Category Archives: Voice Broadcasting

Looking Back…Looking Forward

7
Posted by Brad Herrmann on January 21, 2013 – 4:11 pm
Filed under Automated Calling, New Features, SMS Text Messaging, Voice Broadcasting

We’re now 3 weeks into 2013, and Call-Em-All is on the verge of some very visible changes to our service. I’d like to take a few minutes to look back on 2012 and to share a bit of what you can expect in 2013.

2012 Highlights

  • Nearly tripled our automated calling capacity.
  • Added speed and additional redundancy in several components of our platform.
  • Added a new tool that allows our support staff to hunt down an engineer with a single phone call, improving our 24×7 support.
  • Expanded API functionality. We now have clients utilizing advanced features like text to speech, multi-part messages, and web-based opt-ins.
  • Increased invoicing speed and visibility.
  • Added several new team members who have quickly assimilated into our unique company culture and become big contributors.

2012 newbs 576 Looking Back...Looking Forward

You’ll notice that much of the work we completed in 2012 strengthened our infrastructure, and isn’t visible to our clients. What does this mean? It means that you can continue to count on Call-Em-All to be here and ready when you need us. It also means that 2013 will bring many new and visible changes to Call-Em-All as we take advantage of our strong platform. You can expect to see a slew of changes & improvements that are all designed to make our service even more straightforward and easier to use than ever before.

A few things to watch for in 2013

  • New look, HTML5 website. Improved usability and simplicity for all devices, especially mobile.
  • Improved text usability & features.
  • More robust and better organized help docs, guides, and videos.  (Don’t worry, it will still be easy to use!)
  • More complete API documentation & initial release of a REST API.
  • A healthier you! Get a free t-shirt and join us on Mission Slimpossible 2013.

Our company goal is “to make our client’s lives easier”. That’s it. So, all of our work is designed to make our service as simple and easy as possible. Then, we back it with the fastest, friendliest service in our industry. I think we’ve done a great job thus far, but there is always room to improve. If you have comments, please feel free to send me an email, leave comments below, or click on the feedback tab on the right side of the screen after you log in.

Clients & Partners, we thank you for your support and look forward to our mutual future. Have a great day!

- Brad

3 Reasons We Are Excited About the FTC Robocall Challenge

0
Posted by Seth McGuinness on October 26, 2012 – 10:37 am
Filed under Voice Broadcasting

ftc robocall challenge 3 Reasons We Are Excited About the FTC Robocall Challenge

If you haven’t been following the FTC on social media (we know they are in everyone’s streams), then you might not have heard about their latest push to end illegal robocalls. Some might be surprised, but we have the same desire and feeling about illegal robocalls as the FTC and the thousands of people who file complaints every month. That is why we were invited and participated in the FTC Robocall Summit and why we have put in place internal training, technology and some other secret sauce to make sure our system makes calls to people that want to receive automated voice messages.

$50,000! That is what the FTC is offering as a prize for their FTC Robocall Challenge. You know what we’d do with $50,000? Probably buy some really geeky hardware and drool all over it. Unfortunately, we don’t qualify to participate in the challenge as a company, but we are keeping a very close eye on it and are excited to see what great ideas are pitched.

1. Technology to Solve the Problem

We put a lot of time into preventing illegal robocalls. Our engineering team has worked to put our own technology in place to prevent them from being made on our system. Also, our CSM team spends time manually preventing the calls that do manage to slip through the net we cast to catch them from a technical standpoint.

Potentially thousands of technically knowledgeable people are going to be brainstorming a way how technology can solve this problem. We could possibly have 200x the brainpower tackling this problem. Remember “Batman Forever” and the Riddler trying to use everyone’s brainpower for evil? Well this is kind of the same thing, just for good.

bf05 300x164 3 Reasons We Are Excited About the FTC Robocall Challenge

2. It Puts Focus On Our Industry

Automated communication has a place in this world. It is for the schools alerting parents and students to weather closings, the churches prayer chains, soccer coaches changing the time of practice, manufacturing facilities telling employees about shift openings and even reminders to exercise your right to vote. It can be tough trying to run an honest and successful business when there are many others who simply want to make a quick buck at at any cost (disregarding the law and peoples privacy). We are going to continue participating in the conversations that this newest focus has put on our industry and will help to make sure the illegal calls are stopped so that legitimate calls can be placed and have less of a negative burden.

3. We Hate Them Too!

Everyone in our office gets calls from “Rachel at cardholder services” too. They are annoying, harassing, and we can’t wait for a technical solution to limiting and even stopping these illegal calls. We’ll be watching the competition submissions and may even comment on a few of them from time to time. We encourage you to participate if you have any ideas too. Sign up and Follow the competition.

Tuesday Tips: Database Cleanup with Call-Em-All

0
Posted by Elise on March 13, 2012 – 9:56 am
Filed under Tips & Tutorials, Voice Broadcasting

We know it’s frustrating to spend time and resources calling people whose numbers have changed. If you’re wanting to clean up your database and get rid of those invalid numbers, we recommend sending a broadcast to all numbers listed in your database.

Whether you’re a girl scout troop calling for meeting times, doctor’s office sending vaccine reminders, or non-profit calling those who need assistance, many of our organizations are sending an automated call to the effect of:

“This is Smithville Family Practice updating our records. If you’d prefer to be contacted at a different number or would no longer like to receive notifications, call 877-226-3080.”

1. After completing your broadcast, you will click on the broadcast name from the home page.

2. Then click on the “Invalid Numbers” tab on the broadcast details page.

3. Then, click “Delete from Contacts.” Pretty simple, right?

4. If you want to export this data for external use, simply click “Download to CSV” to generate a spreadsheet.

invalid Tuesday Tips: Database Cleanup with Call Em All

It’s important to note that you are not charged for invalid numbers. If you are on the Pay-As-You-Go plan, those credits will drop back into your account after the broadcast has completed.

New FCC Regulations for Automated Calling Services

0
Posted by Elise on February 21, 2012 – 3:22 pm
Filed under Customers & Call-Em-All, In The News, Voice Broadcasting

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a new order that gives consumers additional protection against unwanted robocalls. We applaud the FCC for improving the rules in our industry. In fact, we already implemented these protections for our own customers years ago.  Here are some highlights of the new regulation and what it may mean to you.

Highlights of the New Regulation

The primary focus of the new order is to restrict telemarketers’ use of automated telephone calls and bring the FCC’s regulations in alignment with the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) 2008 Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) regulations.  Both agencies make clear distinctions between telemarketing calls and informational calls – telemarketing calls are broadly defined as any call designed to induce the sale of goods or services.  Both the FTC and FCC regulations enacted two primary changes affecting telemarketing calls:

1)      Telemarketing calls cannot be made without the explicit written permission of the person you are calling.  Previously, an existing business relationship was sufficient consent to send automated phone messages.

2)      All telemarketing calls must have, at the outset of the call, a mechanism for opting out during the call.  For voicemails, a toll-free opt-out number must be provided.

The FTC’s 2008 ruling had already placed the written permission and opt-out requirements on telemarketers from most industries.  However, there are a few significant exceptions that fall out of the FTC’s jurisdiction including banking, insurance, and intrastate telemarketing and a few others.  We believe these industries are the culprit for most of the unwanted telemarketing calls that are still being made today, and that the FCC’s order will soon eliminate these calls.

What Does This Mean for You?

If you’re a Call-Em-All customer, you’re most likely using our service to make purely informational auto calls.  We ran the numbers and found that over 95% of the automated calls we make each month fall in this category.  With this ruling, the FCC has made it very clear that both they and the FTC have no intention to restrict informational group calls, even to cell phones.  With cell phones and informational calls, the simple act of providing your number – even verbally – acknowledges consent to receive automated informational calls.

For the other 5% that make telemarketing calls, we’ve already helped you comply with the FTC’s TSR rules since they went into effect in 2008 and 2009.  Not only do these rules make sense, we think that they’re necessary to provide great service and that they are good for business.  If you disagree with this, it’s likely that Call-Em-All isn’t going to be a good fit for you.

Closing Thoughts

We appreciate that both the FTC and FCC have recognized that there are many cases where consumers really do want to receive robocalls.  As we discussed with the New York Times, many consumers have such a negative connotation with the word robo-call that they don’t even consider that the “good” calls they receive are using the same technology.  A great example is a snow-day call from a school.

Since our company began making calls in 2005, we have always been proactive and vigilant about making sure we are calling people who WANT to be called – even with informational calls.  During every call we make, the recipient can opt out from receiving future calls.  Additionally, every employee at Call-Em-All has the authority to reject a broadcast or deactivate a client if they feel their calls wouldn’t be welcome.

At Call-Em-All, we are very happy that the FCC has aligned their automated calling rules with those of the FTC. We look forward to providing a valuable, compliant and SPAM-free calling service for years to come.

If you have further questions please feel free to contact us anytime.

Call-Em-All in Waste Advantage Magazine

0
Posted by Elise on February 10, 2012 – 1:15 pm
Filed under In The News, Voice Broadcasting

Call-Em-All was recently mentioned in Waste Advantage Magazine on the benefits of automated voice and text messaging for waste management companies.

The following is the article that appeared in the February issue of Waste Advantage:

In the everyday economic struggle to stay profitable, we are all looking at more streamlined, cost-effective ways to take care of tasks that in the past have been time intensive and costly. Informing your customers of past due reminders, shut off notices and route changes are some of the tasks that use up your employees valuable time and affects your bottom line profit. With automated voice or text messaging, your employees can focus on more important projects.

A Slower Method

In the past, calling people individually was tedious and time consuming. This was especially true if the call was an emergency. Using a manual “phone tree” process usually resulted in the message being skewed by the time everyone was contacted. As technology advanced, it seemed only natural to refine this old process. In-office equipment came along which did the auto dialing, but the calls had to be generated from the hardware and there had to be phone lines to support the calls going out. The next step was Webbased automated calling.

Communicating in Seconds

Automated voice and text broadcast is an affordable, unique technology to get notifications to customers fast. Setting up a mass message broadcast is as easy as uploading a list of phone numbers and recording a voicemail message. With Web-based applications, sending out a message consists of three simple steps: 1) select the numbers you want called, 2) pick a time for the call to go out and 3) record your message over the phone. The message is then sent to all your phone numbers at once. For those customers that prefer getting their notifications by text, there are similar text messaging features. Your text message can by typed using your phone or over the Internet and any cell phone number that has opted in to your company’s unique keyword, gets the text message within seconds.

Automated voice and text messaging is beneficial to haulers in many situations. For example, traditionally, collection calls are an inefficient investment of time, unnecessarily consuming man-hours spent manually dialing clients to collect payments. With automated calling, this task is roughly a two-minute process. In addition, coordinating field personnel can be accomplished with voice or text in a matter of minutes. A single text broadcast can alert all drivers and other offsite employees with updates and last minute essentials. Using automated voice broadcasts to reach out to your customers also saves money on postage, employees’ time and making phone calls, allowing your company to be greener.

 An Indispensable Tool

Automated message broadcasting has become indispensable for many waste companies to take care of mundane tasks like:

• Calling past due accounts
• Holiday route change notifications
• Updating field personnel

Streamlining these repetitive call events is a great way to save time and money while allowing you to be greener.

Automated Messaging in Action

Allied Waste’s Claude Duran uses Call-Em-All to notify his customers for all major holiday route changes. He is seeing more of his customers requesting notification by a text message. Automated voice and text messaging has been a fast and cost-effective way of communication for Duran.  For any broadcast that is a reoccurring message, he is able to set up his calls and texts in advance using Call-Em-All’s convenient scheduler, saving even more time.

A large waste company in Pennsylvania has found using automated voice messaging a no brainer to contact their customers for paste due notices. Contacting thousands of customers in a month warranted searching for a different avenue of communication. Call-Em-All took care of getting these paste due notices out to their customers in minutes, for pennies a call. This waste company saw an immediate decrease in disconnects. Not only were they saving money on contacting their customers, but they were also saving on expenses involved in reconnects.

You can also check out the post here.

10 Winter Tips You May Not Know

0
Posted by Elise on February 7, 2012 – 5:15 pm
Filed under Tips & Tutorials, Voice Broadcasting

winterwx2 10 Winter Tips You May Not Know

As the winter is in full swing, certain precautions for those in colder weather need to be taken. By taking particular measures, you can save a world of headaches (not to mention extensive amounts of money).

One of our clients, Surf Site Management, recently shared some useful tips for cold weather protocol. Other than sending phone blasts for inclement weather, we’d like to share some of our favorite winter tips:

1. If your car is stuck in snow, floor mats or an old carpet can be placed under rear wheels for traction.

2. If your shovel has been sprayed with furniture polish or vegetable oil, snow will slide right off.

3. Fertilizer spreader can be used to scatter sand on those icy walkways!

4. Keep faucets dripping and cabinets open to prevent pipes freezing.

5. In addition to sand, you can use kitty litter to de-ice sidewalks and walkways.

6. Rubbing your snow shovel with parawax or candle wax will help snow slide off without buildup.

7. Fill old milk cartons or containers with sand to carry in your car in case you are stuck.

8. Set the thermostat to no lower than 55 degrees when leaving for extended periods of time.

9. To prevent fireplace soot, throw salt on fireplace logs once a month.

10. If you’re away for an extended period of time, ask a friend or neighbor to daily make sure your home is warm enough to prevent freezing.

11. Bonus tip: If weather forces cancellations, use Call-Em-All to notify everyone!

 Have any tried & true cold weather tips? Comment below and let us know!

Call-Em-All is explaining Google Voice

0
Posted by Seth McGuinness on March 28, 2011 – 5:25 pm
Filed under Customers & Call-Em-All, Tips & Tutorials, Voice Broadcasting

By interacting with customers frequently, we often receive similar questions about what our service has the capacity to do. We enjoy helping customers or potential customers because we are always here to help, and that will never change!

The two questions which we tend to field a lot is “Do you have a ‘Press 1 Campaign/Functionality’ where the recipient can be transferred back to our number?” or “Can my voice broadcast recipient leave me a message?”.  The direct answer to these questions is “no”, however, it isn’t just as simple as no, it is more of a “no, but…”.

The reason we don’t offer a the “Press 1″ functionality is that with large calls, no matter the size of the corporation, organization, or individual, it is impossible for someone to be prepared to receive the wanted feedback. We send out roughly 2,500 calls per minute, so imagine what would happen if everyone started calling at once! Not only would it be overwhelming, but it could be stressful and unprofessional. Our goal is to provide not only a good experience with our customers, but also to those individuals which are receiving calls from us. We simply do not want our customers to miss out on opportunities because they cannot answer all the calls they are receiving and likewise, we do not want the broadcast recipients to get a busy signal, a line condition error, or to sit on hold. Also, simplicity is the key here at Call-Em-All with our service and with our pricing. We don’t have any gimmicks or contracts, and we don’t want to charge you for every minute that someone is on the line with you after transferring.

The reason we don’t offer the option to leave a message is that we just aren’t in the market of being a voicemail provider. Our main goal is to continue to successfully build our core product of delivering voice/text messages to your contacts in a fashion that is easy to do and quick to execute.

When I’m talking with a customer who asks those questions I find myself saying “no, but let me recommend our survey broadcast option”. The survey feature allows the broadcast recipient to press *1-9 and we’ll record that and present it in the broadcast details for each number. A sample message could be:

“Thank you for your attendance to last weeks conference. We’d like your feedback on it. Please press *1 if you enjoyed the event or *2 if you were dissatisfied. Thank you and see you next year”

If that message was sent to 100 people, it is as easy to see on the details report who was dissatisfied and call them to follow-up. This is a great way to get a response, without having to have them call you back and flood your phone.

But what if you wanted to get specific information about why they thought the conference was bad? Well, we had a great discussion with one of our customers who began using Google Voice as a way to better handle call volume following a voice broadcast. Check out the video below for Google’s explanation of Google Voice.

Google Voice has some great features as you saw in the video, but how does it tie into using Call-Em-All?

  1. First, instead of using your home/cell number use your Google Voice number that you setup. This way you now have a system in place to manage call backs when you have a large list or know you won’t be able to answer the phone but would like to follow along as messages are left.
  2. Let’s go back to the conference attendance example I stated previously. Now the message could be

    “Thank you for your attendance to last weeks conference. We’d like your feedback on it. Please press *1 if you enjoyed the event or *2 if you were dissatisfied. If you would like to give us some more specific feedback please call {Google Voice No.}. Thanks and hope to see you next year”.

    If you sent that call to 1000 conference attendees and 10% wanted to call you, your phone(s) would be going crazy. But with Google Voice, you can answer at your pace follow along as messages are made. If you see some that are particularly poor, you could follow-up with them immediately.

  3. Here is an interesting example of creating your own “Call Center”. With Google Voice you can setup call forwarding. You can specify many numbers which will all ring waiting for someone to pick up (I’m not sure of a limit to how many number you can setup). What this allows you to do is have fellow employees, organization members or anyone that can field the calls available through their home/cell phone. Now, not only does Google Voice allow you to alleviate some of the burden of numerous callbacks, but now it alls you to also spread some that to others that are able to help.

Those are only a few scenarios which you can use Call-Em-All and Google Voice. Let us know in the comments if you are using Google Voice or another system in conjunction with your Call-Em-All calls/texts. We love hearing how our customers innovate to their needs!

sitenote: We aren’t supporting the use of Google Voice, only offering it up as a potential option. Google offers well written documentation and easy to follow videos regarding Google Voice. You can see all their videos at their YouTube Channel. Also, a Google Account is required. More details can be seen by going to http://voice.google.com.

Featured Case Study – San Antonio Spurs

0
Posted by Call-Em-All on October 20, 2010 – 7:46 pm
Filed under Customers & Call-Em-All, Voice Broadcasting

Have you checked out our latest case studies yet? No! Well, you are missing out. We have been hard at work updating case studies to share some of our great customer stories. Today we’re featuring the San Antonio Spurs.

The San Antonio Spurs have become one of the winningest franchises in the history of professional basketball. They have one of the highest winning percentages in NBA history and have only missed the playoffs four times in their franchise history.

Rather than communicating with fans through mass e-mails, social media, billboards and radio advertisements, the Spurs used the power of voice to cut through all the “noise” that they receive on a daily basis.

Check out this call from Tony Parker to thank fans for their support going into the playoffs. Tony Parker

Hear what Richard Jefferson had to say to fans, after his free agent signing in 2009. Richard Jefferson

Gotta admit, it is a pretty cool feeling knowing celebrities, and superstar athletes are using our service, following our prompts, and tell em’ all with Call-Em-All!  Go here to download the San Antonio Spurs case study in its entirety.

Thanks,
The Call-Em-All Team

Games Rained Out? Be Prepared This Season!

0
Posted by Call-Em-All on September 2, 2010 – 8:12 pm
Filed under SMS Text Messaging, Voice Broadcasting

Fall sports season is here!
We’ve got the solution to your team management headaches!

The fall sports season is upon us.  Getting back in the groove of weekly practices, hauling the kiddos around, and spending Saturdays at the field can be enough to worry about.  Call-Em-All is here to help take the stress out of managing your team – coaches, players, and parents. Read More »