Political Robo Calls: April 2009 Archives

Outbound Voicemail Messaging:  An unbelievable amount of time and money is wasted each day trying to make sales calls to contacts who hide behind voice mail.  Sales people or agents pick up the phone and spend hours locating and identifying the proper contact person or decision maker, only to find themselves shut down by a recording saying, "I'm sorry I'm either on the phone or away from my desk right now..."  And then they leave the same message, over and over again.

There's a way to beat the voicemail trap and improve productivity dramatically!  New technology for B2B voice messaging now enables you to click your mouse and deposit your pre-recorded message into your targeted recipient's voicemail.  Better yet, your agent or salesman can leave a live message and then seamlessly activate the recorded message.

Best of all, while the pre-recorded message is being played to the previous contact, your outbound caller can be on to the next call!  In other words, your callers don't have to waste half their day repeating themselves or waiting for the message to finish.  While the system is depositing your outbound message to one contact, you can already be talking to the next contact.  Pretty amazing.  And there are no mistakes, since every message is the same to each person (except for the times you opt to have your callers leave a live message that precedes the recorded message.)

Our virtual online phone dialer service is a perfect fit for those organizations that want to use live callers to improve effectiveness, but at the same time don't want to waste the call by hanging up, but instead who want to leave an important message, update or notification.  Give us a call and get a demonstration to see for yourself.  (Reminder:  This is NOT phone broadcasting which leaves an automated pre-recorded message to any phone that is called.  Rather, this is for live agents who make outbound calls who have to navigate through receptionists and corporate phone trees to reach a targeted contact person.)

There are a lot of state and local elections for public office coming up this year, and inevitably political candidates will be looking for robo calls to get their messages out.  Robo calling is simply the method of sending pre-recorded messages by phone to live voters or leaving them on answering machines.  Here are some "best practices" to consider when incorporating robo calls (voice blast) as part of your campaign strategy.

Why robo calls are very effective:  Unlike television and radio advertising that can be expensive and wasted on people who don't vote, robo calling is extremely inexpensive (5 cents per 30 second message delivered) and targeted.  In other words, you can direct your message to prime voters and don't have to waste resources chasing people who probably won't vote.  Even better, you can deliver different messages to different groups of voters.  You can one message for seniors and another message for the 20-somethings.  Moreover, there is no charge if your message is not delivered.

What NOT to do when conducting a robo call campaign:  Robo calling is a very powerful medium, and If not done properly, can be very intrusive to the point where it actually become counter-productive.  Candidates can lose votes if they aren't careful.  If candidates haven't properly prepared their robo campaign with the right phone lists and the right message, they run the risk of sabotaging their own campaigns.  Unfortunately, candidates and their handlers will spend weeks and months preparing radio and television commercials, and then decide to do robo calling at the last minute.  They hectically scramble to organize a robo call campaign with no serious consideration of what the candidate is going to say, who the message is going to, and what time to send the call.  Robo calls in the early morning or dinner hours are sure to upset potential voters, so it's best to send your calls during the day and attempt to leave as many messages on answering machines as possible so voters can listen at their convenience.  And do not plan on sending out more than two messages during the entire campaign.

If used properly and with some careful planning, robo calls can be a life saver for candidates who need to respond to last minute attacks or false accusations.  But candidates need more than a couple of hours to prepare their phone list, usually available at the state or local elections office.  That's why experienced campaigners plan ahead for robo calls by budgeting and preparing lists way ahead of time, not in the last two days.

Candidates are also advised to beware of robo call services that use the Internet for placing calls since the reporting capabilities are woefully insufficient.  You'll need rock solid, hardwired, fiber optic capabilities to insure your messages are sent out on time and delivered reliably.  Give us a call today and find out how our experience, technology and creativity (yes, we can help you write your script at no cost) can help you enjoy a victory on election night.  We've helped dozens of candidates with the best customer service in the business, and we stand ready to serve you as well.