Having a toll-free number is a great way to market your business. Toll-free numbers are available from telephone operators and virtual phone providers, but they are expensive to set up. You have to pay a monthly fee, the cost of the number, and any applicable taxes. In addition, you may need to lease or buy hardware such as a voice response system (VRS).

Unless you have serious money to spend on marketing, it’s not worth the expense. If you’re still interested in getting a toll-free number provider, here’s what you need to know: 

1. You have to search for a Toll-free number service provider.
2. Check the Toll-Free number price of that Toll-Free Number Service Provider
3. Check what are the services 

Why Are Toll-Free Numbers Important?

Toll-free numbers are important for many reasons. The main reason for the importance of toll-free numbers is that it allows customers to call your business and talk to a live person. This is especially important for businesses that deal with sensitive issues or products.

Toll free numbers also provide an additional way for people to reach out to businesses, which can be very beneficial in today's world where people are constantly on their phones and computers.

Another reason why toll-free numbers are important is that they give you more time to focus on other aspects of your business without having to worry about receiving calls from customers who do not have access to a phone line or internet connection.

How to Get a Toll-Free Number?

As you know, Toll-Free Numbers are a great way to connect with customers and potential clients. They allow you to reach people all over the world, so it's easy for them to find your business.

If you're looking for a Toll-Free Number, here are some tips that can help:

1.Make sure your company is ready for the call volume that will come from having a Toll-Free Number.

2.Be sure that your phone system is configured correctly—you don't want to miss anyone calling in!

3.Make sure you have an answering machine or voicemail messages recorded that will tell people how they can get in touch with your company if they need more information or want to schedule an appointment with you or one of your representatives (like an agent).

The Drawback of Having a Toll-Free Number

1. A toll-free number is not as easy to remember or type in as a regular phone number. This can be frustrating for customers who have trouble remembering numbers, such as senior citizens.
2. Toll-free numbers are often associated with sales calls, which may bother customers who want to avoid these types of calls.
3. Toll-free numbers do not usually carry the same level of prestige as a regular phone number; they may not be listed in the Yellow Pages or publicized very much on websites that list phone numbers and contact information for businesses, making them less likely to be used by established businesses or famous people.

The Bottom Line

In Conclusion, Toll-free numbers are important because they offer a number that is free of charge. This can be beneficial to businesses and individuals who want to reach customers without having to worry about the cost of calling them. Toll-free numbers are also important because they allow companies to provide information about their products or services without committing them to a long-term contract with the customer.

Use our PRP Services CPaaS Platform in your Company. 

Drop a Mail on hello@prpservices.in or call on 1800 313 5152.

PRP Services Pvt. Ltd. || PRP Services Pvt. Ltd. 

Introduction: What is CPaaS and UCaaS?

If you’re not in the tech industry, the terms “CPaaS” and “UCaaS” probably sound like gibberish. But if you are in the tech industry, then you know that these two terms are revolutionizing the way we communicate.

CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service) and UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) are cloud-based platforms that allow businesses to build, deploy, and manage their communication and collaboration solutions. There are many CPaaS Companies in India and PRP Services is one of it. These platforms offer a wide range of features and services, such as VoIP, video conferencing, instant messaging, and more.

CPaaS and UCaaS are changing the way businesses communicate, and they are here to stay. In this article, we will give you an overview of what CPaaS and UCaaS are and how they are changing the landscape of business communication.

What are the Benefits of Using CPaaS or UCaaS?

There are many benefits of using CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) or UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service). By using these services, businesses can save money, improve efficiency, and scale more easily.

CPaaS and UCaaS can help businesses save money by reducing the need for on-premise equipment and infrastructure. They can also help businesses improve efficiency by consolidating multiple communication tools into one easy-to-use platform. And finally, CPaaS and UCaaS can help businesses scale more easily by allowing them to add or remove users as needed.

Overall, CPaaS and UCaaS offer a number of advantages and benefits of CPaaS and UCaaS for businesses of all sizes. If you're looking for a way to improve your communication system, CPaaS or UCaaS may be the right solution for

How Communication Platforms can Help with 5 Amazing Use Cases?

Communication platforms as a service are a new way of communication. They have been introduced in recent years, but have not been fully utilized or explored. There are many benefits to using a communication platform as a Service, CPaaS and UCaaS, and it is worth exploring what they have to offer, including 5 amazing use cases.

Use case 1: Instant translation

Communication platforms can be used for instant translation between different languages. Translators at the company can work on translating content in real time so that the customer can read it in their language with no wait time.

Use case 2: Collaborative call center

A company has many different locations, but only one call center. The employees at each location who need to talk with customers can use a communication platform as a service to connect with the customer and collaborate with other employees at the same location on best customer practices while on a call.

Use case 3: Shared meeting room

Sharing meeting rooms is a common practice among companies and it is often difficult when large conferences are taking place because some of the Companies provide only few

 Use case 4: Enabling Multi Channel Delivery

Client communication operation enables marketing brigades to configure, validate, and shoot contextual dispatches offers to guests through their preferred medium, adding offer effectiveness. It can be print, digital, social, or a blend of all.

Use case 5: Personalizing Customer Experience

CCM helps you to deliver substantiated communication to each client on time, every time, with thickness and standardization through their preferred channel. You can add a particular touch to each communication by arranging variable data and information in structured templates in the client’s favored language. Drink accouterments , negotiated insurance programs, prayers, and grievances communication are some of its stylish exemplifications. transferring-cards on birthdays and anniversaries improves your client engagement.

Conclusion: Start Using Communication Platforms As A Service To Improve Your Team's Collaboration And Productivity

Communication is the key to a successful and productive working experience. Teams who share a smooth and effective communication experience are generally more efficient, better at solving problems, have higher morale, and are more likely to improve their team’s performance.

The most common form of communication is email. This tool is easily accessible from any location and with any device. But as we all know, it also has its limitations: email can be slow, it doesn't offer real-time collaboration capabilities, and it may not be best suited for sending multimedia content like videos or presentations. For these reasons, other platforms have emerged which can help teams work together without these limitations.

Cloud communications services - CPaaS (communication platforms as a service) offer enterprise-grade features that can help teams collaborate better than ever before by providing features such as real-time communication platforms with video conferencing capabilities and file sharing systems which allow team members to share information in a seamless way.

Use our PRP Services CPaaS Platform in your Company. 

Drop a Mail on hello@prpservices.in or call on 1800 313 5152.

PRP Services Pvt. Ltd. || PRP Services Pvt. Ltd. 

Sales automation may be the answer to all your selling queries. As you must have seen that there are many tasks that are repeated day-to-day inside your business interaction, yet you realize you need to do them to keep sales process ongoing.

These tasks takes a long time and decreases the efficiency of sales representatives who need to work on them. Unlike, the tasks which needs follow-ups, some of the tasks don’t even need any human interference.

Most business must have faced these certain problems:

• Have lost a maturing lead because you forgot to follow up?
• Have wasted a long time on a lead which was not important at all?
• Have wasted many days keeping the records of Leads manually all in one place?
• Have worked on leads in a date wise series instead of firstly working on the most interested Leads?
• Have wasted hours finding out the much needed documentation for sending out to your Potential Leads?
• Have wasted time to figure out from where the most important Leads come from?
• Have taken much time to write a Template manually for sending to your Leads?

If any of the issues relates you, you don’t need to work any more with our tool.

Here’s how our Sales Automation System can help you grow:

Sales Automation leads can be categorized as qualified, interested or contacted based on how far they are in the sales pipeline. With our tool you can automatically schedule tasks and events like sales meetings, follow-up messages, and emails. It can likewise follow a sales representative day to day plans and exercises and set updates and alerts for follow up on their responsibilities. Hence, it increases reach to the potential customers.

At the point when you are able to understand the leads interest and behavior, It gets simpler to take follow-up in the correct manner, without annoying them. For this our tool tells you which lead to follow and when to follow. You can even figure out their next course of action and show them solutions to problems they were just on the edge of finding. With customer support like that - taking care of issues before they happen - you are on the correct way to expand your deals.

Key Offerings:

• Recognize excellence leads from a puddle of incoming leads
• Smart Routing
• Measure ROI from your online promotion
• Scheduling Lead Activities
• Integration with other systems
• Nourish assuring leads into conversion
• Engage with leads near beyond various touchpoints
• Ability To Work Offline
• Examine and trace essential information about leads
• Automated Integrated Marketing

A Sales Automation Tool assists you with Tracking lead activities, distinguish leads, qualify them, and sustain them into clients. A Sales Automation Tool makes it simpler for you to push qualified leads down the sales pipeline and interact with them in more personalized way.

Want to experience the best Sales Automation Tool? Minimize lead leakage, manage leads, and nurture leads with us.

Click here to take a demo for the most effective Tool to drive more Growth.

The biggest retail festival is upon us and every business is rolling up their sleeves to make Cyber Monday a success. While mostly known for its American roots, Cyber Monday is catching up in other countries too, like the UK. As per reports, the UK spent £8 Billion last year on Cyber Monday 4-day weekend.

Many marketers attribute this growth of the biggest shopping extravaganza to the popularity of mobile phones. The mobile has been touring over desktop when it comes to traffic to business sites from mobile devices. Even 2 years ago in 2017, Black Friday deals enjoyed 66% traffic from mobile devices to the websites. This year international marketers are preparing to spend more with a projection of £10 Billion, in the UK itself.

Make the most of mobile devices

SMS messages though believed to be out of fashion are still effective when it comes to business messages and notifications. They have an open rate of 90 - 98 percent and usually are read within the first 3 minutes of the message arriving. So, letting customers know about special Cyber Monday sales through mobile marketing becomes imperative in 2019. If you want your users to browse your deals and cart items during the Cyber Monday sale, it's essential to send a text message with the link to the URL. SMS has a click-through rate of 19% while its counterpart email 4.2%.

Here’s how SMS can accelerate Cyber Monday retail and e-commerce business:

1. Re-targeting abandons

Basket abandon rates often go as high as 79 percent during the festive season. Businesses can re-target such users with a persuasive text message to give them the necessary push to convert, by picking up where they left off. Such convenience of text communication encourages conversions while also keeping user experience high. 

2. Stock availability alerts

Let customers know when the items they wish to buy or had set to be notified is up on the shelves again. Spreading the buzz on low stock or new stock arrivals can increase traffic and footfall into sites and stores by manifolds, due to the sense of urgency it creates.

3. Notify deals on wish-list items

Much like stock notifications, deals on items in users’ wish-list can help nudge them to cart and transact in the site. These are more personalized and have higher chances of conversion and also add to the user experience.

4. Early-birds and opt-ins

Let the big-spending locals know about the Cyber Monday deals early on. Provide them with special offers like exclusive opt-ins and deals or pre-sales deals. Use keywords or shortcodes via SMS and incentivize shopping in-stores.

5. Discount codes and SMS vouchers

Increase sales through sales promotions the tried-and-tested way with special discount codes to drive additional sales and increase traffic and footfall.

6. Delivery updates

Keep customers updated with their order shipping and delivery details, add additional information like delivery agents’ contact and other convenient features to make shopping a good experience.

Make the most of Cyber Monday with the improved customer experience and multichannel communication, leveraging SMS marketing with us. For information on Cyber Monday and Cyber Monday promotions follow this space!

Start your Cyber Monday SMS Marketing now

Try for free

Before we begin with answering the question on the importance of IVR for any business, we must first understand what is an IVR system?

Simply put, an IVR system which is Interactive Voice Response system is a type of software essential for call centre operations. It has features that facilitate self-service, call segmentation and routing. This is when the callers can themselves make choices on which department or agent they want to talk to, either through voice commands or typed commands entered through their phone keypads.  

IVRs are a well-known tool also known amongst different consumers who sometimes may think of them as the standard initial language selection prompt, like "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Hind…" and so on, while still being unaware of what the acronym stands for. 

However, while IVRs are a familiar concept to people, but it is usually from a consumers' point of view who may not understand the business nuances and benefits from this software. 

How do IVRs work?

The IVR systems' first job is to greet the callers and then assist them in reaching the point of contact within the company, i.e. the agent or resource dedicated to their specific needs. The software does this smartly by responding to the inputs given by the callers, which are either through the phone keypad or through voice commands. While the callers do not do much but select options from menu items, the software uses skill-based routing to winnow down to who or what the best end goal will be for the caller in particular.

The main aim of a smart IVR system is to ensure that the callers are routed correctly for prompt resolution of their needs and queries within the company. 

What is a multi-level IVR?

With a multi-level IVR, a caller can input numerous stages of instructions in various menus to be routed to a specific end goal. For instance, English > Billing > App development > Android and so on and so forth. While a simplistic IVR system usually allows only one initial option or two a complex multi-level IVR would offer various levels to the callers to have their calls routed accurately in a large organization with many departments and verticals. 

While a simple IVR is usually easier for the callers to go through, they do not often do the job of sorting customers, rightly. However, if a less specialized agent in that particular field of work handles a call, the chances of resolution will be minimized and the chances of escalating the call to higher authorities will increase. 

What features should the IVR System offer?

IVR systems form an elemental component of call centre software solutions, hence there are a few features that one must seek from the software:

1. Skills-based routing

This feature allows managers to segment callers in different categories, and based on their inputs they are matched with the right kind of agent group who possess the right skills for handling queries. 

2. Ring groups

Ring groups are simply the buckets or categories of agents suited to specific needs. A good example of a ring group is 'Billing'. Skill-based routing routes calls to ring groups. 

3. Call queues

Call queues are just lines in a way that callers are placed in after they have been routed by the IVR. A call queue lines up the callers with similar queries to a specific ring group, for instance, this could be the 'billing' department. 

4. Queue callback

Queue callback is a smart IVR option that enables callers to hang up the phone, while still retaining their spot in the call queue. This is particularly useful when the call queue is long and does not anger the customers.

5. Intelligent reconnect

Intelligent reconnect is a pioneering feature that automatically directs customers who were accidentally disconnected, directly to the representative who fielded their initial call, thereby allowing the callers to skip the IVR and have a more seamless experience. 

6. Automatic call distributor (ACD)

This feature works in IVRs in association with CTIs to allow for a seamless routing of calls. 

Why you must have an IVR system for your business?

With their abundance and frequent use and numerous advantages, IVRs have become a hallmark for enterprise businesses. Companies or calling departments that lack the feature are often judged to be less professional or lack in the organization than those who have an IVR system incorporated in their operations. Needless to be mentioned, an IVR system is optimal for the seamless operation as it offers a plethora of advantages and offers unmatched simplicity to call centre KPIs.

This can be hard if you're hearing the term for the first time. Our blog has more information on all the above solutions, and if you're not a vivid reader, worry not, you can request a free demo with us.

A brand's success has a lot to do with your communication with your customers. If your customers call you, and your employees are busy - then no one calls them back, you lose a huge opportunity of making a sale or a new client. This also works for those operating globally and may have customers from other time zones calling in when there is no one to answer.

This is where the missed call alert service comes in. 

Here is what a missed call alert service can do for your business.

1. Missed Call Can be used for Voting 

People hate all the lengthy work they have to go through to vote in a campaign. The lengthy campaign participation requirements are a huge turn off to the voters. Yet, you can get your customers to easily contribute to a Yes/No campaign through a missed called service.

This is by requesting them to leave a missed call on a certain number if they agree or not agree.

Read more: How Bulk SMS Marketing can Drive Your Political Campaign to Success?

You can then use the data (number of missed calls) to implement policies that interest your customers.

2. Registering and Subscribing

Instead of having lengthy registration or subscription processes, you may consider using a missed called service alert.

A current study shows that there are currently 976 million mobile subscribers, and that number is growing rapidly.

Sounds good, right?

And that's not the best part yet.

The subscription rate is TEN TIMES with the missed call alert service.

There are many ways to approach this. For example, you can tell your potential customers to leave a missed call, where they'll later be contacted to go through the registration or subscription process.

By doing so, you avoid dropouts.

3. Verifying Customers to Save Business Costs

Having a huge customer base won't help. You need to identify your "quality" customers. This allows you to focus more on their needs, as that's where your revenue comes from. Therefore, verification is required whether you're running an online or offline business. Using the missed called verification process, you can know what customers are actively engaging with your brand.

Verification also helps if you offer cash on delivery services. If a customer enters the wrong data in the delivery form, sending the package can incur a huge loss for your business. Asking customers to verify their identity and details through a missed call can help decrease delay and save money for your business.

4. Opt-in / Opt-Out

Overwhelming customers with your content if they're no longer interested in wastage of resources. 

You also lose a chance of them coming back to you as they may opt to block your number or content.

To avoid this, you can ask your customers to use your missed call service to be unsubscribed or again subscribed.

5. Flexibility

India's telecom subscribers hit 1.8 million in 2017. This includes landline users as well. Luckily for you, a missed call solution can cater to both mobile and landline users, leaving no market untapped.

The service is especially helpful to customers in remote areas or has little to no knowledge of tech issues. They can use the service to show their interests, from where your team can call and follow up on what they need.

By integrating your missed called service with CRM, you can have all your missed call data, and you can even use it later to inform your customers on promotions.

6. Cost-Effective for Customers

Missed call service is free for the customers, unlike SMS based and internet-based campaigns. And yet nothing is as efficient as missed call solution for enterprises. 

Since the customer doesn't have to incur any cost, they can easily approach you anytime they have issues.

This boosts your brand engagement that eventually leads to more sales.

Still Not Convinced Why Your Business Need a Missed Call Solution?

As a business owner, you want to stay on top trends of every marketing strategy to compete favorably. 

Well, a missed call solution is one of these trends that you've got to honor in India, or your competitors will take your share of the pie in your industry.

Customers want to freely engage with your brand at zero costs, in the easiest way possible, which is what a missed call service does. 

If you're still torn between whether the service will assist your business or not, visit our blog for more information or contact us for free missed call demo.

Communication is a major part of managing a non-profit organization.;

Whether your focus is on healthcare, environmental conversation, or education, engaging with your supporters is a priority.

Many nonprofits are using SMS marketing to spread their message in this digital era. Luckily, it’s proved to be very effective.

If you are running a non-profit and you haven't given text message marketing a shot, read on to see what you are missing out on!

Why Choose Text Message Marketing?

You can easily send personalized messages to a large group of people. This will obviously be very expensive and time-consuming if you’ll still hanging on to the traditional messaging system. Text messaging applications are evolving, with more features being added every day.;

Nonprofits are taking advantage of this to maximize gains with minimal efforts using browser-based texting analytics.

Another advantage of using text message is regardless of how you phrase your content; the recipient is likely to read your text.

How Can You Use SMS Marketing in Your Organization?

There are three main ways that you can use SMS marketing in your non-profit organization:

• Broadcast messaging: Reaching a group of people with ONE click.
• Text message sign-ups: Encouraging people to opt-in a campaign by texting a fixed code ( such as type YES or 123)
• Peer to peer texting: This is one-to-one texting to build relations.

Text messages are very effective for recruiting volunteers and mobilizing campaign supporters for non-profit organizations.

Let’s discuss how, as a non-profit organization, you can achieve all this using text messaging marketing.

Communicating with Volunteers during Events

It’s crucial that you keep the volunteers in the loop when holding any event. Texting plays a big role in this.Here are a few examples

Distributing Event Information using Broadcast Texts

Campaign managers can use broadcast messaging to inform volunteers on the following:

• The time when the event will be held
• The location
• Their duties

When you are logged in an app, this is done in one click of a button.

You can also text other potential volunteers and track the results. This is by sending a message with responses such as type YES or NO.

The CRM will automatically categorize the answers.

Read more: How Bulk SMS Marketing can Drive Your Political Campaign to Success?;

Answering Questions through Collective (Peer to peer) Texting

After sending your broadcast messages, some volunteers may have queries regarding the event. Now that they have a phone number, they can text you, and you can reply to them and so on.

The CRM collects and stores contact information for all attendees for future purposes.

Through mass texting, you can ensure maximum participation of an event by sending alerts, follow-ups, and reminders to the volunteers.

You can even collect additional information for attendees through automated texting. For example, if your first text was:

We are having fundraising on 3rd Feb 2020 to help street children, text Interested if you want to attend.

People who are not interested are immediately eliminated from the thread.

Now you can send the following text to the attendees:

Hurrah! Please send us your name so that we can add you to the attendance list.

The CRM updates their name with an automatic merge tag such as {first name _ last name}

At this point, you can start sending personalized messages and ask for more details, such as their email address.

Creates Awareness

Say you want to attract many volunteers to help in planting trees. SMS marketing is the most effective way because many people are likely to read your text.

As discussed earlier, you can use a series of messages to personalize the final campaign messages to encourage attendance.

Use SMS opt-ins to Collect Volunteers

If you are holding a campaign, you can post it on social media handles and website. But instead of asking individuals to enter their email address, you request them opt-in with a text.

People find this more comfortable and are likely to go through with it. You can then ask for more personal details as you get acquainted with each other.

Mobilizing People during an Emergency

During an emergency, every second counts. Emailing people may not work as some may not be connected to their WI-FI.

Calling, on the other hand, may take so much time when they're thousands of people involved.

Thanks to text messaging, it’s easy to spread a message in a minute through broadcast messaging.

Here are a few ways messaging can help during emergencies:

Alerting People When They're In Danger

If there is a fire or tornado, you can text the affected residents to take action quickly. You can also gather information on the affected individuals.

For example, you can add: If you are affected reply with YES

With the information, you can send help to the affected parties as soon as possible.

Sending Automated Responses

Another way you can help people during a crisis is by sending an automated response telling them the action they should take to stay safe.

For example, during a natural disaster like heavy rains, you can caution people to stay indoors.

You can also ask people to help with your social media handles. Here you can use an opt-in-keyword for those who are willing to help. After they accept to opt-in, you can send an automated text informing them of the steps they can take to help.

Since all this data is stored in your CRM, the next time there is a calamity in the same area, you’ll have your list of volunteers ready.

Recruiting

You can recruit volunteers using emails or social media handles, but it’s so much easier when you use text messages.

Text messages take prospects step by step. This way, they don’t feel overwhelmed.

Instead of providing a form that volunteers can fill in,all their information, begin with a simple text and then ask more info bit by bit.

Using broadcast messaging helps you reach many people, which increases your chances of getting the right people for your team.

Fundraising

Money is a sensitive topic, and you have to be strategic on how to ask for it if you want success.

There are two ways you can use text messaging to ask for donations.

One is the peer-to-peer texting, and the other one is using opt-in codes.

Peer-To-Peer Texting for Fundraising

Instead of using emails or generic messages, you can use collective texting to ask for donations.

Inserting the first time of an individual can have a huge impact and a higher persuasion power compared to a generic text.

When you are using a messaging app, this doesn’t take hours to implement.

The best part is that you can prepare and schedule your campaigns in advance.

Use Tags to Segment Your Supporters

You can categorize your messages based on the replies you get from your supporters. For example, you can group those who opt out and try to win them over using other options.

You can then have two more segments of those who pledged high amounts, and those who pledged a small amount. This ensures your follow up emails make sense to all groups.

To create a long term relationship with your users, make a habit of thanking them for taking action.

You don’t want your thread to be full of money requests only.

Surveys

Every non-profit requires constant feedback to know whether or not they are on the right path. If you are running a survey, you can send a simple message such as:

Hello Olivia, we are carrying out a survey to improve our services. Would you love to help? Reply YES if you want in and NO if you want out.

If a person chooses YES, they are provided with the questionnaire or asked to fill in a form.

How to Choose the Best SMS Service for Non-profits

If you Google, text messaging service, you’ll get thousands of results. Below are five tips that will give you an idea of what you should be looking for:

1. Easy to Use.

Time is of the essence in a non-profit organization. You don’t have days to learn or teach your juniors how to use a text service software. Be sure to find something that requires minimal time to learn how to operate.

2. Great Customer Service

A great texting service for a non-profit organization should have a responsive and friendly customer service.

This is very critical because you don’t want a company that won’t be there when you are facing issues sending texts during a crisis.

3. Experience with Non-profit Organizations

Non-profit organizations have different needs from other companies. It’s crucial that you work with a testing message that has a history with other non-profit organizations. They are likely to have a way to solve the challenges you may face during texting.

4. Price

It’s very crucial that non-profit organizations save every cent they get. This is very reasonable given the cause they are serving.

With that said, choosing the cheapest messaging service may not be the best idea. It may not serve the intended purpose.

If you focus too much on the price you might forget other factors such as reliability of the app.

5. Features

Text messaging apps come with many features to make the texting experience of the user easy. A messaging service that understands a non-profit organization may have templates that fit your needs. If you don’t get one with experience with nonprofits, get one that’s ready to go the extra of helping with the customization process.

Get A Messaging App for Your Organization

Even though they are other outreach ways such as email marketing and social media marketing, they may not be the best outreach means for a non-profit organization.

Nonprofits need a mode of communication that can reach out to thousands of people in the shortest time possible.

If you haven’t considered switching to SMS marketing, this may be your opportunity to get started and take your organization to the next level of efficiency & effectiveness.

If you still don’t understand how this works, contact us for a Start Free Messaging Demo that will take you through the whole process.

Interactive Voice Response System (IVRs) is the fast-growing automatic customer response system in large and small-scale industries. Mostly small-scale industries are trying to focus on IVRS to improve their response to their customers. Small-scale industries, emphasis on keeping their customers engaged so that the feedback from costumers about the concern will not fade away for the long term.

What is Interactive Voice Response System (IVRs)?

Interactive Voice Response or IVR is an automated cloud telephony system that automatically interacts with caller without any human intervention and helps to route the calls to the most appropriate departments / agents. It provides more professional way to your customers to interact with organization and freeing up sales / supports agents to focus on more value-added interactions. 

The powerful combination of technology is an efficient and direct method to connect your customers to the right agent in your organization.

Interactive Voice Response System mainly targets on reducing the human resources in organizations where the customer's incoming calls flow will be more. 

Unfortunately, limited human resources cannot handle all the customer's calls per day and missed most and important business sales call.

To increase the proficiency of the organization with a limited workforce is the main motive of IVRs.

Why Businesses Needs a Virtual IVR Number?

Nowadays Virtual IVR number is one of the indirect ways of customer service that you are investing in your business. Whether it is a large scale or small-scale industry. When a business person thinks, there should not be any small gap also in their business; then the virtual number should not be left behind. Start utilizing the benefits of the virtual number to its core.

What is a Virtual IVR Number?

This is a telephone number that lacks direct association to any telephone line but allows you to contact the person that you want to get in touch with. A clear and more literal example is that if you call a virtual number, you will be routed to other devices before finally being connected to the number that you want to contact. 

How does virtual phone number works?

The size of the business world shrunk utilizing technology, and now people feel they are nearby with their clients or customers even when they are 5000 to 7000 miles apart. 

The Virtual phone system is an advanced cloud-hosted telephony feature. A single virtual number can work for multiple departments. It uses DTMF technology to gather caller's response and forward the call based on their input to the right department.

Read more: How an IVR Service Provider Can Help You Grow Restaurant Business?

Features of Virtual Number

There are several features by which virtual number can be a part of your business.

1. Transferring the call: You do not want to call several people in an office to discuss different information. Instead, you can call only one number, and your call will be transferred to different locations based on your needs. The call transferring facility is the most important feature of a virtual number.
2. Reaching conference call: Here is another significant benefit of the virtual number. You do not need to call each person separately to discuss the same information. Instead, you can call one number and make all the required person present in one call. This feature is a conference call, and it plays a vital role when each person is far away, and they need to meet for a particular discussion.
3. Voice mailing facility: If you are busy with some other work and you are unable to attend your customer call, there is an option called voice mail. Using this feature, your customer can drop a voice mail so that you will get an alert mail. You can listen to the record and understand why the customer called you. After studying, you can reply to your customer immediately or later when you get time.
4. Barging in a conference call: If your manager or your higher official want to take part in your conference call, they no need to wait in the queue. Instead, they will have the facility to barge into the conference call ad take part in the discussion anytime.
5. Intelligent call routing: This allows the system to identify the caller and the reason why they are calling to assign them to the right agent. It is quite efficient as it breaks the barrier of physical location. Intelligent call routing can take place regardless of where the caller is contacting from which can be very convenient for your company in dealing with customers that are physically far.
6. Call recording: While using a virtual phone number, you have the option to record calls. Now call recording allows a wide variety of advantages these including, automated call recording, relief from the tiresome work of taking notes, ability to retrieve important data through reviewing calls, using recorded calls to simplify staff training, analyze the requirements of the customer among others.
7. Call analysis and reporting: Virtual numbers offer retrieval of phone call history through which the user can use to analyze and track calls that have been made in the past which can, in turn, be very useful in tracking clients and having as proof of transaction.
8. Office hour configuration: Virtual numbers offer your business capabilities of working remotely. The business number (which is a virtual number) can be configured to work around your business hours with ease. This offers your business employees a chance to explore business opportunities outside the office without having to burden themselves with the worries of missing a client's call. 

Conclusion

To do prosperous business, you should keep the current business growth and future commitments to your customers. Always thrive to keep your customer engaged so that they should not think about searching for an alternative source. IVR services might play a small role in that, but that will be an essential role and becomes a significant contribution to your business. So, start investing in Virtual Phone System to become successful.

Personally, I receive countless text messages daily. In this era of WhatsApp Messenger and other instant messengers, SMS messages appear a bit old-fashioned. Yet, these messages are clear indicators that SMS always remains an integral part of mobile marketing. And several companies use SMS marketing to increase sales of their business.

Before I speak about how to use SMS marketing to increase sales of your business, let's look at some of the flipsides of SMS messaging in general. That would give you a clear idea of how you can use SMS marketing effectively.

Flipsides of SMS Marketing

In simplest terms, SMS marketing involves sending messages in bulk to hundreds or even thousands of mobile phone numbers within a specific geographic location or the entire country in a few seconds. This depends upon the nature of the business.

Banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), the Indian government organizations, utilities providers, eCommerce websites and several others use SMS marketing to reach existing and potential clients.

The messages are about existing or upcoming service, offers, promotions, cautionary notification, bill payment alerts, and any other information. However, not every SMS that I receive is useful. This brings us to the major flipsides of SMS marketing-

• SMS messages often go unread by the user since most people in India use WhatsApp and other messaging platforms.
• The National Do Not Disturb (DND) service that mobile telecom companies in India have to offer under Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines enables users to block all marketing SMS.
• As a common tendency, most mobile phone users don't bother to read SMS messages anymore.

If we consider these five factors, you can easily imagine the difficulties in using SMS marketing to increase sales of your business. At the same time, these needn't be an impediment or hurdle to your business. You can use SMS effectively for your business by following some simple tips.

Read more : 5 Highly Effective SMS Marketing Tips to Improve Black Friday Sales in 2019

5 Tips to Use SMS Marketing to Increase Sales for Your Business

These simple tips might help you overcome the above flipsides of SMS marketing and help increase sales of your business. 

1. Send a SMS Alerts to Right Customers 

As per the TRAI rule, never send unsolicited SMS messages to anyone merely because they're an existing customer or a potential client. And the best way to do so is ask your customers to subscribe voluntarily to SMS alerts from your business. 

You can do so by providing a link on your mobile with an assurance that you won't share their mobile number. Also, assure the customer that your business will send an SMS only when there's a piece of important information or exciting offer or new launch. This is the best way to use SMS marketing to increase sales of your business.

2. Use SMS Wisely With Brief Info

Nowadays, you can get bulk SMS packages that allow you to send end number of messages. 

If you're subscribing to such bulk SMS plans from any messaging solution provider, it's tempting enough to use the service at its best. And this proves extremely counterproductive when you use SMS marketing to increase sales of your business.

Obviously, you won't have a special offer daily. Nor would there be any newsworthy SMS that you can send every day. As a result, you might end up sending meaningless SMS messages to an extent that your loyal customer would block them. Therefore, subscribe for bulk SMS packs that just about meets your needs. And use SMS judiciously.

Read more: 5 Clever Ways Businesses Use Text Messaging

3. Use Shorten and Customize URLs for Boosting Online Sales

As text messages have to limit, you can send only 160 Characters in a message. So utilise the power of URL Shorter and use customized shorten URL like: http://bit.ly/brandname, it boost Click Through Rate (CTR) and looks more trust worthy and readable for your SMS message that would tempt people to make online purchases, if you are running an online business. 

Also it helps your customers to make a purchases or buy your services after visiting your website. People usually take instant decisions when you make a special offer. Since an SMS is read on the move, a shortened URL can direct customers to your website to place orders.

At the same time, do not send URLs unless you have something really special to offer. That would force a client to ignore your messages. And this translates as failure of your SMS marketing to increase sales for your business. Use SMS with shortened URL only to launch campaigns or a sale.

4. Use Call-to-Action Buttons 

As you can see, we have seen certain advantages of SMS marketing and how to use it to increase sales of your business. If this attracts you, there're specific actions you can take.

• Create excellent SMS content by reading some online tutorials.
• Subscribe to a bulk SMS service depending on your needs.
• Read DND conditions and tempt your SMS recipients to override it for your business.

These three steps will help you use SMS marketing to increase sales of your business.

5. Timing Is Crucial for Bulk SMS Campaign

A major advantage of SMS marketing to increase sales of your business are the large number of festivals in India. Indian banks and NBFCs utilize SMS marketing to the fullest during festivals. They send a message that greets people. At the same time, the SMS alerts them about special offers available for using their app, credit card or debit card or other promotions. Therefore, one of the essentials are getting the timing right to engage SMS marketing.

Conclusion

Nobody can predict the future of SMS marketing since mobile technologies continue to evolve rapidly. If you closely monitor the trend, it indicates more of Multimedia Messaging System or MMS marketing that contains pictures, video, music and text. Till such a time SMS exists, you can SMS marketing to increase sales of your business. The key to using SMS marketing also lies in the content. Remember that nowadays nobody reads long content. This means, your SMS has to be precise and to the point. It should spur the customer to act immediately and take action that results as sale for your business.

Text message marketing has an open rate of 98%.

The biggest sales day of the year is looming right around the corner and there is no better way to reach your prospects than on their phones! A well-planned mobile marketing campaign can do wonders for your brand during the biggest sale extravaganza of the year, that now lasts for more than just a day.

Here’s a few tips to keep in mind when you set up your SMS marketing campaign for Black Friday, this year:

Personalize your text messages

Hi John, giving makes you happy. Buy your Christmas presents from [name of your company] and get 45% discount!

This is your chance to make your clients feel special, welcomed and remembered. A little can go a long way when planning SMS marketing campaigns, like adding their first name with a salutation for the messages you send.

Reading their name not only helps them feel cherished by your brand, but also reduces chances of falling below the radar as generic spam or junk. Thus, it will increase the clicks on the Call-to-Action on your button.

Timing matters

Hi John, you’ve still got lots of time to take us up on this special 50% OFF offer till 9pm today.

Time is the most crucial part of any SMS marketing strategy. Plan it too early and you risk being forgotten, plan it too late and miss out on opportunities.

Sending marketing SMS during busy afternoons or work hours risk being ignored out of annoyance.

In general, standard business hours of 10 am – 8 pm are most effective for SMS marketing campaigns. Heuristically the best time for marketing SMS blasts is during the early morning i.e. 8:00 - 12:00, when people are just getting started with their morning coffee at work and are usually checking their phones. Or later in the evenings when they’re relaxed, like 17:00 - 21:00.

Don’t discount the discount!

The perfect start to the festive season: Make sure you buy your Festival presents this weekend to get a 60% discount!

Sales promotions is the lifeblood of Black Friday. Give a good enough reason for your customers to see why you are contacting them and make their time and effort count. Most readers skim read to see the discount part of the message, which is the best driver for increasing traffic and conversions on your site.

Follow the 5 Ws of SMS marketing

It’s a no brainer that senders must keep their SMS short and sweet. But copywriters often struggle to make the most of the small real-estate. So, it’s best to follow the 5Ws of message writing for SMS promotions:

1. What - could be a deal or a discount code
2. Who - your brand or store
3. Where - on the web or in store
4. How - using the code or whatever CTA applies
5. Why - Black Friday sales

Keep it linked

Make the most of each marketing avenue with a bit of cross-promotion. Tie in your social media pages, e-mailers and SMS together to make sure there are no leaks in the sales funnel.

Tying up all the marketing channels together with a unified message will help you gather more awareness and actions from prospects for your Black Friday sale.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas are just around the corner. Customers are ready to grab the best offers and put their money, where they feel valued. It’s your job to inspire them to choose you instead of a competitor! For more interesting tips on special event and seasonal SMS marketing promotions, follow this space.

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