Announcements & Events

“CallSource^® Reflections” is a blog series by CallSource’s^® co-founder and President, Elliot Leiboff. Elliot co-founded CallSource^® alongside the late Jerry Feldman in 1992. Over the years, Elliot has developed a small call tracking company to a full service lead generation performance organization. CallSource^® invented call tracking. Elliot has witnessed a myriad of inventions, tried different strategies, invested in technologies and basically seen it all.

CallSource^® is a classic American tale of an idea that turned into a business that has thrived through grit and determination. “CallSource^® Reflections” is Elliot’s blog series on lessons learned as a business owner before the era of startups and VC funding.

Elliot’s monthly blog contributions take the reader on the journey of how our solutions have evolved.

 

Save Your Business’ Reputation and a Lost Lead With DealSaver

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Technically, that’s true – but you can still save a client and make a lasting, positive impression when you promptly redress a mishandled opportunity.

You know from your own experience how unusual it is to have someone go out of their way to make things right for you after a negative or disappointing experience with their company. You probably told more people about that company and are likely more loyal to them than you are to companies that give acceptable but unmemorable service.

Say you manage an auto dealership. How many times does one of your employees answer an incoming call with: “Sorry, that car’s been sold” and listen to the click as the caller hangs up? Of course, you train them to engage the caller, understand their needs and offer them a good reason to visit your dealership. But how often do they do all that – or how often do they let that opportunity get away? You’ll have to listen to every call to find out. Wait, you say you have a full-time job already without listening to every telephone interaction?

That’s why you need DealSaver^®, a service that records and reviews those calls for you. Within minutes, a trained analyst reviews each call and, when a call is mishandled, sends an alert summarizing what occurred. Surprisingly often, a prompt, friendly follow-up from management results in a saved deal.

Say you’re a contractor. Did your front office or your answering service mishandle an opportunity that you could have closed? Although you are too busy to personally answer every call, with a prompt alert from DealSaver and a proper follow-up, you can still win that business before they move on to calling the next competitor on their recent search list of contractors in their area.

For healthcare practices, it’s AppointmentSaver^sm, but the concept is the same. Was a prospective patient given incorrect information, treated rudely or left on hold too long? With AppointmentSaver, you can still protect your reputation and expand your practice.

If you don’t pay attention to how many times an interested caller doesn’t end up booking an appointment with your business, then you are unaware of how many sales you are potentially missing out on. But when you are alerted soon after that missed opportunity occurs, you can make an immediate call back to rectify the situation and make that caller a fan of your business.

It’s why we created this product – we want our clients to have as many opportunities as possible to gain the business they need to achieve better ROI and a better bottom line. Stop missing out on those first time lost prospects and start acquiring their business on a second chance.

Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.

CallSource prides ourselves on being a people-focused company. We care about our clients, and we care about our employees.

The support-client relationship formed between our teams and our clients is one of the unique attributes that makes CallSource stand out from our competition.

Although clients know their dedicated support team very well, we thought it was time that everyone else got to know all of the great people that work at CallSource with regular CallSource team member interviews.

For this installment of Meet the CallSource Team, I chatted with Shawn Kelly, our Client Support Supervisor here at CallSource.

Name:    Shawn Kelly

Title:    Client Support Supervisor

When did you start working for CS?    Dec 14th, 2009

What position did you start in?    Client Support Specialist

What is your current position?    Client Support Supervisor

How have your priorities and responsibilities changed and shifted with each different position you’ve held with CS?

I’ve held multiple positions within CallSource and while each of the positions had different priorities, my main responsibility has always been to the client and making sure I can do whatever is necessary to help them with their needs.

What is your favorite part about your workday?

Interacting with my team in a professional and social context. Everyone pitches in to help out with projects and troubleshooting difficult problems. Our teamwork drives our success and managing that process is very rewarding. We also genuinely have fun throughout the work day so it’s not all spreadsheets and numbers.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment so far with your career at CallSource?

I’ve built a number of complex routing setups for various clients including a 97,000 line XML request on a zip code routing scheme with full day Time of Day routing that switches every 15 minutes. I’ve also created a setup that went from one geo-routed phone number between the US and Canada which then routed to a 19,000+ extension menu for zip code routing in the US and simultaneous geo-routing in Canada with area code/prefix specific geo-routing in Toronto and Ottawa. That took a while to setup. 🙂

I know that outside of your time here, you enjoy writing screenplays. I also know from sitting close to you for a couple years that you really enjoy movies and comics. Tell me a bit more about that!

I always loved movies as a kid but I fell in love with cinema after watching The Usual Suspects. The end of that film is like a magic trick (no spoilers!) and after watching it a dozen times I became more interested in how they pulled it off. I became insatiable for other great movies and expanded my film intake to include classic films (black and white) foreign and indie cinema. If it’s good, I’ll watch it!
What is your all-time favorite movie? (Ok, I can give you a top 5 if picking one is too hard).

How about a top 10? I’ve got a running list of my Top 1,000 Movies but no one has time for that.

1. The Usual Suspects (1995)
2. Casablanca (1942)
3. Chinatown (1974)
4. The Godfather/The Godfather Part II (is this cheating…yes it is) (1972/1974)
5. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
6. Vertigo (1958)
7. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Double Indemnity (1944)
10. The Big Sleep (1946)

In line with your love of cinema, you always hold an “Oscars Pool” here at CallSource. What do you think was the best Oscar-nominated movie of this past year and why?

I thought Get Out was an incredible piece of cinema that played with genre, expectation and good old Hitchcockian thriller rules. It also did a tremendous job of being funny, unnerving and surprising while being a relevant social commentary all at the same time. There’s a reason Jordan Peele won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

What other hobbies do you enjoy besides watching and writing movies?

I love to run on the trails of So Cal, especially when it’s hot! I’m also an avid golfer and reader.

If you could tell us one thing about you that people may not expect, what would it be?

I was born and raised in Alaska and anytime I bring that up a flurry of questions about snow, daylight/darkness and moose always seem to follow. It’s a lovely place and I would highly recommend visiting around the 4th of July when the daylight is longest and the fish are biting. It’s always fun to start a round of golf at midnight and play until 2am. 🙂

Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.

CallSource prides ourselves on being a people-focused company. We care about our clients, and we care about our employees.

The support-client relationship formed between our teams and our clients is one of the unique attributes that makes CallSource stand out from our competition.

Although clients know their dedicated support team very well, we thought it was time that everyone else got to know all of the great people that work at CallSource with regular CallSource team member interviews.

For our second installment of Meet the CallSource Team, I chatted with Matt Widmyer, who I work with on the marketing team here at CallSource.

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Name: Matt Widmyer

Title: Marketing and Sales Operations Manager

When did you start working for CS? March 2012…has it really been almost 7 years?

What position did you start in?

I was hired on as a Sales Opener (SDR) in the Home Services vertical.

What is your current position?

Marketing and Sales Operations Manager

How did you evolve from where you started with CallSource to where you are now?

The short story: Hard work, research, organizational shifts, collaboration, great mentors, and – what the heck – sprinkle in some luck.

The long story: I had some early success prospecting customers and I wanted to share this with others through best practices. An organizational shift gave me the responsibility of managing the inbound lead process, which at that time was a sales function. While reconfiguring our Marketing department a couple years ago, it was decided that this was a better place to nest our inbound team. By being part of a new Marketing team, I was able to get my hands dirty in by configuring our marketing automation platform. By doing this, I realized the importance of database management as it relates to both Sales and Marketing teams.

We all know that sales and marketing are tied together pretty closely…what are your opinions on how they align with each other?

They are both best friends that don’t know it yet. Sales wants more leads and better leads from Marketing, while Marketing wants production and feedback from Sales. The better collaboration is, the more we get to celebrate together. Here I’ve seen improved transparency, a greater sense of urgency with leads, and more communication.

What does a “typical” workday look like for you?

A typical workday consists of initiating, leading, and working on projects that can help Sales and Marketing initiatives (both short-term and long-term). No matter where it starts, it usually always ends up back at the database, and then in turn usually MS Excel. I’m the “Who” in the Sales and Marketing equation, so anytime any kind of an audience is involved (or excluded), I’m always involved to some extent.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment so far with your career at CallSource?

I’ve put the technology, people, and processes in place to grow our marketable database by over 10X its original size. And we’re just getting started!

You travel a lot. I’m counting down until I have been here long enough to earn the same amount of vacation hours that you do (my five years is just around the corner!). What is the last trip you went on, and what is planned next?

Haha, you’ll get there. I have a tendency to use all my vacation days at once instead of throughout the year. The last big trip I went on was Tombstone, Arizona. If you haven’t visited there – do it! The next is September – we (my wife, friends, and I) are going to Italy and Ireland on the same trip. I’ve never been to either so I’m super excited.

What is your favorite place you’ve been to so far, and why?

I’ve actually never thought about this. If I had to pick one I’d probably say Thailand. It’s inexpensive, the food is awesome, the people are cool, and they love to party. (Did I mention the food is awesome?)

What is a country that you haven’t been to yet but want to travel to most?

Russia – St. Petersburg and Moscow. I’ve had a few people that went recently tell me that they had a great time there.

Besides traveling, you also make soaps and beard oil (correct me if I am missing anything). You also have a pretty great beard. Tell us more about that.

I always wanted to be part of the farmer’s market scene, and ever since I first saw the movie Fight Club I’ve always wanted to make soap. Through a lot of trial and error (and wasted product) I got it right, and, just like that, Renegade Soap Company was born. Before you ask, no I don’t use human fat in my soap.

The last time I was clean-shaven was December 2013 (don’t ask me why I know that) and I proudly sport my own product. I have to, right?

What else is a random fact that everyone should know about you?

I wanted to run a marathon but didn’t sign up for one so I ran 26.2 miles around a 0.6 mile park loop. If you’re going to try that I suggest packing a lunch – you’ll be there a while.

You’re telling me you chose to run a marathon on your own accord in a small loop and not even get a medal afterwards…I always knew you were crazy. Let’s finish off with your favorite CallSource story.

I always tell people about my final interview here.

I had to give a PowerPoint presentation about my 30/60/90 day plan at CallSource if I were to get hired. I don’t know if I’ve ever been that nervous in my life. I would have almost paid money to be let out of there halfway through. By some miracle I still ended up getting hired.

I found out years later (in good fun) that there was actually a 2-1 vote to not hire me (one of them still refers to this as the worst interview they’ve ever seen), but the third saw something there. I’m always mindful of this during interviews.

“CallSource^® Reflections” is a blog series by CallSource’s^® co-founder and President, Elliot Leiboff. Elliot co-founded CallSource^® alongside the late Jerry Feldman in 1992. Over the years, Elliot has developed a small call tracking company to a full service lead generation performance organization. CallSource^® invented call tracking. Elliot has witnessed a myriad of inventions, tried different strategies, invested in technologies and basically seen it all.

CallSource^® is a classic American tale of an idea that turned into a business that has thrived through grit and determination. “CallSource^® Reflections” is Elliot’s blog series on lessons learned as a business owner before the era of startups and VC funding.

Elliot’s monthly blog contributions take the reader on the journey of how our solutions have evolved.

 

CallSource program helps fight the battle against spam and robocalls for our clients

You may have seen the recent the headline: “FCC Fines Florida Man $120 Million for Robocalls.”

That Florida man was allegedly responsible for more than 100 million calls in a period of just 3 months! As amazing as this number sounds, it is only the tip of an increasingly annoying and expensive iceberg – according to the FCC, there are 2.9 billion US Robocalls per month.

What are Robocalls? The FCC’s definition says: Robocalls are prerecorded telemarketing calls to landline home telephones, and all autodialed or prerecorded calls or autodialed text messages to wireless phones. Robocalls can be legitimate or they can be illegitimate (illegal).

In recent years, the number of unwanted, autodialed, phone calls has increased quite dramatically. Some of the calls are from criminals attempting to hack into PBX phone systems. Some serve to “pump” traffic, allowing unscrupulous carriers to increase their toll-free billing. Others are automated solicitations that ignore and violate “Do Not Call” and related laws.

Telephone hackers often dial business telephone numbers outside of office hours, attempting to break into improperly secured PBX systems through their auto-attendant or voicemail functions. Once inside, they “hijack” the PBX and use it to generate overseas calls that are billed to the unsuspecting business they hacked. This is organized crime, costing businesses around the world millions of dollars. How do you protect yourself? Make sure you implement the security features your PBX provides. Above all, change the password from the factory default setting, which is known to these professional criminals.

Telephone “Pumping” is finally being addressed by the FCC. They have recently announced that they are looking into ways to remove the incentive to carriers to inflate billable traffic with calls that they, themselves, generate. This type of call is sometimes silent, or may consist of music or messaging that does not appear to have any discernable purpose.

We have all experienced the main offender; unwanted solicitation calls. The FCC and various state agencies attempted to restrict this via “Do Not Call” laws, but numerous operators blatantly violate these laws, operating from outside the United States and/or concealing the source of the calls by “spoofing.” According to the FCC, Spoofing involved altering the Caller ID information to make the true origin of a call. Spoofing can also be legitimate or illegitimate (illegal).

Years ago, with old-fashioned telephone switches, it was easier to identify the source of a call. Since the rise of “voice over IP” (VoIP) telephone routing, spammers routinely disguise the source of each call by displaying an identifying number that is legitimate (but not their own) in place of the actual number from which the call originates. Often, spammers will spoof a number within the same area code and prefix as the party they are calling.

In 2015, when telephone spam began to seriously impact businesses, CallSource implemented an advanced program, CallShield^®, to protect our clients from telephone hackers, pumpers and spammers. Since implementation, CallShield has blocked over 50 Million unwanted phone calls. Think how many expensive hours of employee time and missed opportunity that represents, not to mention toll-free minute and post-call processing charges!

Today, nearly 12% of all traffic that crosses the CallSource network consists of unwanted spam. Sadly, the auto-dialer wars continue full force. Clever hackers and spammers constantly develop new ways to avoid spam filters, including CallShield. CallSource and others must continue to invest in new countermeasures. The truth is that neither private companies nor even the FCC can stop telephone spam. At present, the only ones who can are the telephone carriers themselves and, since they get paid for every spam call, they have a strong disincentive to ending telephone spam.