0:00 Intro

Hi, everyone, and welcome to our webinar, Look Local, Sell Local, How to Increase Your Global Call Answer Rate. We're excited for you to join our conversation today on how you can leverage your voice calls to better connect with customers and increase engagement. My name is Megan Evitts, Events Manager here at AVOXI

0:18

If you're not familiar with AVOXI, we're a cloud communications provider specializing in contact center software and virtual number solutions. Today, I'm joined by Barbara Dondiego, our Chief Operating Officer, and Jon Ross, Senior Director of Carrier Management. Welcome presenters. 

0:38

This presentation and a brief survey will be e-mailed to you shortly. You'll have the opportunity to ask us questions in the survey, or you can reach out to us directly at [email protected].

0:51

We'll start the session by discussing the current engagement trends, benefits, and challenges of doing business in today's global marketplace. Then we'll show you just how impactful local number dialing is on customer engagement. And finally, we'll end the session with our simple solution to help you better connect with your customers.

1:08

With that, Barbara, can you please kick us off with an overview of the global marketplace?

1:13 Global Trends

Yeah, thanks so much, Megan. So, you know, there's a lot of things going on in the world today, But one thing that's good is that the world, in a lot of ways, is getting smaller. And it's getting smaller because it's easier through technology for you to connect with different customers around the world. So, with that, though, there come some interesting trends we're seeing. We're seeing things where if your experience is really good for customers across different markets and geographies, they're gonna spend more with you.

1:45

Now we’re also putting our customers into the remote workforce. So, you can really hire people anywhere, they're working anywhere, they can service your customers anywhere. And, so, that's an interesting benefit, and a challenge, you know, there's also kind of a rise of the phone call, again, where people want to connect directly, and they want to, they want to be able to resolve things with, up with a conversation versus an e-mail, or chat, and, but there's a lot of fraud in voice, and folks are hesitant about answering their phone. So, there's a lot of things going on that are, really, I think, setting up some great opportunities to continue to expand globally.

2:27 Key Benefits to Selling Globally

So some benefits that we've seen about selling globally are the ability to really diversify into new markets. So you don't have to be bound by your geography. You can sell, if you want to sell to somebody in the UK and you're based in Australia, that's great. You can do that using the Internet and using things like international phone numbers that can be routed all around with platforms like AVOXI. You know, that gives you access to new revenue potential. You don't have to bind yourself. It also gives you more business stability. So what we found is, you know, certain markets, particularly in the pandemic, but even before that, certain markets are really growing and other markets are shrinking. So we're able to refocus our efforts. Very agily. And you are as well within your business to go, you know, focus on the growing markets, while maybe some other markets are recovering, whether it's from an economic reason or other things. Or even just seasonality. You can shift around your resources very easily with the cloud and with technology, today.

Any of the services that are available, Even even this webinar here, you know, the voice quality is so much clearer so much easier for people to connect. Folks are very, very comfortable with using those types of tools now, And that really helps you move faster, get greater access to customers, get greater access to talent for your own employees, and really become more competitive in a global marketplace. And you can be more competitive no matter what size company you are, right? This, these technologies, the beauty of them is that, and the access to these global markets, the beauty of that is, you can have access as a small organization. Say, like under 50 employees, or as a larger organization, say, over one thousand employees, and the technology is really levelizing that out on the playing field, so that's exciting.

4:07 Challenges of Connecting with Global Customers

So, of course, with all that, with benefits, they're always challenges. So we want to talk a little bit about that. So, of course, from a customer perspective, they might not know exactly how to reach a global company or a company that's based not in their exact country, or city, or market. So, trying to figure that out; how do you communicate with them? How do you make sure you're publishing your contact information, and you're publishing your phone numbers in a way that the customer is going to be, is going to recognize that and make sure that that's familiar to them, and they know how to leverage that. Of course, you know, there's some increased fraud. We've all heard about all the regulation that is going on, and all the ways that governments around the world are trying to reduce fraud. So there's a little bit of decreased trust, with phone numbers, and calling, and even emails, and spam, and all those different ways we're communicating there's some distrust in the market. So, we have to overcome that and make sure the way we're communicating as, much more clear and crisp, than we’ve needed to have in the past.

5:04

There's lots of alternatives. So, trying to figure out the best path for you and for your company, takes a little bit more time. You need a good partner to do that with.

5:14

Then, from a company perspective, you know, there's a lot of, you know, could potentially be timely cost and infrastructure, trying to manage things in different countries and markets that you're not familiar with. And there can be some complex regulations on, well, is email OK? And can I send 15 e-mails to a certain country or or not our voice calls, OK? And how do I do that? How do I present those in a way that is going to work and provide a great experience for my customer, within the regulatory environment of every country. And then, of course, customer loyalty. And we're really trying to make sure that we provide that local appearance and really, wrap your arms around customers in a way that they're going to be comfortable with that. And, that's a challenge for us as well. So, you know, call quality time, zones, local, cultural barriers. All those things have to be resolved and taken into consideration when you're thinking about a global solution.

6:07 Case Study - Local number dialing answer rate stats

We pulled a few statistics from our internal data to illustrate how customers respond to local versus non local numbers. Jon, can you walk us through those stats?

6:15

Yeah, thanks, and Thanks, Barbara, for that overview. Yes, so when we're having a look at it, You know AVOXI has customers in pretty much every single continent around the world, however, we can terminate calls to every single country in the world. 

So, with dealing with different customers, different cultures at different time zones, we're looking at, OK, well, how can the service actually help us and looking at the stats within our network. So in places like China, we found that, you know, people are 10 times more likely to actually answer the phone if we display that local China CLI. However, we can see in Costa Rica, it's still beneficial to do that, but it's only three times more likely. And then we look at places like the US, we still saw an increase in calls, 10% less likely for that phone call to be answered. And then lastly in Singapore, 15% less likely. So as we can see that the stats really vary from country to country. But it is always still a benefit to be able to show that local presence within the country.

7:17 Solution - Go Global, Call Local

So how do we allow you guys to go global but really call local, to take the benefit of the answer rates. So the first thing that we need to do is we need to provide you with that inbound virtual number. So, that's something that, if you're familiar with AVOXI, we've been issuing out for for a number of years, it gives you that local identity. So you can now advertise your number in-country and look like a local brand to really start creating that brand awareness and allowing your customers to easily and cost effectively contact you. However, now we need to give you the ability to actually make outbound calls to them. 

When they may phone in, leave you a message, and you need to actually phone them back, and allow you to actually make sure that you connect with them, that they answer the phone, that, it's not just a random, international, personal calling, then they can actually save your number in their phones. And when it comes up, they actually know that it's you calling them and you can actually reach that end user and make the sale, and have that customer support. Whatever the reason for needing the service, it actually allows you to connect with that customer.

8:28 What is AVOXI’s TrueLocal Service?

So now, if we started looking at what is the solution? What can AVOXI actually bring to the table? So AVOXI does have a solution, called AVOXI TrueLocal. 

So what the service allows you to do is buy the inbound number from us as well as then make those outbound phone calls like we mentioned. So, TrueLocal is a marketplace that is steadily growing right now. We offer about 22 countries that allow you to be outside of that country, buy that number, as well as connect back with your customer. 

So, as we can see here, now you can actually see broken up by region, where exactly the regions are that, that we can offer it.

9:20 Why use AVOXI’s TrueLocal Service?

All right, so just having a look at it again. How can this help you? And what has AVOXI done for you? First of all, going into the in-country markets, the first thing that we have to kinda sort of regulatory. So yes, if you want to go and get the service by not using AVOXI, there’s all the regulatory stuff that you need to go through and make sure that you're compliant and this can actually be a long-term service. So, that is quite a lot of work that we've already undertaken for you guys to ensure that we can offer you long-term service.

9:51

As always, AVOXI offers our 27/7/365 support with the service. So, at any given time, if you haven't sort of issues that you'd like to clarify, get fixed or change, you can always contact our support line.

10:07

As mentioned, the service currently, we're offering in 22 countries, however, our goal is to offer that to all 170 countries where you can currently get inbound virtual numbers from AVOXI. So, that list is continually growing and every day that goes on, we're adding new countries.

10:23 

So, what you also get with the TrueLocal service is you also get access to our Cloud Contact Center solution as well, so you get all the features and functionality of our Cloud Platform. So, this allows you to easily monetize your actual service that's in the cloud. So you can look local, but be global.

10:49 Time to Connect

All right. So how do we actually go about getting the service? So if you’re already an AVOXI customer, reach out to your account manager. If you're unsure of who your account manager is, you can email us at [email protected]. As well, you can also go to our Online Shop shopping cart, It's orders.avoxi.com, and you will see our two-way service in our customer facing UI.

11:15 FAQ’s

Great. Thank you, Jon. Before we wrap up, let's answer a few frequently asked questions we've received from our customers.

11:23

Question 1: How long does it take to set up services in a hard to reach country, like China?

11:30 

All right, there. Yeah, that's a great question. So, with every country, there's regulatory things that we need to go through, that, in a lot of locations, needs to be approved by the in-country carrier. In some locations, China is one of these locations where we are able to hold stock, however, we also need to approve you to use the service with the local regulatory body. 

So, probably the lead time from once you place the order and have the number, we're probably looking at about five business days to get you approved in-country. 

Which we think is really fast, from a market perspective. I mean, our goal: our goal is to get the services up as quickly as possible. So we're always working to try to pull time out of there and make sure that our expectations are clear and we help you with things like that, regulatory paperwork.

12:19

Question 2: What are my options if I don't see the country I need on the TrueLocal coverage map?

12:25

Yeah, that's a great question. So like I mentioned, kind of the same as for buying -  reach out to your Account Manager. If you don't have an Account Manager, probably the best thing is just drop us an email at [email protected], and we will review that look into it. And if we are able to source the country will definitely provide that to you.

12:48

Question 3: How do I bring my existing number with me or can I bring my existing number with me to AVOXI? 

Yeah. That's a great question, again, it's going to differ by location, but we can port numbers into this program. And we can look at porting numbers, even if it isn't already an AVOXI number, we can port it into the program. But if it’s not an AVOXI number - again, we have to look at the local regulations. You know, is number porting allowed? And if it is allowed, we will put it in and place it within the truelocal program.

13:18

Right now I think AVOXI ports more countries than anyone else that I know of. So if it's possible to be ported, we'll figure it out. And I think the team has really great connections with lots of different in-country regulatory boards to figure out even some creative ways to do that, which might not be as evident to other providers. So I think the team is really strong in that function.

13:42

Question 4: I've already got my AVOXI number, can I convert that to a TrueLocal number?

13:49

Yeah, definitely. What we need to do is we need to review - Is this particular number from the right underlying carrier? If it is, it's an easy upgrade that we can do into the TrueLocal service. However, if it's not, we can also look into doing an internal number port from one of our carriers from, you know, who can offer just a virtual number, over to our two way TrueLocal number. So, again, let us know which numbers you want to look at moving over, and, through your account manager, we’ll get back to you pretty quickly, and let you know if that’s a possibility.

14:38

Great. Well, that's all for today. Thank you so much for watching. And a special thanks to our presenters, Barbara and Jon.