CallFire

by Kimberly Kohatsu

CallFire is proud to sponsor Twiistup, LA’s biggest technology event. Twiistup 8 will take place February 9 and 10 at the Skirball Cultural Center. In between all the great speakers and startup presentations Twiistup has to offer, CallFire is holding a scavenger hunt, where one lucky participant will win an Xbox Kinect.

The scavenger hunt is a creative way for participants to experience some of the CallFire products. The first clue is going to be delivered via SMS, and the third clue was built using a CallFire Inbound IVR. (The second and fourth clues are going to be surprises, we can’t give everything away)

The IVR asks a series of multiple choice questions, much like a business might do if it were creating a phone tree. Each question has its own KeyPress menu, which will tell you if your answer was right and direct you to move on, or tell you your answer is wrong and to try again. I recorded each of the clues over the phone using CallFire’s voice recording utility. Then I designed the phone tree using the drag-and-drop commands on CallFire’s IVR Designer. When I was done, I sent a test call to myself to see if the IVR was functioning correctly. I had to do it a couple times before I got the hang of it, so here are a few tips I learned along the way:

• In order to stay organized, make sure you name all your sound files something meaningful. CallFire will give your file a default name, so before you do anything, rename these files. I used names like “Q1″ and “A1″ for question and answers, as well as “Incorrect” and “Welcome” for the appropriate messages.
• Also give your tags and menus meaningful names. My IVR was fairly complicated, so this helped me keep everything straight. The CallFire system will default to only the name of the tag, meaning it will name a play tag “play” and a goto tag “goto.” I would edit these names further so that I could easily see I was dealing with the “Q3 menu” or that for a certain keypress I was configuring “Q2 Press1 Incorrect.” The more indents and conditions you have, the easier it is to get confused. By naming each of my menus and tags the same way, I was able to keep myself on track.



• Keep your sound files simple, with only one element in each. In my first attempt to build this IVR, I put the answer to Question 1 in the same sound file as the reading of the next question, Question 2. This made it more difficult to offer people the option to repeat Question 2 without having to hear the answer to Question 1 again. So I re-recorded myself and kept these two elements separate, and that made the IVR design cleaner and easier to manage. So say, for instance, you’re building a phone tree for an office. Don’t put your greeting and your office hours in the same sound file. This way, if someone wants to hear your office hours again, they don’t also have to listen to your greeting again, too.
• If none of this made any sense whatsoever, attend a CallFire webinar on Wednesdays at 11AM PST. Our trained solutions staff will decode everything I just conveyed, and help you apply it to your own uses.

Hope to see some of you at Twiistup! If you haven’t already gotten your tickets, buy them here. Remember, alongside all the other great CallFire giveaways, one lucky scavenger is going to walk away with a Kinect

by Dinesh Ravishanker, CEO

From the video:  “CallFire is in the virtual call center business. This puts our software at the forefront conversation for Political Phone Banks in the United States.  During each election season we experience double, sometimes triple the virtual call center usage we see at any other point in the year.  Moreover, our solutions team consults with political marketers to design powerful telephone surveys and notification campaigns critical to campaign managers interested in voter preference and geography relevant analytics.  These campaigns also provide less educated voters with digestible information required to make a next-day voting decision.

Over the course of 6 years in cloud telephony consulting, my team and I have participated in countless confidential conversations with technologists and campaign managers.  Often we discuss the marketing and advertising strategy used to garner support for their candidates.   Time and time again, we find political advertising strategies are not terribly different from a good brand advertising strategy.  Here are a few political advertising strategies that I have seen used over the last few years.”

Political advertising strategies

• Creativity – differentiate your candidate by developing a persona
• Use fresh voter registration data lists and don’t annoy voters
• Market your candidate in search results on Google and Bing
• Place site-targeted ads for your candidate on Political Websites
• Use Voice Broadcast target geographies with tailored messages
• Accept campaign contributions online, via phone & snail mail
• Enable volunteers to make voter-outreach calls from home
• Use data from phone or social media surveys for targeting
• Tailor communication by age, location & political affiliation
• Use a “Google surge” or “Network blast” in the days before an election
  
• Partner with an experienced Political Technology company (references below)
  
• Read our entire blog post on Political Marketing Tips in the Cloud

Keep It Simple Stupid

CTA (or Call-To-Action) & KISS (or Keep-It-Simple-Stupid) are probably the most overused acronyms board rooms and marketing meetings around the world.  But lets face it – most politicians have a lot to say, so it is extremely important to distill your candidate’s values in a clear and concise manner.  In the case of telephone marketing, a 30-40 seconds message works best, with the option to learn more if the listener desires.  In the case of social media advertising, some Twitter studies indicate that clickthrough rates are largely affected by CTA.  Advertisers who push products or services often use CTAs like  “click here for a Free Trial”, or “Learn more.”  In the dozens of political sound files I have personally listened to, almost all of them had a similar CTA.  Namely, “Vote for me, [candidate name] on election day” or “Press-1 to Donate Now”.   If you’re interested in optimizing a voice campaign, read the top 5 methods to making a successful Political Voice Blast.

Study historical data

There exists a plethora of political data on the web in the form of case studies, blogs and raw data.  So, why make the Political Advertising mistakes someone has already made for you?   Although this advice seems elementary, remember to DO YOUR RESEARCH.  We assume that’s why you’re reading this blog now.  Here are a few links to get you started:

Case studies
MoveOn.org uses Cloud IVR to collect voter data (LINK)
Equality California uses Cloud Call Center to harness the power of volunteers at home (LINK)
Thomas Kennedy wins Citrus County using Voice Broadcast (LINK)

Professional references
Patrick Michael Kane – Technology driven political advocacy expert, CTO & founder.  Former lead technology consultant for MoveOn.org, One.org, OFA and ActionKit.com clients.  Website: http://www.actionkit.com
Brian Donahue – Political Consultant & Founder of Craftdc.com Mr. Donahue has managed 4 Federal election campaigns and served on 2 presidential campaign staffs and Headed national 72-hour Task Force for RNC. Mr. Donahue also served as the Executive Director for Bush-Cheney ‘04. Website: http://www.CraftDC.com

Media
Dan Siroker Video – “How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election” Stanford University & Dan Siroker – the former Data Analytics Manager for the Obama campaign.

Video: Brian Donahue – Political Strategist: http://www.gspm.org/brian-donahue-video -
Election Assistance Commission – Data from the 2008 election. Download the full report as zip.

by Natalia Klishina


There has been a lot of talk lately about trying to balance the cost-effectiveness of an automated IVR system with the responsiveness of a live call center. Customer dissatisfaction has been growing at alarming rates in the last few years, with the American Management Association finding that 68% of clients cease doing business with a company because of bad service. And 20% of the population has stopped using a particular credit card because of the waits involved in its customer service phone lines. This numbers spikes to 26% for high-income customers that know they are of high value and can go elsewhere. And if people complain about credit card hotlines, they have probably never experienced the bloated monstrosities that are government organization IVRs. The DMV, the state department, the immigration and naturalization agencies — they all make you want to kill something. We’ve all had experiences with automated answering systems that have been burnt into our memory like some terrible nightmare. However, IVR systems don’t have to be like that. For some reason, we seem not to realize that live customer service can often be just as terrible as any machine. We’ve somehow deluded ourselves into thinking that human beings simply must provide a much better customer service experience. Sometimes this is true, but it also comes at a much higher cost — both to the company, and often to the consumer, as well.

Let’s look at a company that’s probably more known for its excellent customer service than an actual product: Zappos. Zappos hires thousands of real live human beings to answer their phones. They have no scripts, they have no time limits, they’ll even pretend to be your friend (and that’s something we’re all very used to and comfortable with here in LA). And Zappos does something very unique when hiring its agents. After a few weeks of immersive training, they all get offered $1,000 (on top of compensation for the amount of time they’ve worked) to QUIT. This number originally started out as $100, went up to $500, and is scheduled to eventually surpass $1,000. Here is where many of you are probably scratching your heads, but anyone with hiring or management experience might think, “That’s brilliant!” Why? Because it weeds out people for whom $1,000 is worth more than their commitment to the company, helping maintain an energetic, customer-service-oriented culture. (For those of you wondering, about 10% of new agents end up taking up Zappos on their offer.)

Unfortunately, we can’t all do this; it simply wouldn’t be cost-efficient for most companies. According to a psychologist at International Business Machines Corp., the average cost per contact between an agent and customer is between $3 and $9 (compared to 5-7 cents with an automated system), which adds up VERY fast. For a company like Zappos, whose whole reputation stands on the quality of its customer service, the benefits outweigh the costs, but that doesn’t extend to everyone else. For example, back in 2007 Wal-Mart tried to completely remove its customer service number from its website. After a sizable backlash, they settled for burying the number in a hard-to-find spot – à la Amazon’s strategy. This is actually a very popular approach amongst retailers these days. For them, the financial benefits of providing live customer service on a sufficient scale simply wouldn’t cover the costs. This is the point where a large proportion of the exasperated public starts shouting that companies should care more about their customers than about making money, and so on and so forth, perhaps with some choice expletives included. Let’s get real here, though. People don’t shop at Wal-Mart for its customer service; they shop there because it’s cheap. And one of the ways in which they can afford to be cheap is by cutting down on customer service costs. Unfortunately, this is the real world, and there are necessary trade-offs in it. Companies would simply go bankrupt if they didn’t care about costs – and then where would you get your $38 Wal-Mart Pre-Lit 6.5’ White Artificial Christmas Tree this holiday season?

So yes, automated IVR systems are necessary, but they are not a necessary evil. What people don’t seem to realize, is that these systems don’t have to lead to bad customer service. Columnist for TMCnet Tracey Schelmetic writes that one of the best customer service experiences she’s ever had involved calling an American Airlines toll-free lost luggage recovery line and dealing with a speech-recognition-enabled IVR. The system helped her locate her luggage when the live human beings working at American Airlines had lost it. The lesson here is that IVR doesn’t have to be unpleasant to deal with – IF designed right. This, of course, raises the obvious question: What tools might you use to design an IVR? (Like CallFire’s very own IVR Designer. And of course, How do you design it right?

1. First, know what the ultimate purpose of most IVR systems is: Provide answers to frequent questions (like location and hours of operation) and solutions to simple problems (like finding out account balances or the status of deliveries), and direct callers to the appropriate agent for anything really complex or fraught with emotion, i.e. conversations involving fraud, accidents, injuries, etc.
2. Don’t offer too many options, so that customers become annoyed. For most people, four is pretty much the limit before their memory gives out and they no longer know what option 1 was. If you find yourself using up all the digits, and then even creating subsets, your customers will probably either be silently crying in a corner, frothing at the mouth and screaming expletives, or kicking their puppy and/or kitten. In any case, they’ll probably swear to never resort to dealing with you again. Another suggestion here would be to let the customer know right away, “please listen to the following #__ options.” That way they can mentally prepare themselves. (This is something Asurion does that’s been well-received.)
3. Offer self-service capabilities online as much as possible. Have a visible and helpful FAQ section, simplify every process, make things idiot-proof, etc. The best customer service is sometimes eliminating a need for one.
4. Learn to plan for high-volume call spikes. If your IVR always says, “we are experiencing an unusually high level of calls,” then it is no longer unusual, is it? Hire more agents or look into contracted services that will take messages for your during these spikes.
5. Get outside (and inside) opinions on FAQs.  Talk to your agents and see what simple questions they’re always answering and would like to see automated. Talk to your customers and find out what they think. Get as much feedback as possible, analyze it, and use it to improve your system.
6. Use humor and a relaxed tone (if appropriate to your company). For example, Geek Squad used to have an IVR system that, after listing all the regular options, said, “press five to hear a PC that has stopped working being fired from a cannon into a lake full of hungry piranha fish.” When you pressed five, you would actually hear the simulated noises. It’s reminiscent of the Office Space scene where the evil printer finally meets its demise at the hands of Peter, Michael, Samir, and a baseball bat – and it’s also funny. It helps with some of that frustration that customers calling into Geek Squad are undoubtedly experiencing when their electronic equipment ceases to function right.
7. Along the lines of the above point, personalize your IVR system. Almost all businesses use some sort of IVR system, and yet almost none of them record creative messages that reflect the company culture or say something unusual and memorable. For businesses where a large proportion of customer contact is through a contact center, this is a crucial opportunity to affect brand perception. If humor is appropriate for your company, use it. If not, think of something else. For example, Novotel – a hotel all about the right kind of ambiance – would say, “Life is stressful enough. While you are waiting for an agent, take these few seconds to breathe deep, refocus, relax, refresh.” Corny? Maybe. Better than a generic message? Definitely.
8. Use great voice talent.  This may or may not come as news to you, but who voices your IVR really matters. When insurer Aflac replaced a “cold and inconsistent” voice with a middle-aged female voice that sounded much warmer and more conversational, it saw a rise in phone calls, but a drop in callers wanting to speak to a live agent. It also found in a survey that customer satisfaction amongst callers rose by 7%. Similarly, Asurion hired a female actress, coached her to inflect her speech the way that an experienced live agent would, and recorded her voice, resulting in a 5% increase in customer satisfaction and a reduced call time due to customers using the automated system before asking to be transferred.
9. Tailor IVR shortcuts for power users.  If you have high-priority customers who are important to the company for whatever reason, consider providing them with another phone number or transfer code. This may or may not align with your company values, but it is efficient.
10. And finally, ALWAYS provide the option to speak to a representative, or clearly state between which hours one will be available. A good idea would probably be to make pressing zero that option, as that’s the number most people associate with reaching a representative. Remember, making it too hard to reach live help is the #1 mistake companies make in introducing self-service.

So keep all these in mind and start building a more cost-effective, responsive IVR system today with CallFire’s Hosted IVR.

1) Starting your IVR: All phone calls start with a HELLO

Make sure your outbound or inbound IVR always starts with a “Hello”.  It’s helpful to begin with a play tag that is just a greeting before you move into a menu tags before you start prompting your customer with the next action.

TIP: Good phone etiquette can get you a long way

2) Preventing infinite timeout loops

One of the critical things to know while designing your Cloud IVR is if you want to create some sort of loop back in timeout. If you want to timeout to force a customer to repeat a step, be mindful of answering machines.  If an answering machine  is detected as live, then it can repeat that timeout an infinite amount of times resulting in hugely expensive calls.

TIP: A simple counter node can be created using the setvar (set variable) tag. If you need setvar tag help, contact us for a solution (email: support[at]callfire.com).

3) Indentations and dependencies are like essay outlines

XML scripting languages and the IVR designer interface are set up much like an outline in Word. Things that are dependent on something above them are indented like that. When pulling things down however, things won’t indent the right way even though you want them to. Don’t forget that the buttons all the way on the right can change dependency level.

TIP: Always use the buttons on the right to prevent this issue.

4) Key press tags require a press menu tag and vice versa

All key press tags must be contained in a press menu. You can’t have them floating out by themselves. One of the most common errors that occur are press tags that improperly or not nested in the press menu. So, check your script, and if in doubt call technical support. (877-897-3473)

5) Testing text-to-speech

When using one of the text-to-speech voices it always good to run at least one test phone call just to make sure that it is pronouncing everything the way you intended. For example, the world “invalid” is never pronounced \(ˌ)in-ˈva-ləd\ but instead the prounounced \ˈin-və-ləd\ relating to someone who is suffering from disease.  In order to enable it to pronounce the word correctly you must split these types of words up into 2 words. “In” + “Valid”.

Other common issues: The number stream 1,2,3,4,5,6 will be pronounced “One hundred twenty three thousand four hundred fifty six”. To prevent that visit the help documentation for CallFire XML, look under the setvar tag, and the special scenario section has a tag to explode the number into individual numbers with spaces between them.  There can be other pronunciation issues so it’s important to conduct a test call.

Using these tried and tested tips can save you a significant amount of time during development and will allow your Cloud IVR to be more effective. If you have other tips you’ve come across while setting up your own IVR, let us know in the comments below!

This is a re-post of an older post.  But a great reminder for those of you who haven’t yet taken advantage of IVR Designer!  Build your custom inbound or outbound phone experience, for only 5c/minute

We are thrilled to announce the release of our newest product: Hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) ! This product fills an important gap in the telephony space allowing quality of conversation that’s much better than traditional automated messages and yet not require a live call center representative. IVRs are widely used for large enterprises, but with this release, we are democratizing the technology space for the smaller to mid-size businesses. Hosted IVR’s robust capabilities offer a comprehensive solution for a large variety of telecom needs.

What can you do with Hosted IVR?

Core to our Hosted IVR product is the user-friendly IVR designer, which offers drag and drop functionality for non-technical users empowering them to create complex survey’s,  and meeting reminders via an intuitive, engaging user interface.. This capability widens the range of users who can individually build their own IVRs, something that historically could only be done by a developer.

The ease of use, however, does not decrease the feature set. Features that include reading text from a specific excel column using text to speech, complex dial plans, recording of responses, and more.  These features support a plethora of customer uses creating a high degree of personalization in the conversation. For example, the IVR can be used for a virtual receptionist that will route phone calls, Comprehensive phone surveys that will compile results, or Customized appointment reminders. The IVR can either be sent out to a list of phone numbers or assigned to a specific phone number that can receive incoming calls.

Click for more information about Hosted IVR and IVR designer

For developer documentation, see the Custom Telephony page

We are thrilled to announce the release of our newest product: Hosted Interactive Voice Response (IVR) ! This product fills an important gap in the telephony space allowing quality of conversation that’s much better than traditional automated messages and yet not require a live call center representative. IVRs are widely used for large enterprises, but with this release, we are democratizing the technology space for the smaller to mid-size businesses. Hosted IVR’s robust capabilities offer a comprehensive solution for a large variety of telecom needs.

IVR Designer Interface

Core to our Hosted IVR product is the user-friendly IVR designer, which offers drag and drop functionality for non-technical users empowering them to create complex survey’s,  and meeting reminders via an intuitive, engaging user interface.. This capability widens the range of users who can individually build their own IVRs, something that historically could only be done by a developer.

The ease of use, however, does not decrease the feature set. Features that include reading text from a specific excel column using text to speech, complex dial plans, recording of responses, and more.  These features support a plethora of customer uses creating a high degree of personalization in the conversation. For example, the IVR can be used for a virtual receptionist that will route phone calls, Comprehensive phone surveys that will compile results, or Customized appointment reminders. The IVR can either be sent out to a list of phone numbers or assigned to a specific phone number that can receive incoming calls.

Click for more information about Hosted IVR and IVR designer

For developer documentation, see the Custom Telephony page

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!