CallFire

by Natalia Klishina

Instead of watching the royal wedding, we here at CallFire have been following the devastating events in the American South. Nearly 300 people are dead across six states (213 of those in Alabama), and thousands more have been injured. People’s homes, belongings, and entire lives have been destroyed in a matter of a couple of days. Now that the tornadoes have passed through and search and rescue operations begin to wind down, it is time to start focusing on recovery. With infrastructure and communications completely disrupted, it will be difficult to handle donations and volunteers right away, but we are hoping to make the effort easier.

CallFire is proud to be helping United Way of Central Alabama (UWCA) reach out to their volunteers. Having worked in various capacities with emergency relief organizations in the past, we will be providing free voice broadcast services for UWCA’s tornado-relief efforts. These broadcasts will help officials contact their growing list of volunteers (currently already at 5,000). Once volunteers are allowed into affected areas, UWCA will inform them about when and where to meet and give them specific instructions. Volunteers will be helping with anything from interpreting, to cleanup, to counseling, to handing out food and water at food pantries. Our Senior Consultant Bill Hughes, who has assisted many of our emergency partners in the past, is working with James Wine of United Way of Central Alabama to help make these broadcasts possible.

United Way is a “a volunteer-led, nonprofit organization that seeks and addresses key health and human service issues, is accountable for stewardship of resources and is accountable for short-term and long-term results.” United Way of Central Alabama is currently working with agencies like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army to “be on the frontline of the tornado relief effort” in the South — helping organize both donations and volunteers. As a whole, United Way strives to improve lives by “mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good.” They have set for themselves admirably ambitious goals in improving education, helping people achieve financial stability, and promoting healthy lives.

For those of you who wish to help, whether by donating or volunteering, here is what you can do:

• Visit the United Way of Central Alabama website and donate or sign up to volunteer (please expect occasional down time as servers become overloaded).
• If the above volunteering link is down, visit Serve Alabama — the Alabama Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
• Go to the United Way blog to see details for mobile giving. For example, you can text SUPPORT to 27722 to give $10 to United Way of Russell and Washington Counties, or text TORNADO to 50555 to give $10 to United Way of Central Alabama.
• Call 211 for information and ways to volunteer.

For more information on the tornadoes, please visit the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD).


We offer our deepest sympathies to everyone affected by this disaster, and we thank James Wine for reaching out to us so that we could be a part of the relief effort.
- The CallFire Team

by Kimberly Kohatsu, Director of Marketing

Last night, Dinesh and I attended a demo night of seven LA startups. It was a lively crowd at the VLounge in Santa Monica, and a meetup organized by the LA “Future Billionaires.” Though we’re both sociable people, neither Dinesh nor I is really the type to approach someone cold and strike up a conversation. Luckily for us, other people are, and we met quite a few interesting ones, at all different stages of business, and doing all sorts of cool things.

So why do we force ourselves to go to these events, where we’re out of our comfort zone and generally awkward? It’s simple.

We both like scotch.

But that’s not it. The truth: Almost every big deal we’ve ever landed, or important business relationship we’ve made, has come from a networking event.

There’s something about a face-to-face interaction that no marketing campaign, cold call, or landing page can ever match. When you meet a person, you can see their passion, you can ask them questions, and you can put a face to an idea. Your conversation, though it may sometimes feel forced, can more often lead you down new paths. For example, we met someone last night developing an iPhone application. When he told us about it, it seemed like the same application could be marketed two ways… once towards serious business people, and again towards serial daters (PlayaApp was the name we suggested, watch out for it). Would this developer have ever arrived there without meeting us? Perhaps. But… perhaps not. Each interaction is a new possibility.

Two weeks ago, Dinesh spent 5 days on a cruise ship with the Roots, Sophia Bush, Richard Branson, and some amazing philanthropists from Mexico at Summit at Sea. Poor him, right? He heard speeches, ate fancy dinners, and learned to make fire from wood and dead animal skin. But aside from all that, he also found potential new customers, some new opportunities (the G20 summit, WHAT?), and some potential celebrity partners for a business development project we’re working on. Who’d have ever guessed all that?

You just never know when you’ll encounter someone who will ignite a new idea, someone who wants to develop a partnership, or someone who needs exactly what it is that you offer. And the more people you meet, the more you up your chances of something amazing happening.

That’s precisely why CallFire has been so active lately with event sponsorships and attendance. We were at Twiistup, Startup Weekend LA, Spotlight:LA Tech, and Gov 2.0, to name a few. In August, we’re sponsoring Dreamforce in San Francisco. (and if you’ll be there, use discount code ECMCALLFR to get $100 off)

And now, we’ve done the ultimate: we’re holding our very own CallFire conference. We’re calling it Biz2Beach, and it’s shaping up to be incredibly exciting. The speakers include leaders from Klout, Myspace, and BetterWorks, and the guest list has company founders and high-level executives ranging in business size, scope, and industry. The response thus far has been tremendous.

If your business wants to grow, I encourage you to request an invitation to Biz2Beach, and see what incredible things might happen as a result of the people you’ll meet. I won’t even venture to guess what the networking will lead to, because from everything I’ve seen, the reality is so much better than I could have imagined.

This last Wednesday, April 20th, CallFire hosted a webinar with the help of TMCNet titled “SMS, Voice & Video Mobile Messaging for Small Businesses.” The webinar focused on how companies can utilize CallFire to market their business and get results through the simple, yet powerful, communication method of mobile messaging.

We had a total of 459 registrants, 117 live unique users, and 32 on-demand users just since the webinar has been uploaded. TMCNet has also received quite a few emails inquiring about an archived version of the webinar, so we’re sure to get more on-demand views. You, too, should WATCH THE RECORDED WEBINAR.

A few of the attendees called our sales line the following day and mentioned how much they enjoyed receiving the reminder text message prior the start of the webinar and the interactive poll questions. In the second poll question, it was pleasantly surprising to see that the number of attendees who use a smartphone topped out at 90%. This echoes the Nielsen projections that smartphone adoption is increasing at an increasing rate each quarter. Additionally, such a figure would make any business owner excited about the potential success of a mobile marketing campaign. Here are the results of our 2 polls:

If you want to just flip through the slideshow without watching the recorded webinar, just click through the following embedded SlideShare presentation.

Tonight, President Obama visited Southern California. He stopped off at Sony Pictures in Culver City, near where our designer Ed To lives. He’s at the end of this KTLA clip. Unfortunately, the camera cropped out his awesome CallFire t-shirt

Sometimes we at CallFire speak our own language. Hopefully this article acts as a Rosetta stone for all your calling needs.

Admin/Admin Login – An admin (administrator) is the CallFire account holder. The admin login is where you create and manage all your campaigns, whether they be Voice Broadcast, Cloud Call Center, IVR, buying phone numbers, or SMS.

Agent/Agent Login – An agent is solely for Cloud Call Center campaigns. An agent is a person actively making the outbound calls. You’ll use the agent login to begin dialing on a campaign that was already created by the admin user.

Agent Barge – Agent barge is a quality control measure that allows an admin to barge, or listen in on, calls as they’re being made by the agents.

Agent ID – The agent ID is a number assigned by CallFire each time an agent begins dialing through the Cloud Call Center. Once the agent inputs the correct agent ID, the agent pop-up window with the campaign script will appear, and the system will begin dialing.

Analytics Tag – This advanced IVR function sends a page-view that will be factored in to Google Analytics.

Answering Machine Detection (AMD) – The AMD capability will determine whether the call has been answered by a live person, or by a machine. When AMD is enabled, you can program your campaign to treat live answers and answering machines differently, such as hanging up and moving on the next call or leaving a message.

API – Application Programming Interface. This is coder speak for our software code that allows a developer to integrate other software into CallFire, or to build custom software.

API Key – This is a code that grants a developer access to the CallFire API. You can find your unique API key in your account settings.

Autodialer – The autodialer is what makes the Cloud Call Center so powerful. It does the dialing for you, so there’s no dialing by hand.

Autoresponder/Auto-reply – An autoresponder is a text message that is sent automatically in response to an incoming text.

Call Ratio – This is the ratio of numbers dialed at a time to a single agent. For instance, a 1:1 ratio means that each agent’s autodialer is only dialing one number at a time. A 2:1 ratio means that the autodialer is dialing two numbers at a time, and will connect the agent to the first live answer. A higher calling ratio helps get through a list more efficiently; it decreases time between calls and ups the possibility of connecting to live leads.

Call Transfer – A call transfer is the ability for an agent to forward a call to a supervisor or other party. All he/she has to do is input the 10-digit phone number into the agent interface and the call will be routed accordingly.

CPM – Calls per Minute. This is the rate at which Voice Broadcast calls go out. By default, broadcasts are processed at 50 calls per minute, but this can be adjusted in your campaign dashboard.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management. You can integrate your CallFire campaigns with certain CRM providers, such as SalesForce, using our API.

DID Number – Direct Inward Dial Number. DID Number is basically an industry term for a phone number.

DNC - Do Not Call. There are two different DNC lists: the Federal Do Not Call List, against which you should scrub your list prior to uploading your contacts. Then you also have an internal CallFire DNC list, which allows people you call to unsubscribe from future calls.

DTMF – Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency, also known as touch-tone. DTMF assigns a different touchtone to each key on the telephone keypad, so it can distinguish one keypad input from another.

Get Tag – This IVR command calls any URL or http request from your IVR.

Google Talk Tag - This IVR command will automatically initiate an instant message to your Google account.

Goto Tag – This tells your IVR to go to a certain part of your phone tree. For instance, you might have a sound file that reads, “Press 4 to repeat the options.” Upon pressing 4, the Goto tag would repeat the part of your IVR that you had already programmed.

Goto XML Tag – This advanced IVR command calls the specified URL and executes the returned CallFire XML.

Hangup Tag – The hangup tag tells your IVR to hang up and end the call.

Hosted IVR – A hosted IVR is a phone menu that does not require any hardware or special equipment, such as an on-premises PBX (private branch exchange). It’s hosted because it’s housed in the cloud.

If Tag – This advanced IVR command evaluates a javascript expression and reacts accordingly whether the expression is true or false.

Inbound – A call initiated from someone else, coming in to your line.

IVR - Interactive Voice Response. An IVR is essentially a phone menu, or a phone tree. It’s programmed to react to keypad inputs.

Keyword – For an SMS campaign, a keyword is the word that is texted. For instance, when the Red Cross says, “Text JAPAN to 50555,” JAPAN is the keyword, and 50555 is the short code. Keywords will be available on CallFire SMS campaigns beginning summer 2011.

Key Press – This command tells your IVR what to do once a digit on the telephone keypad is pressed.

Live Answer – A person who answers the phone, as opposed to an answering machine.

Long Code – A 10-digit phone number that can send and receive texts.

MachineSkip - This feature detects answering machines, and filters them out of your Cloud Call Center campaigns. When it detects an answering machine, it will automatically leave a pre-recorded message, so your agent doesn’t have to do a thing. The MachineSkip feature is available on the Standard- and Pro-level campaigns.

Max Transfer Rate – The maximum number of transfers your Voice Broadcast campaign will allow at any given time; when the maximum is reached, the broadcasts will pause until your campaign returns below the maximum.

Outbound – A call initiated by you to one of your contacts.

Passcode – The campaign passcode is the password that the admin assigns to access a Cloud Call Center campaign.

Phonebook – A phonebook is a contact phone list maintained in your CallFire account. Watch this video to learn more about working with phonebooks.

Play Tag – This IVR command plays an assigned sound file or performs text-to-speech.

Press-1 Transfer – During a Voice Broadcast, if a press-1 transfer is enabled, the called person can press 1 and be connected to your business. You can also assign a different keypress to transfer your calls, but the capability is generally referred to as “press-1″ anyway.

Press Menu – This IVR command prompts the caller with several options, for instance, “Press 1 for our address, Press 2 to speak to someone in Sales.” You’ll need at least one “Play” menu to present these options.

Power Dialer – The Power Dialer is what makes CallFire’s Voice Broadcasting capability so powerful. It has the ability to dial thousands of numbers, all at once.

Record Tag – This IVR command records the remainder of the call, or will begin recording with a beep and stop by pressing pound (#). When you record a message using CallFire’s Voice Recording Utility, our IVR is using the Record Tag, in conjunction with the advanced Stash and Get tags. You can see a video demonstration of the Record Tag here.

SAN Number - Subscription Account Number. Telemarketers may need to obtain a SAN from the Federal Trade Commission in order to call consumers legally. Click here to find out how to get a SAN.

SetVar Tag – (Set Variable) This advanced IVR command creates a variable which can be used later.

Short Code – A 5- or 6-digit number that can send and receive texts.

SmartDrop – During a Cloud Call Center campaign, the agent can press the SmartDrop button on the interface, and it will leave a pre-recorded message for the answering machine. The agent does not have to wait for the beep or speak into the voicemail; this allows the agent to move on to the next call.

SMS - Short Message Service. An SMS is a text message.

Stash Tag – This advanced IVR tag stores the varname (variable name) and value in the call details report in your CallFire account. See a video demonstration of the Stash tag here and here.

Subset Campaign - A subset campaign duplicates all the settings of an original campaign, but applies it to just part of a phonebook. For instance, you might want to run a subset campaign to call back the portion of your contact list who did not receive your original message. This video will show you how to set up a subset campaign.

Tag - A tag can refer to an IVR command, such as a play tag or a record tag, but when used by itself, it generally means what’s found on the “My Numbers” page. Tags can be useful to help you keep your phone numbers straight. For instance, if you put one phone number on a magazine ad, and a different phone number on your website, you may want to tag each respective number “magazine” and “website.”

Text-to-Speech (TTS) - The text-to-speech engine allows you to program voice prompts on the fly. For instance, if you wanted your IVR to read an individual’s account number, you would use CallFire’s text-to-speech capability.

Transfer Tag – This IVR command connects the active call to a specified phone number. For instance, a political campaign might use a transfer tag to connect the call to a voter’s congressional office.

Voice Broadcast- Voice Broadcast is a type of CallFire campaign that allows you to send a pre-recorded phone message to your contacts. Learn more about Voice Broadcast here.

VoIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol. VoIP is a kind of technology that allows calls to be connected over the internet. However, CallFire VoIP should not be confused with residential VoIP such as Skype or Vonage; we offer an enterprise-level, redundant, fiber-based platform for better reliability and call quality.

Whisper – A whisper is a short message that will be played before an incoming call is connected. This can help you better serve your incoming calls. For instance, if you have one phone number assigned for real estate properties for sale, and one phone number assigned for people who want to sell their real estate, you can set a whisper that will tell you “This call is regarding properties for sale,” before you greet the caller. You can enable the Whisper feature on your “My Numbers” page in your CallFire account.

White Label Program – CallFire’s White Label Program allows approved vendors to re-sell CallFire products using their own branding. An improved version of the White Label Program will be unveiled in late 2011.

by Natalia Klishina

Just in December, I wrote an article about how “passion fuels growth” here at CallFire, saying that we had expanded our staff by nearly 30% in the last quarter of 2010 alone, and that we didn’t plan to stop. Well, we sure haven’t. Since then, we’ve hired Daniel, as well as three more recent additions (and we’re also currently interviewing UX Designers). So without further ado, welcome to Lezlie, Shannon, and Adam:

Lezlie Wheeler

Lezlie just joined us as what she’s termed our “Financial Janitor.” She’s basically helping us with all that financial and accounting stuff none of the rest of us know anything about. She’s originally from Buffalo, NY (I wonder if the world seems to move slower for her here in Santa Monica), with a BS in Accounting from Fordham University. Among her previous experiences, she’s worked for Do Something, a national not-for-profit organization that empowered young people to change the world. When she was little, though, she wanted to be president of the USA — “obviously” (I don’t know, sounds like a hard job to me). Lezlie is an avid texas hold ‘em player, and she loves traveling and biking. She says the most amazing trip she’s taken (so far) is throughout Morocco from the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara. And if she could be a dog, she says she would be a Jack Russel Terrier, because they have a ton of energy. (I don’t know… our boss’s JRT is pretty crazy… this might not bode well.)

Shannon Donohue

Shannon just joined us as a part-time sales account associate. She is currently a student at UCLA, majoring in Linguistics and French, and minoring in Language Teaching. She was born right here in Santa Monica, just a few blocks from our CallFire offices, and went to Santa Monica High. I think she gets the prize for being the true local here at the office. Shannon owns an American Eskimo dog named Mama, and we can’t wait to see her fluffy little face at the office. Shannon went to Paris two years ago, where she met her husband (whom she married just this past March), so she also probably wins for “cutest story” — or “sickeningly sweet,” depending on how you want to look at it.

Adam Keeney

Adam joined us as what is officially an “API developer,” but he will also function as a consultant to our API customers. Before CallFire, Adam has professionally written software in the fields of non-contact metrology (measuring stuff with cameras and lasers) and investment research. Adam is a Massachusetts native who has spent most of his life in the San Fernando Valley (LA) and who is full of surprises. For example, until now I didn’t know that at one time he studied music and composition at CalArts, that he spent six months in Bali studying traditional Indonesian music, and that he loves the music of J.S. Bach so much that after college he started a rock band called “The J.S. Bach Experience” that performed only Johann’s music. Adam also knows how to ride a unicycle, which I am sure is an invaluable skill. If he could be a dog, he says he would be a Kintamani: they are short, have bad tempers, and are very loyal. And when he was little, he wanted to be a construction worker, but clearly that didn’t work out for him.

Please welcome our new team members. I’m sure you’ll see even more introductions on here soon. Let us know if you have any acquaintances who’d fit out UX Designer position.

by Dinesh Ravishanker

A lot has been said about the value of position preference in Adwords. Our Marketing Director (Kim) and I have differences in opinion of the value of Google’s position preference feature for search campaigns. I think it’s important, and she doesn’t.  For those that don’t know, this feature allows advertisers to set a display range for ad positions on the Google search results page.

For example, if you were to search for “Mass SMS Text Messaging”, you may see this:

CallFire, Trumpia and EZTexting appear as the top 3 bids.  Lets assume that EZTexting sets a position preference of [1 to 3]. If another advertiser bids higher than EZTexting’s max bid, without an automated rule, EZTexting’s ad may not appear again until their own bid is raised greater than the other 3. This saves the advertiser money if they have a lower conversion rate at lower positions. In my experience, position preference is also an easy way for advertisers to build brand associations with certain keywords, at a price the advertiser is willing to pay. This may not be what the feature was intended for, but now advertisers must jump through various hoops to replicate the same behavior. Advertisers may even have to use “automated rules” – a feature that does a lot, but is most often advertised as a tool to increase bids automatically. Google hasn’t stated what percentage of users are likely to see an increase in campaign spend, but I’m hopeful that our conversions will increase regardless, as Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, expects.

So why would GOOG remove the feature?

After all, changing a user’s experience usually makes for angry users. And who worse to make angry than online marketers? My guess is that this change had two drivers: simplicity and profitability. By disallowing position preference, Google’s algorithm is increasingly simple – your ad shows wherever its bid takes it. Reducing algorithm complexity could be a competitive advantage and can inexplicably create greater efficiencies. The second driver, as is for most public companies, is profitability. This announcement came shorty after Q1’s end. And since Google must please its shareholders, my hunch is that Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, had the luxury of running advanced statistical modeling and some fancy regression testing to determine that killing this feature would have an immense impact on Google’s bottom line. I’m guessing Google’s Q2 2011 earnings will show serious growth. Google’s stock price jumped a tad after the announcement, but nothing noteworthy as of yet.

Reactions from Marketers

Brad Libby comments on SearchEngineLand’s article, “Quality Score calculations account for position. An ad’s position does not affect your QS, even if reducing the position [lowers a campaign’s] CTR,” in support of rescinding position preference. Google is likely to see an increase in available ad volume for any given search query. By reducing display restrictions the set of ads that can be displayed will likely increase, especially if advertisers don’t jump on the automated rules feature. This change also offers users a less cluttered user experience.

April Riddle’s comment on SearchEngineLand’s article: “Usability studies have shown within those zones where the eyes move, and they are to positions 1-4. There is no amount of crack you could have me smoke and expect to believe my ad will perform as well in position eight as it does in the coveted 1-4. Now I have to set up rules and hope they work, but if they don’t I have no guarantee my ad simply will not show if it is not in the coveted spot… I will have more impressions coming without position targeting, and thus lower [CTR rates].” Obviously, April isn’t so happy with the change.

What can advertisers do?

a) Lower your bids. This will likely save advertisers money but will decrease overall conversion rates (assuming Hal’s right).

b) Setup Automated Rules. (here’s how) These guys let you make bid & budget changes to keywords (and ad groups / campaigns) based on observed position. The down side – oftentimes this will automatically increase your bids and many advertisers will not set up these campaigns correctly which will allow bids to rise to the next default maximum bid cap. (I have many campaigns for which this is a non-optimal solution and I’d be paying much more than I’d previously be willing.)

c) Don’t do anything. Ignorance is bliss, right?  Just pretend the feature never existed in the first place and make the best of it. I suspect many advertisers won’t update their campaigns – which will end up costing advertisers incrementally more. But assuming Hal’s right, you will increase your overall conversion rate.

We support Google’s changes for now but I’ll report back with our campaign expenditure results in the coming months.

With the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, you’ve no doubt seen or heard calls to text a word to a short code (such as “Text JAPAN to 50555″), and a donation will automatically be added to your cell phone bill. To date, over $2 million has been raised via this single mobile giving campaign.

Because CallFire is always looking for ways to add value for our customers (not to mention we like being able to do good deeds), we’re taking names for religious organizations or 501(c)3 non-profits to join our exclusive text-to-donate beta. At this time, only these kinds of groups qualify for mobile donation programs.

If you’re a church, alumni organization, or caused-based group, mobile giving is an effective way to encourage small donations. It’s fast and simple for both your organization and the donor—no writing checks, filling out forms, sending back an envelope, or the like. But speaking of forms, fill out this simple one below and someone from CallFire will contact you shortly.

There will be more exciting updates to CallFire in the coming weeks, and we can’t wait to share them with all of you. Our team has been hard at work adding more features and reporting tools, all the while making CallFire simpler to use. Stay tuned.

UPDATE, 4/28/2011: