Messaging, AI and Proposals

ServiceCall.ai® VoIP Phone software by Service Fusion (www.servicefusion.com,  888/902-0304 is call tracking and messaging software, built for service contractors, that combines VoIP, artificial intelligence, and field service experience. Users can instantly view all call activities and get a screen pop-up with customers’ work history and account details. Users can also convert website visitors into leads by letting them initiate a text message conversation on your website, using the integrated text-me-back ServiceChat.ai widget.

The solution, which requires subscription to and which integrates with Service Fusion field service management software (covered in my November 2016 tech column), lets you track where your business is coming from with local and toll-free numbers that connect instantly to referral services in Service Fusion and allows you to guide your agent through phone calls with custom scripts. (The Ring-a-Tech feature routes customers directly to technicians without exposing their phone numbers.) Visibility into your agents’ daily performance statistic includes statistics such as call reasons, call outcomes, average number of calls each agent handles per day, average talk time, and lead- to-win ratio.

Pricing: fee per user/monthly.

It’s 2023 – What’s on Your Website?

Time for a chatbot? A chatbot is automated computer programming technology that, when used by a field service company (among others), utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to “understand” incoming questions and other communications from customers and other website visitors to gather data and provide answers or facilitate further communication. If programmed to act as a virtual assistant 24/7/365, a chatbot can be used to identify sales opportunities, schedule appointments based on a variety of factors, or otherwise expedite meaningful interactions designed to boost and expedite customer service both during regular business hours and beyond.

You can utilize a platform that already exists—and may include templates—or you can build your own chatbot that features your own dialog trees and workflows. Below are a couple of options:

Mobile Monkey (www.mobilemonkey.com) is a sales outreach and customer support platform enabling automated and live chat from various business messaging channels: via Website Chat on a business website, SMS, Facebook, and Instagram. It includes drag & drop widgets for you to build the “menu options” of a chatbot (that generates leads and answers questions) and features an inbox for viewing and responding to messages and assigning leads. 

How it works: Create “Chat Starters”—various widgets to trigger conversations based on certain conditions—for example, if a user comments on a Facebook or Instagram post or interacts with a web site chat window—you can then create an automated dialogue asking key lead qualifying questions for your sales funnel. You then use the in-box to view conversations that come into your messaging channels. Mobile Monkey has a mobile app for iOS and Android that enables replying in all channels from your phone.

Pricing: monthly subscription plan, scaled by number of users and inclusion of additional features, such as advanced analytics and reporting, additional integrations, and other features.

Chatfuel (www.chatfuel.com) is a no-code chatbot platform for building bots on your website, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Whatsapp to help automate communication with potential and existing contacts (customers) for purposes of lead generation, customer support, and other communications.

The platform, which offers three different plans at a monthly fee plus per-conversation fee, offers free customizable templates, including six designed to drive sales by automatically qualifying leads, booking a sales call, collecting, and exporting data, and sharing promo codes. 

Pricing: monthly plan, based on the number of conversations you automate per month (a conversation is one written exchange between a user and your bot) with Chatfuel’s analytics suggesting which plan to select, based on the number of followers on your Facebook or Instagram page. 

Quotes and Proposals

QuoteWerks (www.quotewerks.com) is software for creating, delivering, and tracking professionally laid out branded customer quotes and proposals. The solution captures electronic signatures and enables collection of deposits, progress payments, balances, or full amount. 

You can create lists, templates, and bundles standardizing your product and service offerings. Documents are searchable by customer, date, sales representative, or other filters.

The platform integrates with several CRM and accounting platforms, including Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Sage 50, Google Contacts, and other CRMs and accounting systems. 

The (optional) QuoteValet feature creates a dedicated branded delivery webpage that alerts you every time your customer views a quote, selects or changes options, has questions, and electronically signs and makes payments.

QuoteWerks supports nine different pricing methods, including markup, discount, grow margin, volume based, list, customer price levels, and customer/product price matrix. It can also track commissions for each quote/order.

The QuoteWerks Dashboard provides a high-level overview of the total dollar amount and number of quotes and orders from the current month, last month, and two months ago and visibility on quotes expiring within a week. The Opportunities Dashboard, displayed in real-time, enables sales reps to track their progress with quotes in current month and historically and allows managers to see all of their sales reps metrics in one place.

Pricing: per month/per user. Free trial available.

Patti Feldman writes articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. She can be reached at [email protected].