CallFire

It’s official, the CallFire dev team will be attending the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit in Mountain View, California on May 7th, 2010!

Come on out! We’d love to see you there. Meet Vijesh, TJ, Dan & Dinesh @ the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010. Join us in discussing current trends in mobile, contribute your knowledge of VoIP & connect with trend-setting developers. 
 
We’ll even have a surprise giveaway & will be introducing Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb’s founder & CEO. The Mobile “unconference” will connect techies to discuss key trends in mobile including:

Geo-location services – what can you do using location as a platform? Commerce & Marketing – smartphones & businesses. Content, Publishing & Recommendations – new tech and best practices. Internet of Things – Sensors & RFID data. Augmented Reality – Tech & biz applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based – iPhone OS4, Android, RIM & more.

A big thanks to @SeanAmmirati & the entire @RWW team. If you’re going to be there, holler @CallFire!

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’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.

This past weekend, the CallFire team attended Opportunity Green, a conference where leaders and executive in the “green” space collaborated, shared ideas, and discussed sustainable practices.
CallFire was there to share information regarding how call centers can be made more environmentally friendly.

Businesses and organizations can use our Cloud Call Center to hire employees or volunteers that can work out of their homes instead of commuting into a traditional call center, and creating pollution. The conference itself was extremely environmentally friendly, with each attendee receiving a Kor water bottle, and filling stations from Everpure located throughout the conference area. Food served for lunch was organic from Organic to Go and Whole Foods, and all of the plastic was biodegradable. The non-dairy coconut icecream from Coconut Bliss was a highlight of ours!

The green perception of CallFire was well received at the conference, and we made some good industry connections. Organic fair trade chocolate from Sweet Earth and Shaman attracted people to our booth, and the telephone number listed on the plantable seed paper band was an ice breaker into what CallFire does. The number on the paper gave attendees a chance to win an ipod nano. One lucky winner would call the number and find out that they were the winner. The number was one of the toll free numbers that CallFire sells for the Call Tracking/Call Forwarding product. This lead into discussions about CallFire as a whole.

1. Send out automated reminder message to patients that are due to schedule appointments using Voice Broadcast
2. Send out an automated message to patients on a wait list when an appointment has been cancelled and a spot opens up using Voice Broadcast.
3. Check up with patients that have just had medical treatment using the Cloud Call Center.
4. Create organ donation awareness using either the Cloud Call Center or Voice Broadcast
5. Send out surveys to patients using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

To learn more about how CallFire can be used in healthcare, click here

A few months back, QuesGen Systems was approached by OneWorld Health with a unique project.  They were tasked to collect and analyze data from developing contries who were participating in a research study.  Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates, OneWorld Health was investigating different medication to cure malaria.

Rather than use traditional methods of paper questionares or text, QuesGen discovered CallFire’s Integrated Voice Response (IVR) software, using text-to-voice.  Participants heard questions asked in their own language, and submitted their answers by choosing an answer on the keypad.  This allowed data to be aggregated immediately and save time on the administration side.

CallFire was able to set up the user interface with in two weeks, allowing the deployment to take place on time.  QuesGen is considering using IVRs domesically for research on diseases including diabetes.

If you have any questions about how CallFire can be integrated for health care companies, click here

To read more of our case studies, click here

TMCnet announced CallFire as the top winner of the “Best Call Center Solution” award!  (BusinessWire)   We extend our gratitude to Rich Tehrani and the entire TMCNet team for recognizing CallFire’s strong commitment to cloud telephony innovation and business excellence for Call Centers, SMBs and the Enterprise.  Thanks TMCNet!

On the second day of  ITExpo,  CallFire’s CTO spoke on an Open Source panel.  Watch a short recap video here!

Employees of CallFire enjoyed an exciting two days  as exhibitors, carriers and telephony enthusiasts rubbed shoulders at TMCNet’s ITExpo at the LA Convention Center in Downtown Los Angeles.  Our booth was easily recognizable by the bright 3D CallFire sign beaming with light!

learn more about our products and services here

Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Group at TMCnet interviewed CEO of Callfire, Dinesh Ravishanker regarding the “best of show” award for our Cloud Call Center product line.   Throughout the day we met many bright executives in the telecom industry including Cecily Herbst, Strategic Account Executive of VoiceCon and many more.

What is changing on September 1st, 2009?

See detailed information on FTC website

Beginning September 1st, 2009 FTC enforcement policy regarding pre-recorded voice calls utilizing autodialers will change.  The FTC will begin its ban on pre-recorded telephone calls for solicitation purposes unless the solicitor has received a prior, written and signed agreement from the call recipient.  Some exceptions for pure information (non-solicitation) calls are permitted.

What does this mean for CallFire ?

ALL CALLFIRE USERS MUST ENSURE THAT FOR ANY TELEMARKETING CALLS THAT SOLICIT BUSINESS OR SERVICES OR NEW DONORS, THAT THE USERS HAVE PRIOR, EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT TO RECEIVE PRE-RECORDED VOICE CALLS FROM THE PROPOSED RECIPIENT.  Detailed information can be found on the FTC website.

a) No changes for Call Tracking (inbound) & Cloud Call Center (live voice) customers.

b) No change for Businesses who use CallFire to notify current, written opt-in for pre-recorded voice customers.

c) No change for Customers using Voice Broadcast for opt-in business notification (non-solicitation calls).

d) Customers using CallFire’s Voice Broadcast for solicitation/outbound lead gen MUST ENSURE data lists are Opt-In to receive pre-recorded voice from the particular company in the form of written consent, including the person’s phone number and signature.   The written consent must be specific to agreeing to receive pre-recorded voice calls from the particular company.  Written consent obtained in compliance with E–SIGN will satisfy the requirements of the law.  For example, agreements obtained via an email or website form, telephone keypress, or voice recording.  Any agreement obtained pursuant to E–SIGN must be sufficient to show that the consumer: (1) received clear and conspicuous disclosure of the consequences of providing the requested consent — i.e., that the consumer will receive future calls that deliver prerecorded messages—and (2) having received this information, agrees unambiguously to receive such calls at a telephone number the consumer designates.

What can I use as an alternative?

The Cloud Call Center with Power Dialer is the perfect alternative to using Voice Broadcast for your lead generation.  CallFire’s Power Dialer will connect your sales agents to live people, while sending pre-recorded messages only to answering machines that promptly disclose at the outset a toll-free number that a consumer can call to assert an opt-out request.  This is consistent with the FTC’s stated policies.

Remember to use the CallFire Do-Not-Call list

Companies are also required to keep their own Company-Specific do-not-call list.  This allows consumers to opt out of future calls made by the organization.  The CallFire system allows you to add numbers to the internal DNC list, and then scrub against them before running future campaigns.

Who is required to access the DNC Registry?

Any company engaged in telemarketing to the public is required to maintain its own SAN number to gain access to the DNC registry and to update the scrub list every thirty-one days  The few exceptions are non-profits, a pure market research survey company, political organizations, or companies with an existing business relationship or written agreement to call.  Exempt Organizations that still wish to access may access it for free.

More Information

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ALL INCLUSIVE OR PROVIDE LEGAL ADVICE.  YOU SHOULD CHECK WITH YOUR OWN ATTORNEY PRIOR TO ENGAGING IN TELEMARKETING UTILIZING PRE-RECORDED VOICE OR ENGAGING IN ANY TELEMARKETING CAMPAIGN.

Please visit: https://telemarketing.donotcall.gov/

The CallFire team will be manning booth # 319 at IT Expo West next Tuesday Sept 1 – Thursday Sept 3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Come by, talk to us, learn about our products, and get to know the team.  We will also have give-aways, so come by and see what we have!