CallFire

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

CallFire announces a new Do-It-Yourself Lead Generation webinar for businesses interested in generating leads by using Power Dialing, Opt-in Voice Broadcast & intelligent Call Tracking to drive new business in the United States and Canada.

The DIY Lead Gen webinar series first aims to educate business owners and at-home sales agents on how to save money by using Cloud Call Centers and Cloud Telephony tools to quickly connect themselves to other businesses.  The second half of the seminar covers how to use opt-in Voice Broadcast notification and Call Tracking to communicate important messages to existing clients and track marketing efficacy of your campaigns.

Session 1:  How to use Cloud Call Centers and Power Dialing

* Preparing an Excel list of my business telephone phone numbers.
* Optimizing ROI by developing a thoughtful callback strategy.
* Monitoring other sales agents that work from home.

Session 2: How to use Voice Broadcast & Call Tracking for notification & lead gen.

* Preparing an Excel list of my customer phone numbers.
* Developing an effective recorded message for my voice broadcast campaign.
* Creating Call Tracking campaigns to track marketing efficacy & continued notification.

To attend CLICK HERE at 11AM PST 9/22/2009

Sign up for the CallFire Spark newsletter and learn about Cloud Telephony here.

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/

Watch the video: Toll Free Call Tracking
Email us: calltracking@callfire.com
Call: 877.888.4515

Cloud telephony platforms can help your business generate inbound sales calls.  Here’s a few different ways our customers are making their sales lines ring, using VoIP.

Use Toll Free numbers to reveal ads that drive the most sales calls
Say you have 100 different online advertisements but aren’t sure which impressions eventually turn into phone calls.   Use call tracking to purchase 100 phone numbers for each ad-campaign (each number simply forwards to your sales line).  As the calls come in, you can easily visualize which ads are driving the most sales calls.  These advanced reports can be used to further strengthen your ad-campaign.

Use a hosted predictive dialer to free up salespeople’s time
Automate the way your agents make outbound calls and save hundreds of hours every month.   By using a hosted predictive dialer and your existing telephone system, your agents can fly through 100’s of calls every hour.  Agents can take lives calls immediately, and if they get an answering machine they can click a button to leave a prerecorded message, allowing them to move on to the next LIVE call.

Voice blast your PBX’s missed/abandoned list
Call centers occasionally get overloaded and you may have customers who (for whatever reason) hang up while waiting.   Don’t let these leads go to waste.  Export them to create an automated, press-1 voice broadcast.   Example: “This is an automated callback from ABC Inc. We are sorry nobody was available to take your call.  Please press 1 now, to speak with a sales agent.  He or She will be with you shortly.  Thank you.”   This automation ensures that customers get a follow up & further strengthens your customer service offering.

Add “Click-To-Call” to your website
The idea is simple – add another way for a customer to call you.  By adding a click-to-call option to your website , users can enter a phone number and in moments they can receive a live call from one of your sales agents.  How does it work?  After your lead submits their phone number in the “click to call” form, your sales agent receives a call that says “Press-1 now to speak to connect to a new lead.”   In moments both parties are connected and your sales team does the rest.

Create a unique phone experience using Text-To-Speech
Your client may appreciate an automated phone call that can read them their: account balance, schedules & timings for events, and even driving directions.  Developers can try using VoiceXML to send phone calls that can create a unique experience for users while reducing the volume of trivial phone inquiries your agents must field.

Have you used VoIP in other interesting ways?   Tell us how, using info@callfire.com.  Your story, and links to your business, could end up on the CallFire blog.   ~DR

Here are a few videos to make everyone’s lives a little bit easier.  If you’re a new CallFire user, these videos will walk you through the campaign-creation process.  (Non-techies looking for a more detailed walkthrough, please click here for a detailed, 7-minute Voice Broadcast campaign-setup walkthrough.)

Response durations may change due to Answering Machine Detection and the amount of background noise during the call.  For example a loud TV, screaming children, or even a barking dog at the location of the recipient, can cause fluctuations in sound that may cause small delays in when your message plays.

Recipients must say “hello” clearly, for your message to play immediately.   Users should always say “hello” when answering test calls yourself.  Rogue background sounds, delays in saying hello, or even saying hello multiple times, may cause small variances in when your message begins to play.   This will cause your overall call duration to increase or decrease by a few seconds.

For more information on how AMD works, please read:
http://www.callfire.com/blog/2008/09/19/faq-how-does-answering-machine-detection-work/

To turn off AMD completely, choose the last campaign type under Voice Broadcast, entitled: “No Detection - With Transfer”.

FAQ: “So what can CallFire do for a B2B sales Agent like me?”
It’s pretty simple actually – you can use CallFire to organize your call-campaign & do the outbound dialing for you.   The website allows you to upload a list of contacts & quickly log into a Virtual Call Center campaign.   Here’s how it works:

1. Agents hear hold music as the dialer displays “Calling” and the numbers it’s attempting to dial.
2. When connected, the hold music goes away & agents hear the recipient say “Hello” without any delay in sound.
3. Agents can then begin the pitch.  CallFire lets you easily take notes, enter a disposition for the call & after wrap-up users can click “Next Call” to get to their next live lead.
4. To leave a recorded message for a machine, simply press the “Answering Machine & Next Call” button, and CallFire will wait for the beep to begin playing your pre-recorded message at the right time, while you take the next live call.

The bottom line for At-home agents & Small Businesses:

1. Spend your time talking to live people & generate good leads.
2. No more hand-dialing hundreds of numbers daily.
3. Don’t deal with busy signals, bad phone numbers & indefinite ringing.
4. Organize your leads & outbound call campaigns.
5. Never let a lead slip through the cracks.
6. Let our system leave the messages on the answering machines.
7. Easily create follow-up campaigns based on your previous call status.
8. Pay-as-you go, starting at only $2.10/hour.

Not sure if CallFire will help you save time & increase customer communication & generate leads?
Call 877.897.FIRE to schedule a free webinar.  We’ll even throw in 100 free minutes so you can try us out.

Customers often call our support line asking:  “How do I prepare an Excel spreadsheet to be uploaded to CallFire?”.    Here’s an easy receipe to get rid of bad records that could cause upload problems:

1. Copy your phone numbers into Column-A, using Excel.   Example
2. Sort your list in Excel, by Column-A.   Example
3. Visually scan Column-A for bad numbers that have less than 10 digits, more than 10 digits, odd characters & so forth.  Delete the row entirely by right-clicking on the row number, and selecting ‘delete.’   (Many records with bad numbers are at the very top and bottom of the sorted list.  Ex: “1111111111″ or “9999999999″.)
4. Lastly, go to FILE > SAVE AS and Save a copy in *.CSV format.   Always rename your final CSV file to prevent mixups!

Good luck!  ~DR

Perhaps the most frequently asked question about traditional voice broadcast campaigns, i.e., excluding VoiceXML, is with regards to answering machine detection (AMD). AMD is somewhat fuzzy because detection is heavily reliant on the response on the other end of the line. This is mainly because once the copper ends it is tough to predict the nature of the conversation, whether it is a live person or a machine. Answering machine detection then becomes an exercise in predicting human behavior. For example, a typical person answers “Hello?” and waits for the other party to respond. On the other hand an answering machine usually has a run-on message “Hi this is Jane Doe, I’m not in, please leave your name , number and message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible“. Our detection algorithms take this and more into consideration when detecting answering machines and typically manage close to 90% accuracy (better than the 80% industry average) . Common reasons for 10% errors:

1. Call is answered by a live person, but person does not say “Hello”
2. Call is answered by a live person, but there’s either too much background noise or the receiver has bad noise canceling.
3. Call is answered by answering machine, but the message has long silences or is too short.
4. Number is a PBX with multiple levels of voice mail prompts.

Hopefully this answers most questions about answering machine detection. As always, please drop us a line if you have any questions.