Ifbyphone (News - Alert), a cloud telephony company that offers a suite of phone automation services to enhance customer communications, has
launched VoteByPhone, a live-audience-polling application for “simple, real-time polls over the phone.”
According to Jonathan Minkoff, executive director of SingStrong, VoteByPhone made their job easier and faster.
“Not only does VoteByPhone give us the results we need immediately, and with perfect accuracy, but our audience actually gets to watch those results as they happen,” Minkoff said.
VoteByPhone application can be configured by anyone interested in real-time survey results, including live-audience events, radio stations, conferences, advertising agencies and political campaigns, company officials said.
The application was premiered at the SingStrong A Cappella Festival in the first week of March, enabling a live audience of 600 people to vote for the winner of the A Cappella Idol competition.
To launch a VoteByPhone poll, users create a new “VoteByPhone Polling Event” in their Ifbyphone accounts. They then set up a list of voting options, such as a list of performers, issues raised in the day's news, or topics of current interest to vote on, and configure custom audio files to greet each caller.
The process is even easier for voters, who call in, listen to a recorded greeting message, and press a number on their keypads to vote, they added. Results can be seen via any Web browser in real-time.
For example, a radio show could spontaneously set up a poll, asking their listeners to call into a toll-free number to vote, and report over the air in real-time which options listeners chose. This methodology does not require any technical expertise or staff to answer calls, Ifbyphone officials added.
Voters can also call VoteByPhone from hands-free Bluetooth headsets or speakerphones and save themselves from texting the message, especially while driving.
“VoteByPhone makes it easy for anyone to set up a real-time survey that audience members can respond to over the phone,” said Irv Shapiro (News - Alert), Ifbyphone CEO, in a statement. “Our customers tell us they value the ability to create interactive presentations, get audience feedback and display real-time results.”
A beta version of VoteByPhone is currently available to all Ifbyphone customers.
Ifbyphone provides a one-stop shop for all telephone-application needs, company officials said. From call tracking to virtual call centers, the company provides applications designed for business leaders to configure from an easy-to-use Web site without programmer assistance.
At this year’s ITEXPO (News - Alert), Ifbyphone announced it acquired Cloudvox, a company that offers “open” hosted Asterisk (News - Alert) telephony applications, a TMCnet blog said.
The merger brings the best of “proprietary” telephony apps by Ifbyphone and “open” Asterisk AGI and AMI applications that developers can build on Cloudvox, Shapiro said in the blog.
Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Kelly McGuire