully and make design decisions based on usability tests, not irate feedback.

Krug discusses consumer-facing websites in detail. He hit on the nuances of developing e-commerce websites, the importance of breadcrumbs, navigation and search. I found he could have spent a little more time discussing dashboards and views. We often struggle with finding the right way to view a large set of call data. Since this data is numeric in nature, our customers often require the display of statistics and data visualizations that they find useful.

Ed also pointed out that Krug stresses the need to omit needless words but might want to dedicate more time on omitting needless information. He believes less clutter makes for a more focused user. Many of Krug’s examples are based on data-centric sites but forgoes using any simple websites. A good comparison would be Google’s one-field layout vs. Yahoo’s content-heavy homepage. Ed also had hoped Krug would provide a list of the best sites for user experience, beyond the popular websites he reviewed. Krug lightly hits on the idea that logo design, colors and beauty are important to increasing customer “goodwill”. Though beauty is difficult to quantify, it would have been nice to see some data that supported his theories.

4/5 stars.

by Jeff Spisak

Have you noticed that the phone number of the contact you are calling is missing from the agent popup window? Why is that? Well, basically it’s by design.  Some users do not want their agents to see the number being dialed, so CallFire hides this number. We do this by not displaying the Excel column of numbers you click when you are adding numbers to your campaign. So if you do want to show the phone number in your popup, you simply have to include the list of numbers in a second column. Look at the following example:

You see we’ve just copied the phone numbers into column B.  So now when we upload numbers into our campaign, and choose column A for the numbers, the system will hide column A, as designed. But since column B is a carbon copy, these numbers will display in the agent popup, along with the contact’s name, company, and title. And that’s all there is to know.