CallFire Launches New SaaS Communications Platform
CallFire today launched a next-generation platform capable of scaling to meet the exploding global demand for advanced cloud telephony features, services, and capacity.
Built from the ground up using technologies leveraged by Internet giants like Facebook, and the feedback of hundreds of customers during a five-year period, the new CallFire is a cross-datacenter SaaS platform with no single point of failure. Designed to be highly available, the new platform comes equipped with a host of new features and an interface that customers can use to create, scale, and monitor their cloud telephony campaigns. These business apps can be used to create ongoing engagement with any business and its customers.
Among the new and improved features of the new CallFire platform are the following:
- Textable phone numbers. With this new feature customers can interact with businesses via a landline phone number using SMS text messages, thereby establishing a new channel for marketing and communication. Users type a message, upload their contacts, and schedule delivery. New features include long-code text messaging, short-code keyword purchase, and American Idol-style text message voting.
- Sophisticated call tracking with integrated analytics. Using the new CallFire dashboard, customers can connect directly to Google Analytics for real-time results and ROI measurement. CallFire can now increment an existing Google Analytics dashboard automatically. Users can purchase local or toll-free numbers and can even download reports for each number and record calls at no extra cost.
- Opt-in voice broadcast. CallFire lets businesses record messages and send them to opt-in customer lists, just about anywhere in the world. The platform supports advanced scheduling, DNC scrubbing, and time-zone dialing so calls are delivered at the right time locally. There are no contracts or start-up fees, and campaigns can seamlessly scale in the cloud as demand arises.
- Cloud Call Center and Interactive Voice Response (IVR). CallFire's legacy call center product enables developers to create world-class call centers that work with any phone, anywhere, and include scalability to hundreds of thousands of callers. CallFire's IVR designer and programming interface aids in building phone trees and provides the tools to integrate voice and SMS applications.
"The new CallFire can be described as the Constant Contact of text messaging and voice automation," said Dinesh Ravishanker, CallFire co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "CallFire can now scale to support millions of users, and our new and expanded text messaging, call tracking, telephone alert, and interactive voice features are best-in-class."
Long-time CallFire customers like Webtrix, which builds and hosts mobile applications and Web sites, are already praising the new apps. "CallFire.com provides all the tools to mount a successful mobile communications campaign to create customer engagement using SMS keywords and short codes, increases sales with voice alerts, and tracking call volume using textable phone numbers and the CallFire dashboard," said Blake Johnston, chief technology officer of Webtrix, which beta-tested the new app. "The new interface is easy to use and is accessible from anywhere using almost any device."