As a guide, CallFire’s senior IVR developer, Dr. Bill Hughes, has assembled some helpful hints to aid you in your IVR fun. For more IVR resources, you can also visit our IVR Designer interactive tutorial, view our weekly IVR webinar.

Using ‘.Split()’, ‘.Join()’, and ‘.Substring()’ to Manipulate Strings

Many times the IVR will require us to get a string and either break it into usable subparts, or sometimes, insert other characters, including spaces, into the string.

The tools we will use for this are three Java functions, ‘.split()’, ‘.join()’, and ‘.substring()’.

‘.split()’ breaks apart the string at the spot described in the argument. For example, ‘.split(“”)’ says to break apart the string between every element; ‘.split(“|”)’ says to break it apart every time it reaches the “pipe” character ( | ); ‘.split(“,”)’ says to break it apart every time it reaches a comma.

‘.join()’ puts the string back together with whatever character is indicated by the argument inserted between the previously split elements. For example, ‘.join(“|”)’ puts the string back together with the “pipe” as a delimiter;
‘.join(” “)’ puts the string back with a space between the elements. This is used to “explode” a number for correct text-to-speech playback (see below).

‘.substring()’ grabs a particular part of the string. The argument should say which place in the string to start with, and how many places to grab. Keep in mind that when counting places in strings or arrays, you always start with ’0′ (zero). So,
‘.substring(0,3)’ would begin with the first element of a string, and grab the first three elements. An example would be the area code from a ten-digit phone number. See below for the real-world examples.

The last piece of coding associated with this is the array place reference. You can grab a particular part of a string array by referencing its place in the array in brackets following the split argument. For example, ‘.split(“,”)[1]‘ says to split the array at the comma delimiter and take the second item in the array (since the count starts with “0″, “1″ is the second place).

Here are some real-world examples:

To “explode” a number for correct TTS playback, we would need to split each element (number) in the string and insert a space between them. Assuming our “number” is the variable ‘acctNum’, our tag would look like this:

<setvar name="setvar_explNum" varname="explAcctNum">${acctNum}.split("").join(" ");</setvar>

(The semicolon ‘;’ is used to end a Java command.)

Suppose we sent an Account ID using a Get Tag, and got back a variable (‘myResult’) that contained three elements — the user name, account balance, and due date — separated by a ‘pipe’ ( | ) delimiter. We could take the results of the Get Tag (‘myResult’) and split it into the three elements at the pipe delimiter, and place each element into its own variable:

<setvar name="setvar_user" varname="userName">${myResult}.split("|")[0];</setvar>
<setvar name="setvar_balance" varname="acctBal">${myResult}.split("|")[1];</setvar>
<setvar name="setvar_dueDate" varname="dueDate">${myResult}.split("|")[2];</setvar>

To grab the area code from the caller ID, do the following:

<setvar name="setvar_areaCode" varname="areaCode">${call.callerid}.substring(0,3);</setvar>

Turning “Logging” On and Off

Occasionally the IVR collects sensitive data that must be protected. Examples might include Credit Card Data — Card Numbers, Expiration Dates, CVN Codes — or medical data. Both PCI compliance and HI.

PAA require that sensitive information NOT be stored if not necessary. In order to comply, you can now turn off logging for the IVR responses.

Logging is turned on or off as an attribute at the “Dialplan” level, as follows:

<dialplan name="myDialplan" loggingEnabled="false">

The default value for “loggingEnabled” is “true” — change this to “false” for sensitive IVRs.

Using Boolean Operators in CallFireXML

CallFireXML uses Java Scripting at certain points in the IVR — particularly in Setvar Tags and in If Tag comparison expressions. Here are some of the standard Boolean (Logical) Operators you can use:

The relational operators are for comparisons. Please note that the single equal sign (=) defines the contents of a variable. For example, the statement “x = 1″ populates the variable x with the number 1. The statement “x = ‘elephant’ ” puts an elephant (or at least the string ‘elephant’) into the variable x. So a single equal sign does not mean “equals.” For that we use the double equal sign (==).

So the relations operators are:

<, <=, >, >=, !=, ==

These are ‘less than’, ‘less than or equal to’, ‘greater than’, ‘greater than or equal to’, not equal to’, (more about that one in a moment), and ‘equal to’, respectively. Look again at ‘not equal to’ (!=) — the exclamation point means “not,” so technically, ‘!>’ would mean “not greater than’. The ! is useful in the following multiple-condition scenarios.

Now, what if a particular action is to be taken only if several conditions are true? You can use logic operators to handle multiple conditions. There are three logic operators: &&, || and !.

‘&&’ is logical ‘and’ — && combines two boolean values and returns a boolean which is true if and only if both of its operands are true. For instance:

b = 3 > 2 && 5 < 7; // b is true
b = 2 > 3 && 5 < 7; // b is now false

‘||’ is logical ‘or’ — || combines two boolean variables or expressions and returns a result that is true if either one or both of its operands are true. For instance:

b = 3 > 2 || 5 < 7; // b is true
b = 2 > 3 || 5 < 7; // b is still true
b = 2 > 3 || 5 > 7; // now b is false

The last logic operator is ! which means ‘not’ (see above). It reverses the value of a boolean expression. Thus if b is true !b is false. If b is false !b is true.

b = !(3 > 2); // b is false
b = !(2 > 3); // b is true

These operators allow you to test multiple conditions more easily. For example, we can write an If Tag as follows:

<if expr="${myVariable} == 2 && ${yourVariable} != 2">
     <goto>myNextModule</goto>
</if>

A real world example might use the global time stamp to define an “after business hours” action:

<if expr="${global.time.military.hour} < 7 || ${global.time.military.hour} > 18">
     <goto>menu_answeringMachineModule</goto>
</if>

In the above example ‘< 7′ means ‘less than (earlier than) 7:00 AM’ and ‘> 18′ means ‘greater than (later than) 6:00 PM.’

Creating Questions and Responses: Using the Press Menu Tag

At the heart of an IVR system is the question and response. Basically, the system requests responses from the customer and the customer presses keys in response. This may be in the form of an actual question and instructions for response — “Would you vote for Homer Simpson? Press 1 for Yes or 2 for No.” — and sometimes it’s just a simple declaration — “Please enter your 5-digit account number, followed by the pound sign.”

In either case, the question-response clearly consists of a play tag stating the instructions and some keypresses getting the responses. Something needs to tell the IVR System that this particular Play Tag and its Keypress Tags all work together. The Press Menu Tag provides this function — think of it as an envelope “containing” the play tag and keypresses. As a matter of fact, when you drag a Press Menu Tag into the work space, you will see that it automatically creates two dependent tags, a Play Tag and a Keypress Tag (dependent tags are indented from, and hang down from, their ‘parent’ tags). The Press Menu Tag knows that it needs at least one each of these tags. The whole thing works as follows:

<menu name="myMenu" maxDigits="1" timeout="3500">
   <play name="play_Q1" type="tts" voice="male1">
      Would you vote for Homer Simpson for President?
      Press 1 for yes or 2 for no.
   </play>
   <keypress name="keypress_Q1R1" pressed="1">
      <stash name="stash_Q1R1" varname="Q1R">1-Yes</stash>
   </keypress>
   <keypress name="keypress_Q1R2" pressed="2">
      <stash name="stash_Q1R2" varname="Q1R">2-No</stash>
   </keypress>
</menu>

<!-- The menu here defines how many keypresses constitute an answer -- in this case,
      one. Also, how long they have to enter a response, here 3-1/2 seconds -->
<!-- The play tag defines Question 1 (Q1) and describes how to respond. -->
<!-- The first keypress tag gets the digit-2 response for Question 1
      (Q1R2 and pressed="2")
      and stores it in the report as "2-No" under the Variable Name "Q1R" -->
<!-- The second keypress tag gets the digit-1 response for Question 1
      (Q1R1 and pressed="1")
      and stores it in the report as "1-Yes" under the Variable Name "Q1R" -->
<!-- Notice that the variable name is the same for both responses:
      only the value changes -->

Learn to think of the above as a single unit — “the Question and Response.”

Naming Variables

When naming variables, try to follow standard programming rules. That way, your variables will be usable within any programming language you need to send them to, whether php, .Net, Java, C++, C#, etc. Variables should begin with a letter, and are case-sensitive. Variables cannot have spaces. And many languages do not accept odd characters — stick with alphanumeric variable names. Other allowable characters include the underscore ( _ ) or the dot ( . ).

There are two main “naming conventions” for multi-word variable names. The first is to use underscores in between the words (in both cases, use abbreviations where possible):

"my_first_variable" or "user_app_no" (for "user application number").

The second convention uses run-on words, all lowercase, except capitals for all initial letters except the first:

"myFirstVariable" or "userAppNo"

In naming the IVR nodes, We at CallFire recommend following variable name standards, combining the two methods, as follows (again, using abbreviations as possible):

nodetype_usefulName (node name, underscore, useful name as run-on word)

Examples:

menu_Q1 (menu, question 1)
menu_getUserID
play_verifyUserID

These tips are suppose to be used as a reference. Please feel free to contact our knowledgable support staff to aid you in creating your future campaigns.

One of CallFire’s signature features is the Interactive Voice Response application, or IVR.  For a long time the IVR was a developer tool to make interesting phone applications. However, the practical applications of the tool make IVR technology a staple for any business. This brief article will tell you what an IVR is, how it works, and how you can make the CallFire IVR work for you.

Have you ever been greeted by a pre-recorded voice asking you to press keys or speak your response on a phone call to, for instance, your bank?  If so, you are already well acquainted with an IVR.  Simply put, an IVR allows a computer and a human to interact efficiently by using the voice instead of a keyboard or other input device.  But wait, you are thinking:  How is pressing keys on a phone anything like speaking?  In a certain sense, it is the same thing.

When human beings speak, they are making sounds that others can understand, provided they understand the code (language).  When you press any of the twelve keys on your phone, a specific tone is produced.  This is called Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF for short), but that’s a story for another article.  Each one of these tones represents the computer’s way of making sounds, which other computers can understand, because they understand the code.  You may think that twelve sounds isn’t much of a language, but the Hawaiian language only has a few more sounds than that, and its speakers can understand each other perfectly well.   The IVR is, in this sense, a translator.  It mediates between us and a computer to accomplish certain tasks.So what are some of these tasks?  Let’s look at three common scenarios: the business auto attendant, the voice mail module, and the political survey (examples here and here).

The business auto-attendant allows callers to be automatically transferred to an extension without the intervention of an operator or receptionist. Using an IVR to rout calls is one of the ways that smaller companies can appear larger.  There may be three press options, all of which ring the same number. You can also include a voice mail option when no one is around to take the call, and CallFire’s IVR will email you the message.

The voice mail module is another popular IVR subtype, which is integrated with CallFire’s call tracking solution.  Purchase a toll-free or local number from CallFire, and then use the IVR to create a voice mail mailbox.  You may set it up so that calls that forward to your business and the calls that are not answered will be transferred directly to the voice mail.  Calls can also be transferred directly to your voicemail, where the caller can leave a message that you retrieve later.  This can also be used with the business tree—if no one reaches a particular extension, they can leave a message. Together, these aspects of the IVR make it a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes.

In addition to its abilities to process inbound calls, the IVR is essential for surveying large audiences. The largest application of this survey functionality is using the IVR to conduct political polling. Its all very simple: upload a list of potential voters and send out a survey to gauge the level of support for your candidate.  Perhaps you are in favor of building new bridges in your community?  Then send out a survey that asks voters if they are in favor, and if so, to what degree? Your results may even show up on the cable news shows. Beyond the political use case, IVR polling can be utilized by all sorts of organizations to gauge sentiment among members.

These are just a few of the myriad possibilities offered by the CallFire IVR.  Come join our weekly webinar, every Wednesday at 11:00 AM Pacific time.  We would be so happy to have you that we may even credit your account with a few bucks just to get you started.

In order to be compliant, make sure your customers opt in. You cannot simply buy a list of mobile users and start sending bulk text messages. That would be spam. Mobile phones are highly personal devices. Make sure that you are only messaging people who have opted-in by giving you consent to receiving text offers for you. Within your call to action be sure to include a disclaimer that is explicit in explaining what they are opting in for. Failing to comply will damage brand reputation as well as undermining consumer trust in SMS.

In the case that you are generating telephone calls for telemarketing purposes from your CallFire account, make sure to register with the DNC registry to have your lists scrubbed against the Do Not Call List. Remember you cannot use a pre-recorded message to tele-market to consumers without having the consumer giving you written permission beforehand.

Remember you and your business are 100% liable for the calls originating from your CallFire account. You should review the CallFire usage terms and consult with an attorney before using CallFire.

For more information on FTC, DNC and Telemarketing compliance please read the following guides:

• FTC, DNC and Telemarketing Compliance
• CallFire Usage Terms and Liability

A recent study—“Don’t Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool”—show the effectiveness of the medium. During the study, authored by Allison Dale of the University of Michigan and Aaron Strauss of Princeton University, texting was used in a nationwide field experiment in the days before the 2006 election. Newly registered and re-registered voters in the treatment group received a text message encouraging them to vote; participants in the control group did not receive a text. Those receiving the text reminders voted at a 3.1 percent higher rate than those who did not.

So why is text messaging so effective? In the age of mass communication, citizens are inundated with political and commercial information through landline phones, U.S. mail, email, and television, which leads recipients to increasingly ignore messages delivered through these media. Because it is time consuming to process, people tend to ignore a majority of unsolicited information that comes their way.

For a political message to be effective, it must break through the barrage of messages competing for the voter’s attention. Studies show that one political mainstay—direct mail pieces—have become less effective over time because of an ever-increasing volume of mail sent out in each new election. In fact, these studies suggest that a single piece of mail only increases voter turnout by 1 percent or less.

In contrast to direct mail and other media, text messages are more difficult for recipients to ignore.  The recipient will notice the text message because mobile phones are still relatively uncluttered by “spam” messages. Similarly, the nature of the display makes it difficult to ignore an incoming text message on most phones.

Text messaging is particularly effective in GOTV mobilization because of one simple fact: the audience is already “sold.” By registering to vote, recipients have already signaled their interest in voting. Your text will increase the likelihood of voting because it reminds a person to complete a “civic duty” that he or she already believes is important.

The effectiveness of mobilization reminder texts can be likened to reminding a person to the oil changed in his or her car. Once a person has decided to purchase a car, he or she has made an investment in owning, and also maintaining, the car. Car owners don’t need to be convinced of the importance of getting an oil change; they just need to be reminded to get it done. Like an oil change, voting is an activity that needs to be put on the “to do” list. Voting is not part of one’s daily routine, even for experienced voters; reminders help ensure that potential voters do not forget to visit their polling places.

Relative to other strategies, the study shows that text messaging registered the largest increase in voter turnout. The only medium that resulted in an equivalent increase in voter turnout was door-to-door canvassing. Canvassing is more effective than text messaging on a person-by-person basis. However, the contact rate during the canvassing is much lower than text messaging; people aren’t home, they don’t answer their door, or perhaps they’ve moved. One text message reminder to voters is twice as effective as three direct mail pieces.

When you combine the relative low cost of SMS text messaging, with its proven effectiveness, it becomes crystal clear that text messaging is an essential component of any voter mobilization effort.

With an election on the horizon and debate still raging over the defunct anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA, the symbiotic relationship between government and business is a hot issue. The discussion of internet piracy and enforcement of copyright law is a particularly prickly instance of this issue because it stems chiefly from the growth (and now near ubiquity) of a relatively young industry that enjoyed rapid growth in a somewhat relaxed regulatory regime. Though commentators try to frame the discussion of internet regulation as a struggle between free speech and the forces of censorship, the evolution of a new industry is a more relevant lens to analyze the issue. The early history of a related industry, telecommunications, offers some lessons, and possibly a preview of the direction of the debate.

The early 20^th century witnessed rapid growth in the number of households with a telephone. The businesses that provided service to these new customers, called Local Exchange Carriers (LECs), also proliferated. Thousands of LECs managed hundreds of thousands of subscribers across the U.S. Competition for new subscribers became fierce, and prices for telephone service fell precipitously. In these heady early days in telephone history regulation of the market and oversight of the participating businesses did not exist, and new LECs emerged in every corner of the U.S. — in both sizable metropolises and remote rural areas.

Telephone service evolved very differently in Europe, where the state took an active interest in regulating or owning the telephone companies from the moment Alexander Graham Bell phoned Mr. Watson in 1876. While an abundance of providers and plummeting prices fueled the penetration of the telephone into U.S. households, subscription rates in Europe lagged far behind the United States. In the 1930s the majority of U.S. households had a telephone, while most European countries reported that around 10% of households had a phone.

If the story ended here we might conclude that that the “free enterprise” model in the U.S. beat the state ownership model of Europe at managing the growth of a new industry and encouraging the adoption of new technology. But there are complications. Nothing obligated Local Exchange Carriers to connect with each other, and few of them could send calls through other LECs. Consequently, long distance service became difficult and expensive.  To make matters worse, the telecom behemoth AT&T made it a standard operating policy to not interconnect with independent LECs. Nicholas Economides, a professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, summarizes the state of affairs at that time succinctly, noting that this lack of interconnection forced “many businesses to subscribe to two telephone companies with disconnected and incompatible networks, an independent to reach local customers (mainly households) and AT&T to reach suppliers.” This fact became a primary impetus to Federal regulation, and in 1934 the Telecommunications Act created the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to regulate the industry.

The history of the telecom industry also suggests that an industry with little or no regulation is prone to monopolization.  AT&T emerged as an effective monopoly in the telecom sector, and enjoyed that status until another round of Federal regulation in the form of antitrust lawsuits brought by the Justice Department in the late 20^th century. More recently, Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist, technology guru and writer, noted that the independent forums that exploded in the early days of the internet, and that he still uses to discuss, for instance, musical instruments, are threatened by “proprietary social networking.” In a recent New York Times op-ed he wrote that “like many other forms of contact, the musical conversations are moving into private sites, particularly Facebook. To continue to participate, I’d have to accept Facebook’s philosophy, under which it analyzes me, and is searching for new ways to charge third parties for the use of that analysis.” Lanier spoke of this reality as corrosive to the internet idealism central to the backlash against the internet piracy bills.

As industries evolve, new patterns of competition emerge. Economides, writing about deregulation in the telecom industry in the latter part of the 20^th century, writes, “As a result of technological change, cost conditions shift considerably over time and can transform a market that requires regulation into one that does not.” The telecom industry in the United States in the early 20^th century, if it ever was a market that didn’t require regulation, became transformed by new patterns of competition into an industry that required regulation. The “Web 2.0” industry is maturing, and the idealization of a wide open space with many independent, co-equal voices in competition may be changing. The history of the telephone suggests that such a free, relatively unregulated and unsupervised paradigm promotes competition and adoption in the early developmental stages of an industry, but that rapid growth will not be without pain, and will eventually be accompanied by supervision.

1. Use an IVR to identify voters.

   

   Implementing an effective GOTV strategy requires identifying your campaign’s support early to push them to the polls on Election Day. Interactive Voice Response technology allows you to send polls out in the field and get that data directly into your voter file. The automation of the IVR technology allows you to conduct large scale polls at the fraction of the cost of hiring a call center. Its scalability and cost effectiveness make the IVR an integral component to a winning campaign strategy of identifying voters.

2. Increase your call volume with a power-dialer.

   

   Manual hand dialing is a thing of the past. If you’re still hand dialing from call sheets you’re not maximizing your volunteer’s time and not reaching enough voters. The rapid connection rate of power dialing allows you to call through your voter file at two to three times speed of manual hand dialing. The dialer streamlines the calls by skipping bad numbers, busy signals, and voicemail. Your volunteers will find call time to be more effective and far more pleasurable. In addition, this cloud based software allows your volunteers to organize and make calls from home and their own remote locations.

3. SMS text messaging to communicate a call to action with supporters.

   

   A successful political campaign needs to rapidly communicate call to actions to supporters. In 2008, the Obama Campaign showed how effective SMS text messaging can be as a tool to rapidly organize supporters. Since 2008, more campaigns have used SMS text messaging to power their field programs. In Massachusetts, Scott Brown was able to use texts to send out rapid call to actions. When his opponent appeared on a radio program, Brown texted his supporters to call the station. 90% of the calls to the station were from Brown supporters.

4. Make robocalls  more dynamic with navigable IVR’s.

   

   Voice broadcast political robocalls are a tried and true method of rapidly getting your message out to thousands of voters. With navigable IVR‘s you can tailor your message to the issues and values that are important to the voter. Voters can chose from a selection of issues that are important to them and hear the candidate’s stance on those issues.  These customizable messages also allow you to communicate very specific information on issues and polling locations that are highly targeted.

5. Integrate your web platform with your telephony campaigns.

   

   Successful voter outreach programs should be made easily accessible for volunteers. In the 2010 election, a number of innovative campaigns allowed their volunteers to call from home by providing a link to an autodialer system and dramatically increased the volume of GOTV calls. By creating a volunteer portal to your dialer on the campaign homepage, you allow your volunteers to call from home at their own convenience and effectively get out the vote.

6. Optimize Your Social Networking Campaign By Targeting Your Message.

   

   During the 2008 presidential election, social media revolutionized the way candidates connect to voters and engage supporters. The Obama campaign gathered followers through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. However, a “Like” on Facebook, a YouTube view or a re-blog on Tumblr may not directly affect the ballot box. Now each campaign must answer an important question: How do we turn a digital following into real-world volunteers? Digital followers that feel connected to the campaign will be more likely to make the leap from online supporter to offline volunteer.

7. Link your Voterfile data with your geo-targeted web ads.

   

   Today’s Ad-networks can deliver highly targeted ads to voters and should be a staple of your ad strategy. You can link your web content to your Voterfile data to create “smart” web ads that allow you to aim your message at voters in a specific district or demographic. The content of your ads should be relevant to the voters viewing the advertisement; single mothers, sportsmen, and students (for example) should have specific, tailored content that addresses issues they’re likely to care about. Working through data aggregators you can link IP addresses to individuals in your voter file and your campaign can deliver highly targeted messages.

8. Supplement your existing ad strategy with Video and Rich Media.

   

   Web content is saturated with advertising, and it’s getting harder to sift through the banner ads and pop-ups that get in the way of the content we seek. That’s why it’s important for your ads to mimic the content that people want to find. Streaming content is more likely to generate attention. Video and rich media allow you to communicate a compelling story that a static banner ad cannot.  You can even make an interactive ad using Flash or HTML5 to create an interactive experience (like a quiz, game or informational widget) without the user ever leaving the webpage they were visiting.

As you can see, there are a multitude of ways campaigns can leverage cloud technology to increase campaign awareness and drive supporters to the polls. For more information on how you can get your campaign running in the cloud, visit our GOTV best practice page.

Here are some additional resources to help your business text message marketing campaign:

• Huffington Post: 2012, A View From the Cloud
• New Organizing Institute: Organizer’s Tool Box

Here are some helpful tips to make sure your SMS marketing campaigns grow your business. To read a printable version of the guide click here:

1. Drive sign-ups through a call to action.

   An SMS marketing call to action invites users to sign up and opt in for your mobile database by texting a unique keyword to a shared short code. Driving these sign-ups can be as simple as displaying your call to action on your storefront window, reminding customers at the checkout, or integrating your mobile call to action into your traditional advertising campaigns.  Whether it’s your existing marketing materials, your Twitter or Facebook page, or your employees telling every customer in the store, promoting your call to action should take the highest priority in your mobile marketing strategy.

2. Reward customer sign-ups.

   Give the customer a reason to join as a subscriber to your mobile database. This can be as simple as bouncing back a coupon or reward benefit. If you’re a gym, consider something as simple as promoting “FREE complimentary training session in your next membership renewal when you text TRAINING to 67076.” By rewarding customers for subscribing to your mobile database, you’ll raise your opt­–in rates. “Buy one, Get One,” “Dollar Amount Off,” “FREE” are the three highest converting offers for mobile marketing.

3. Set a limit on your offers.

   Rewarding customers with great offers is crucial to an effective SMS marketing campaign. Be careful, however, not to inundate your subscribers with too many offers. The highest redemption rates result from offers sent two to three times a month. This way, when a subscriber misses an offer, they don’t assume that another offer is just around the corner. When businesses extend offers too often, the offers begin to lose their value and customers increasingly choose to opt out.

4. Allow your customers to push your message.

   People like sharing offers they receive with their friends. Encourage your subscribers to push the offer virally by posting the words “FWD 2 a friend” at the end of the message. By encouraging your subscribers to forward the message, you have the potential to spread your message beyond your own database list.

5. Don’t waste your time with one-offs.

   SMS campaigns are more about long-term relationship building than the quick hit. While the first few coupon offers may be geared around database building, text-messaging campaigns can become an extension of customer relationship management system. A dry cleaner that keeps track of his customer’s drop off patterns can than text very specialized discounts or reminder messages based on those patterns. If the customer comes in on Monday, for example, and they don’t show for a couple of days, it can automatically text out a reminder: ‘Hi! We haven’t seen you in a couple days.’

6. Make Sure Your Customers Opt-in.

   The FCC is quite stringent when it comes to who you can send text messages to. You cannot simply buy a list of mobile users and start sending bulk text messages. That would be spam. Mobile phones are highly personal devices. Make sure that you are only messaging people who have opted-in by giving you consent to receiving text offers for you. Within your call to action be sure to include a disclaimer that is explicit in explaining what they are opting in for. Failing to comply will damage brand reputation as well as undermining consumer trust in SMS.

7. Mobile alerts to business.

   Don’t assume SMS text marketing only applies to consumers. Alert businesses of webinars or podcasts, or offer on-site incentives to conference attendees.

8. Include a disclaimer.

   Call to actions are highly effective in propelling consumer opt ins to your database, but for many customers concerns over charges and spam will dissuade them from subscribing. To address these concerns, be sure to insert a disclaimer on your call to actions.  The disclaimers should address concerns over text charges, privacy issues, and concerns over spam. Also, within the text message, include a way that the subscriber can opt out.

As you can see, there are many aspects of a successful mobile marketing campaign. When done well you can use the power of text messaging to help build brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and drive up sales. These tips are great place to get started. Feel free to visit our SMS page contact our knowledgeable staff at support@callfire.com.

For more tips and best practices download the printable version of the  guide.

Here are some additional resources to help your business text message marketing campaign:

• New York Times SMS Text Messaging Best Practices and Tips
• FTC Regulations on SMS Text Marketing
• FCC Guidelines on SMS Text Marketing
• Online Media Daily: Don’t Forget About Mobile Marketing
• Mobile Marketer: SMS Text Marketing Guidelines

In addition, I’ll help produce documentation — for you, our customers, and for our staff — about our continuing switchover to a new telephony platform, which will power our new-look website. The new site, Tesla (tesla.callfire.com), is part of CallFire’s gradual transition from phone-centric services to more contact-centric products. Creating campaigns should become easier with the improved user interface that Tesla provides, but there will no doubt be a bit of a learning curve. We’ll try to make the change as seamless as possible for all involved. This move to Tesla is just part of CallFire’s long-term goal of making telephony as easy as email.

Now, a brief introduction. I’m a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, with another degree in political science. I spent 14 years at The Boeing Company, mostly writing for a variety of publications, including Boeing News. Other past employers and clients have included Weyerhaeuser, Holland America Line, Monsanto, the Washington State Department of Personnel, Fluke Networks, and Digeo, a Paul Allen high-tech entertainment venture.

Alright already — enough about me. Let’s talk more about you. And about cloud call centers, voice broadcasts, hosted interactive voice response (IVR) systems, Tesla and the like!

I look forward to an interactive discussion with you, our customers. Please feel free to contact me anytime — mark@CallFire.com — with any questions or blog post ideas.

In the meantime, Happy New Year from all of us at CallFire!

Here’s the deal, we’re working on our next big platform code named Tesla and are quickly realizing that in our drive to become code monsters, we’ve kinda skimped on the documentation part. We need someone who can communicate in the English language, all the amazing things our platform does. This is where you come in.

What you bring to the table:

A passion for writing for diverse audiences and a love for modern prose but more specifically:

1. Ability to author articles for the company blog as well as provide editorial oversight to company blogs.
2. Participate in sales & support meetings studying the major reasons for support calls and authoring online content.
3. Participate in dev team scrum sessions understanding our products and writing and updating online product documentation.
4. Provide editorial oversight to employee authored content.
5. Be an online community manager on our CMS site, moderating comments, forums, and providing the human oversight to the content feedback loop.

What we bring to the table:

1. Full-time work three blocks from the Ocean in sunny Santa Monica
2. Working at a fast paced, fast growing startup that’s never seen a quarter of negative growth.
3. Work with a team that loves to work hard and play hard.

How to Apply:
Find us online via Facebook, Twitter, or Email, send us actual writing samples. This can be blog posts, case studies, long polemics in forums–anything. We want to see how you write! So, drop us a line, send us a tweet, or friend us on Facebook, we would love to hear from you.

Just the other day, I joined the 805,000 people who have unsubscribed from Netflix. First there were the price hikes earlier this summer, then plans to rebrand its DVD rental service as Quikster, then an announcement that it was canceling those plans (probably in a frantic effort to appease all the upset customers and investors). None of these events were all that significant on their own, and even combined probably didn’t greatly impact their customer base. What they did do, is make Americans lose trust in the company as a whole. So let us all take a lesson from Netflix and make an effort to stay trustworthy.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I don’t think any argument is complete without some numbers. So voila. According to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer, honesty and trust are more important to customers than the quality of the product or service. And just take a look to some of these other statistics from the same report:

• 77% of people will not buy products or services from a company they do not trust.
• 91% of people would buy a product from a company they trusted.
• 55% would pay a premium for products or services when trust is present.
• 72% are willing to share the reasons why they don’t trust a company with people they don’t know.

Not only are people astronomically less likely to buy from you if they don’t trust you, but they’re also just as likely to tell others not to trust you either. On the bright side, if they do trust you, they’ll buy from you and even pay extra. That’s incentive enough for us.