This is the first solution to automate complex outbound calling campaigns with live agents and AI to achieve sales and support objectives for small and mid-sized businesses.
LOS ALTOS, Calif., Dec. 7, 2021 — Smith.ai, a leading virtual receptionist service, announced today the launch of the first-ever client-controlled outbound calling solution. Business owners and operators can now build, schedule, launch, and monitor outreach campaigns they’ve outsourced to Smith.ai’s professional agents according to their unique specifications, aligned with their business objectives. Smith.ai agents complete outreach calls with unprecedented speed, efficiency, and accuracy, thanks to proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that Smith.ai imbues in every call passing through its system.
Smith.ai’s outreach campaigns accommodate a wide range of calling needs, from one-time calls to a handful of clients to get payment on past-due invoices, to six-part call sequences to hundreds of webinar registrants with the aim of scheduling sales demos, to call-and-text campaigns to ask thousands of past donors to renew charitable contributions, as just a few examples.
Smith.ai’s co-founders Aaron Lee (former CTO, The Home Depot) and Justin Maxwell (past design leader at Apple, Google, Intuit, and Sony) established Smith.ai in 2015 as a direct answer to appeals from small-business owners for live-answering help that didn’t break the bank, consume their management time, or require major adjustments to their systems and workflows. Lee and Maxwell built a cutting-edge, AI-driven system for provisioning and guiding calls for a virtually connected workforce of remote receptionists that was plug-and-play from the start.
The company’s new outreach campaigns are just as easy to implement: Clients provide a few instructions to Smith.ai on the reason, objective, and timing of calls; they specify actions to complete on calls; and they supply recipients to be called, either through a spreadsheet or Smith.ai’s new outbound call request API. Outreach begins within days or even hours — in stark contrast to the months-long discovery, onboarding, and training processes outsourced sales development (outsourced SDR) vendors often require.
Says Aaron Lee, “We’re democratizing access to cutting-edge products and services that equip small and mid-sized business owners to more effectively compete. Simply put, we’re focused on plugging into the software and systems they’re already using while helping them limit overhead costs, primarily because they can’t afford delays and new expenses — lead-generation, revenue, and retention goals have to be met now.”
Lee continues, “New leads complete online contact forms, existing clients’ credit cards expire, event attendees await follow-up calls — but who’s going to contact all of these individuals before it’s too late? Smith.ai can, and we’re doing so in a manner that’s proven to be effective, at a fraction of the cost of other solution providers in this space. That’s defying the status quo, just like we’ve come to be known for. We’ve distilled the requirements of sales and support outreach campaigns into the most critical elements to quickly drive desired outcomes.”
Clients, like Aaron R. Winston of Express Legal Funding, agree: “Smith.ai has been a game-changer for us. They expertly handle the outbound calls to individuals who complete an online application on our website. They took the time to really learn about our company and its services, so we have total confidence when they do outreach on our behalf. Smith.ai is way more than a worthwhile investment for us. They are a true business partner, and have become an important factor in our success as a provider of low-cost pre-settlement funding.”
The debut of outreach campaigns follows on the heels of Smith.ai’s recent announcement of its call intelligence and analytics tools. Both of these offerings further cement Smith.ai’s commitment to designing next-generation technologies that provide small and mid-sized businesses with the solutions necessary to compete, earn a profit, and conserve resources.
About Smith.ai
Smith.ai is a superior virtual receptionist service for businesses, many of which are small to mid-size service-based operations in the U.S. and Canada. Our live, North America-based receptionists handle calls, texts, website chats, and social messages; qualify leads; intake new clients; book appointments; and accept payments, for improved responsiveness, happier clients, and better marketing results, 24/7. To learn more, visit https://smith.ai.
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