CallFire

by Natalia Klishina

The last one was slacking off tweeting as the dog. Just kidding. Designing CallFire 3.0 is proving to be a project for more than one designer, since it’s going to completely revamp our dashboard — making it spiffy and sparkly and bursting with unicorns and rainbows. (No, but really, it’s going to be amazing.)

So to help us with wrangling unicorns, we have hired Jenny McClaine.

No, that’s not a picture of Jenny. It’s a painting she did in high school. Now if it only had a horn…

Jenny has worked for a variety of well-known (and not-so-well-know) companies such as The Orange County Register, Western Digital, and Rent.com, just to name a few. One of her more notable accomplishments, and her all-time favorite job as a web developer, was her enterprise portal design work for Causeway Collaboration. Not only did it involve a couple of trips to the UK, but it also won several awards at its unveiling in November of 2001. Her most recent project before CallFire was to design a web application for a small Hollywood-based startup currently in its beta, to be used by the movie and TV production industries.

Jenny is from Palms, CA and has lived in or around LA County most of her life (she spent a brief period of time on the Oregon coast). She is an artist at heart (as you can see above), and in her free time enjoys painting, sculpting, stained glass, ceramics, photography, landscaping, and anything else related to design. She also restores damaged items, and is currently working on a project to restore an alabaster Egyptian statue replica that’s missing an arm. Her non-art-related hobbies include hiking and keeping up-to-date with NASA exploration projects and the cosmos.

Fun fact: Jenny just started authoring a fiction book this year.

How do we know that she’ll fit in at CallFire (other than her being good at her job)? She’s got two awesome dogs:

by Kimberly Kohatsu

First, there’s the Mayans. Then, there’s the billboards. And if none of that bothers you, there’s climate change. Whatever is going on, there seems to be a lot of talk about the end of the world in 2012. So, *just in case*, here’s a couple ways CallFire can help you maximize the (limited?) days you have left.

Send a Goodbye Voice Broadcast

You know a lot of people, but you don’t have a lot of time. At least not enough to call them each individually. So get on the phone and record a message just once, and send it out to your whole contact list. This video will show you how. Don’t worry, it’s only 5 minutes. We realize time is ticking.

When you record your voice broadcast, feel free to use this script, or alter it as necessary.

Hello. This is [ your name ].
As a precaution to the world’s end [ on Saturday / in December / when the zombies attack ],
I just wanted to let you know that… [ I love you / I hate you / I'm sorry for... / I haven't forgotten that one time when you... ].
As this may be the last time you hear from me, I hope the one thing you’ll remember is that [ I loved you in this world, and I'll love you in the next / I hope we're not going to the same place / I told you so / I've sent the pictures to everyone ].
I’ll always think of you as [ my one true love / my friend / my partner / my mortal enemy ] even though [ you don't feel the same way / your family would never approve / I've only ever talked to you in internet forums ]
With this message, I bid you a final [ adieu / fond farewell / extended middle finger / goodbye ]

Your message will be sent at a rate of 50 calls per minute, which should be fast enough to reach everyone you know in time.

But what about the people to whom you want to bid farewell personally?

Aha! CallFire has a solution for that too. Because with only a few days left, do you really want to spend them dialing numbers, and trying to remember what you need to say? Of course not. This is a serious matter.

For this, CallFire has an end-of-the-world remedy: the Cloud Call Center. But in case there’s any confusion, we’re not talking about *those* clouds—this isn’t a direct line to the heavens. It’s calling through the clouds, and dialing auto-magically. Watch here:

Now, let’s think about this script a little more carefully. The beauty of the Cloud Call Center is you can customize your scripts with multiple-choice questions and open-answer text fields. So perhaps you’ll want to set something up like this:

Now as you make your calls, you’ll have a guide. And you can take notes should you need to take any follow-up actions, such as offline retribution, or sending a nice bouquet.

But what happens if the world doesn’t end?

Wouldn’t you know, CallFire has a solution for that as well. It’s called an SMS Broadcast, or the “Oops, my bad” text message. Watch how:

Best of all, you can pre-schedule your text, so if you’re locked in a bunker and can’t get to your CallFire account, everything is all set to go… just in case.

* This blog post is meant to be satirical. If you intend to use CallFire, you may only message opt-in clients. Please consult an attorney to familiarize yourself with local, state and federal telecommunications guidelines. More information on Telecom Compliance can be found on our website. Please dial responsibly. Thank you. *

by Natalia Klishina

Yesterday, the CallFire marketing team decided to head to Pourtal Wine Tasting Bar right off the Santa Monica Promenade as part of our All-Night-Monday tradition. For those of you wondering what that is, it’s pretty simple. Santa Monica is home to at least 5 places that I’ve discovered have all-night happy hours on Mondays (and Pourtal is one of them). It sure makes starting off the week more fun. But back to the topic at hand…

Welcome to the perfect wine tasting bar for all you gadget lovers and wine-swilling techies. Pourtal’s website describes an “innovative Enomatic system,” which is basically code for “arcade-like wine-drinking playground for adults.” You throw some cash on a card that gets loaded with credit, and then you run around like a kid in a candy store, pressing buttons to get wine to pour from spouts. Any credit you have left over, you can load back on your credit card. But who are we kidding here?

Too tired or too old to run around like a kid in a candy store (pffft)? Never fear. Pourtal also serves 30+ wines by the glass, as well as great hors d’ouvres to pair with them.

The prices are about $2-$4 for a taste, depending on the wine, and the selection of 40 different wines is always changing. They have some really interesting wines, too. I tried a Cab from Montenegro and another red from Hungary, and happily shuffled off home with a bag containing a bottle of the latter.

Pourtal also gets bonus points for:

1) Having an amazing, helpful, friendly staff. (Thanks Kasey!)
2) Really taking advantage of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. They lured us in by tweeting at us while we were at our first stop of #allnightmonday.
3) Giving $15 off bottles you buy to go (what wine store will do this for you?).
4) Supporting charities. 15% of proceeds from Monday tastings go towards a charity, which switches every 2 weeks. It’s why it’s called “Angel Shares Happy Hour.”
5) Also, I believe I mentioned this, but it deserves another mention: Monday’s happy hour goes all night (until 10pm).
6) Having cool events, like Bike From Work Happy Hour on Thursday, May 19th. And we here at CallFire know techies love bikes (half the team rode 100 miles in the Solvang Century earlier this Spring, and the rest of us went wine tasting — hmmm, how wonderfully appropriate).

So if you’re a techie in LA, or even if you’re not a techie but you love wine, check out Pourtal. If it’s a Monday night, you might even run into us there. Say hi and let us explain the wonders of cloud telephony (we get increasingly eloquent as the night goes on).

by Kimberly Kohatsu

We get a lot of questions around how our local and toll-free phone numbers work. Hopefully this post helps to answer them.

Billing

A local phone number costs $1 per month, and a toll-free number costs $2 per month. When you buy a phone number from us, you have that number for a three-month commitment, so your initial cost will be $3 for local and $6 for toll-free. The CallFire system defaults to auto-renew the phone number once your commitment is over; however, should you wish to discontinue the phone number, you can do so by clicking on the phone number in your “My Numbers” (also called “Inbound Numbers”) page, and unchecking the box that says “Auto Renew number.”

Minutes used on your CallFire phone number are billed at 5¢ per minute, rounded up to the nearest minute.

Activation

When you first purchase a phone number, its status will initially read “Activating.” This process can take anywhere from just a few minutes up to 24 hours. While the number is activating, your phone number is not yet ready to accept calls. When the number is active and ready, the status of that number will be blank, and you should receive an email notification telling you the number has been activated.

Forwarding

When you buy a phone number from CallFire, it’s what’s known as a virtual phone number. This means that you’ll need an existing phone number, such as your office phone or your cell phone, for calls to forward to. You will set up call forwarding by clicking on “Configure Number” in your “My Numbers” page. In the box that says “Forward:,” type in your 10-digit existing phone number where you want the calls to go.

Recording Feature and Whisper Feature

If you check on “Record Call,” all incoming calls to your CallFire number will be recorded at no extra cost. You can listen to or download your recordings by visiting your Call Details Page.

If you check “Include Whisper” on your number, this means you can play a short message before the call is connected. This is helpful if you have several CallFire phone numbers that forward to the same place. Let’s say you’re a lawyer, and one of your ads with CallFire phone number 1 is focused on speeding tickets, but another ad with CallFire phone number 2 is focused on DUI cases. You could set a whisper so that you’ll know which ad the person calling is responding to.

To set up a whisper, simply type in a message. Our text-to-speech engine will read this to you before you greet the caller.

Like call recording, the whisper feature is also free of charge.

Tags

You’ll notice that on your “My Numbers” page, it says, “Click to Add Tags.”

Like a whisper, a tag will help you keep your numbers straight. So let’s use the previous lawyer example. If this phone number was on the ad regarding speeding tickets, you’d probably want to tag it with “Speeding Tickets,” like so:

This will make your calling reports much easier to understand.

Start Receiving Calls

When you’re all set up and want to start publishing your new CallFire phone number, don’t forget to configure your number to start receiving calls! To do so, simply check the box to the left of the phone number and click on Start Receiving Calls. Similarly, if you want to stop incoming calls, hit “Stop Receiving Calls.” The status of your phone number will change to either “Running” or “Stopped,” respectively.

Reporting

Once you start receiving calls to your phone number, you’ll be able to access your Call Detail Records. These records include helpful details such as:

• A map pinpointing where your calls are coming from
• The phone numbers of people who called
• Average talk time
• Timestamp of when each call started, and each call’s duration
• How many calls were transferred (or forwarded to your existing phone number)
• Billing Summary
• Each page is also exportable into CSV, PDF, Excel, or XML

Any more questions about Call Tracking or CallFire phone numbers? Feel free to post them in the comments.

by Natalia Klishina

We’re always trying to help our customers improve their marketing strategies and stay informed, so here are a few mobile marketing trends I’ve been reading about lately — as well as one overall trend I thought was very interesting.

PEOPLE DON’T LIKE TO TALK ON THE PHONE ANYMORE.

According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years. Why? Phone calls seem rude and intrusive; they always catch people at the worst time, and then they just end up ignoring them. They’re also awkward — if not for everyone, then at least for a significant part of the population who, like me, prefer to communicate in text form (e-mail, instant messaging, SMS) with everyone but their mother. Even though I sit a few feet away from my boss at work, we still sometimes communicate over GChat instant messages. And while I have absolutely no problem sticking to the minimum-minutes plan on my cellphone contract, I definitely need the unlimited data/messaging. Most people with a smartphone are, like me, using it for texting and social networking more so than actual phone calls. Marketers need to be aware of this trend and take advantage of SMS marketing opportunities. And since SMS tends to be a more personal form of communication, content has to be more personalized now.

IT’S NO LONGER JUST A “CAMPAIGN.”

According to the GM of Global Research at Experian, “Leading brands are no longer seeking SMS for campaigns — they are seeking ways to build mobile communities, create loyalty programs and facilitate geo-specific shopping alerts.” Campaigns are now just a means to collect opted-in customers. After that comes the hard part. Companies have to engage — to find a way to make it a two-way communication. Not only that, but they also have to view SMS as a part of their overall engagement strategy, integrating it with regular marketing and social media channels.

PEOPLE ARE OK WITH PUSHED MOBILE CONTENT, BUT THEY STILL NEED VALUE.

According to the GM of Global Research at Experian, “Consumers are becoming more amenable to mobile marketing and advertising.” This is because they’re finding it valuable as companies provide promotion info, special offers, and coupons. Even I finally relented and agreed to have Express have my phone number yesterday so that they could send me special deals. When businesses provide customers a good enough incentive to allow them to communicate via SMS, they are increasingly likely to be interested. So don’t just blast out generic advertisements; include a value proposition.

IT’S ALL ABOUT SOCIAL NETWORKS.

Just take a look at this great briefing by TrendWatching.com on what they’ve termed “The F-Factor”: Consumers are increasingly tapping into their networks of friends, fans, and followers to discover, discuss and purchase good and services, in ever-more sophisticated ways. People are recommending products and services to their friends every day, whether through a social networking site or direct communication. This is the most powerful resource you could possibly tap into in terms of acquiring new customers. So whatever mobile marketing campaign you’re engaging in, don’t forget to ask your customers to recommend you to their friends, to “like” you on Facebook, to Tweet about you, etc. And reward them for it.

IT’S HARD TO TRUST ANYONE THESE DAYS.

This one applies to more general marketing strategies, not just mobile, but I wanted to include it anyway. People are growing increasingly tired of the current corporate climate, giving rise to “Generation G.” “Disgusted with big, arrogant, sloppy and out of touch institutions, fed-up consumers around the world increasingly expect businesses to be socially, ethically and environmentally responsible.” According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, today people want transparency, honesty, and trustworthiness from corporations more so than anything else (financial performance has dropped to the bottom of these rankings in the last few years). Americans are willing to pay more for brands with a cause and would switch to a brand if it was associated with a good cause. Take the hint. Start thinking of innovative ways to support causes and charities, and show your consumers that that they are helping not just you by buying from you.

Thank you to Bill Hughes, who has put in lots of painstaking work to make this IVR tutorial (and then remake it after people tested it and gave him feedback). I hope it helps you all navigate the IVR Designer and create your own IVR’s easier! Let us know if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions.