Creating Your Buy Number

Transcription

1 Creating Your Buy Number When an advertising (i.e. Buy ) call comes in from a prospective home seller, it's critical that the call be answered live every time. Therefore, when your phone rings, it's important that you know when it's a high-priority Buy call coming through, versus any other type of call (ex. friend or vendor inviting you to lunch). There are two basic ways to accomplish this: 1) Get a dedicated cell phone for Buy calls. Pros: -If that phone rings, it should be for 1 reason only a Buy call. -It's generally simple to setup and use. -It's reliable. Cons: -Now you have another phone to keep up with. -It can be costly. -Only one person can have it at any given time. If you have more than 1 buyer, this might be an issue. 2) Create a virtual number, and then forward that number to your phone(s) of choice. Pros: -You may forward the Buy calls to your existing cell phone; no need to get a new phone. -You may also forward it to several other phones (office, your buyers' phones, answering service, etc.) all at the same time or in a sequence (depending on the vendor). -There are settings that will ensure you know it's a Buy call coming through, versus other types of calls. -There are many powerful features, such as call recording, that a dedicated cell phone usually doesn't have. -Once set up, the services are pretty easy to use. -They are very cost effective. Cons: -They are sometimes a bit complicated to set up. -It's another layer of technology to manage. -Sometimes the services don't perform flawlessly (ex. calls aren't forwarding, voic isn't picking up, etc.), and a call or to the vendor's tech support department may be necessary. -It's possible that a vendor could go out of business, and shut your service off without notice. Note, though, that this unlikely to happen. Most of the franchisees we support use a virtual number for it's features and flexibility, but some prefer a dedicated phone for it's simplicity. Either choice is fine, and you may always change from one to the other later. ***Note: Do NOT put your Buy number on your s, business cards or letterhead!

2 Minimum Specifications There are many services to chose from (see the Suggested Tools and Services document), and most of the features between them are very similar. However, there are some differences that can be important, so make sure it will provide the minimum services that you need. It's probably wise to either speak to a sales rep, or get a free trial, before settling on the service. The key features and settings to look for with any virtual number are: -Voic -Display your virtual number as the caller ID number - alert for voic s and missed calls -Record inbound calls There are many free services (ex. Google Voice), but they are usually less reliable and not recommended. **See the next page for an example of how to set up a virtual number

3 Steps: Setting Up Your Buy Number with evoice.com 1) Create your evoice Account, if you don't already have one. Choose the Small Business plan, and add the Call Recording option. 2) Pick a local number. Though it does not have to be in your area code; any non-toll free number is fine. (Don't worry about getting the right number, since you will be using it only within HomeVestors, and not publishing it on any marketing materials.) ***Note: Do NOT put your Buy number on your s, business cards or letterhead! 3) Now create your outbound voic greeting and adjust the call settings: -Choose the Call Routing tab **Select Basic or Advanced (Basic is usually fine), and edit your ring to numbers.

4 **Sequential dialing is best if you want a single person (ex. the owner or primary buyer) to have the first shot at answering the call within a certain number of rings, and then a 2 nd entity (ex. an answering service, another buyer, office staff, etc) to get the rollover calls. -On the Settings tab, choose Voic options. Save your changes.

5 -On the Settings tab, choose Call settings, and select your options. Save your changes.

6 -On the Settings tab, choose Greetings, and set up your outbound greeting. Note: The outbound voic greeting for your virtual number may be different than the one you have on your cell phone, since you'll need to collect certain information about the seller's property (address, etc.) A lengthy tell me about your property greeting isn't what friends or business associates want to hear when leaving a message about meeting for coffee. Your outbound greeting can be recorded by you in your own voice, or you may have evoice record one in a professional voice (the one I had recorded was in a female voice). You just provide them the exact script that you want recorded. 4) On your cell phone(s), enter your evoice number as a contact. Label it as Buy call, Money call, or something similar; perhaps attach a ring tone as well. 5) Notify HomeVestors of your evoice number via the Arch Call Distribution form on the Intranet. At this point, whenever a Buy call comes in from HomeVestors, your cell phone(s) will ring and the caller ID will display your evoice number every time. This way you'll know at a glance if the call is a high-priority Buy call or not. **Note that the Call Recording feature is available after adding it to your plan for a modest additional cost. It is highly recommended that you enable this feature, and record ALL incoming Buy calls for future reference and quality assurance.