How I used CallFire IVR as a Real Estate Wholesaler
Image via CrunchBase
In the following videos, I give a synopsis of how I used the CallFire IVR (interactive voice response) service to dial all of my real estate contacts in an automated fashion. I’ve used the CallFire voice broadcast service in the past a couple of times, to notify all the respondents to my house ads that the house was no longer available. But, the IVR service is a bit more complex than just a broadcast as it is a phone-tree that gives the caller multiple prompts to choose from and upon their selection, they’ll hear different audio.
Using the IVR instead of a broadcast allowed for me maximize my efforts of the phone call. In addition to auto-dialing those who were on my buyers-list, I also added every number that I have recorded over the past few months that had responded to any of my marketing efforts. This made for a total of approximately 300 unique phone numbers. So the IVR was advantageous over just a regular broadcast because not only did I supply the call recipient with the property information, I also added a prompt that allowed for the call recipient to leave a message with a property they had for sale. And the last prompt was for the user to opt-in to my do-not-call list (I set this up wrong, but at least I tried).
So in a nutshell, this is how it went down:
1. Call-recipients’ phone rang
2. They were greeted with the main message
3. This is what they heard when they pressed one
4. This is what they heard when they pressed three
5. This is what they heard when they pressed eight
When the call-recipients left a voice-message, I was able to listen to it in the Admin panel of CallFire. One mistake I did make though…rather two mistakes….one being that I didn’t change the audio for when an answering machine answered the phone. No need to give prompts when that happens. You can actually supply different audio for VoiceMail/Answering machines. I messed that up. The other mistake that I made, was that I violated the new DNC law was put into effect by the FTC on September 1, 2009. I knew about this law change and completely forgot about it. So technically to be in accordance with the new law, when a user selects a specific prompt, they would be met with a live person to give/take down property info. This wouldn’t be hard to setup either. It actually may be the better option anyway.
So here is the video that I put together. The audio quality on it is horrible, so “my bad”. I think I accidentally changed one of the audio-settings on CamStudio and don’t know which it was.
There are so many other services that CallFire offers it’s ridiculous. I think these type of services will better allow independent investors such as myself to operate with the scale and efficiency of a Fortune 500 corporation.
- Justin
