What Is Phone Banking?

There are many ways to get your attention in today’s media world. Traditional broadcast media such as radio, television, and newspapers can be used. Social media, email, and online advertising are modern ways to get attention.

Campaigning is more effective when it has a personal touch. A volunteer who convinces a voter to support a campaign is likely to make them more inclined to vote for it. Door-to-door canvassing can be a great way to get heard and learn more about your voter. It is impossible to visit all voters in large campaigns, or those with a time limit. It is also almost impossible to scale door-to-door canvassing without a large number of volunteers.

Phone banking is the solution. Phone banking allows you to reach voters via their phones. This is both personal and efficient.

How long does it take to call a single voter? It takes just 3 minutes sometimes, and sometimes even less.

Imagine if you had four to five volunteers calling voters. You can reach a lot of voters quickly. Combining canvassing with phone banking can make it very effective in increasing voter turnout and supporters. Talk about killing two birds! Learn more about how to combine phone banking and canvassing.

HOW EFFECTIVE PHONE BANKING IS

Here are six reasons you MUST phone bank if you’re running a political campaign or advocacy campaign.

In what way does this work?

We now know what phone banking actually is. So how does it work?

Phone banking is basically the act of volunteers calling voters to talk about their campaign. There are many types of campaigns: some may be to get out the vote (GOTV), others might be for recruiting volunteers, and some could be for raising money or identifying voters.

Case Study: How Organizing for Change conducted a successful GOTV campaign using phone banks

Campaigns may use traditional telephone lines to contact voters. Each volunteer must dial a number manually, wait for the caller, then speak to them. The volunteers must record the details of the call on paper. Once the call is over, the manager will have to manually enter the survey information into the CRM. Tedious? You bet! You bet!

Software-based advanced phone banking tools are available. Volunteers can log in to the system from their computers, and make calls using a browser if necessary. The system assigns voters to agents and displays accurate information about each voter. It also stores all feedback received from calls.

How does it save you time? It is as simple as calling the number that you want and avoiding answering machines, busy numbers, and bad numbers.

Volunteers now take 50% less time to make calls than in the past.

How to set up a phone bank

If you use a CallHub phone banking tool, setting up phone banking is very simple. There are some things that you need to plan for your campaign.

  • To be called: List of voters
  • This is the script volunteers should follow when speaking to voters
  • Make a list to recruit volunteers to phone bank with you
  • If you have any survey questions, please answer them.

Volunteers need to be taught how to give feedback and what topics to discuss. Learn more about how you can prepare for a phone bank policy.

10 TIPS TO MANAGE A SUCCESSFUL PHONE BANK

Phone Bank Party

It becomes very boring to do repetitive tasks when phone banking. It can be very enjoyable if done with a group. A party or get-together can help improve moods. Volunteers aren’t used to calling strangers and conversing with them. Volunteers need to be motivated. In a group setting volunteers can help each other achieve their goals. They also have the opportunity to make friends and feel closer to the campaign. A party allows all participants to mix, mingle, interact, and call voters. This improves the quality and number of calls.

7 Tips for Organizing a Phone Banking Party

There are many types of phone banking

There are two types that you can use for phone banking: automated and manual. Let’s look at how they work.

Automated dialers dial through a contact list, and connect the call to a live agent when it is answered. This system is known as a virtual outbound phone center.

1. Automated

It’s not as difficult as you might think! Click here to learn more and discover how easy it is.

The next question is: How do agents connect with this software provided by CallHub. There are two options for getting this done:

  • Use a browser

All that is required by the agent is a headset and computer. It’s that simple! To read the script and complete surveys, the agent would need to use CallHub’s browser interface.

A browser has many advantages. It is easy to use, costs less, requires only one device, and is hands-free.

  • Use a smartphone

The agent connects to the campaign using a phone. The CallHub application can be accessed on a browser using another device, such as a computer. It allows the agent to view the script and answer surveys.

Two options are available: The agent can either dial into the campaign or receive a call to connect. What are the modes? These are based on your country’s phone plans and their respective pricing.

A phone has the advantage that you can use it to call older people and does not require high-speed internet access. It is also a bit more costly and you will need more than one phone.

There are three types to choose from when it comes to automated phone banking:

1. Predictive dialer

If you need to reach as many people as possible, a predictive dialer can be extremely helpful. This is especially important for large campaigns like voter identification. The dialer connects only those calls that are answered by agents.

This saves a lot of time since unanswered calls, dial tones, answering machines, and so on are weeded out. Agents can now focus on supporting their supporters and not listen to endless dial tones or robotic answering machines.

How predictive dialing works

2. Power Dialer

This dialer dials numbers automatically, while the caller concentrates on the live call. This is a slower method of calling, where the agent can complete the survey and take notes before moving on to the next call.

A dial rate can be set to speed up the campaign and allow volunteers enough time to complete survey questions.

3. Preview Dialer

This is a flexible dialer that requires agents to spend time researching the contact. These conversations tend to be more in-depth and may include follow-ups from previous conversations.

Managers still have control over who is called, and they receive detailed recordings of every call.

How to preview dialing works

2. Manual

Or Collective Calling uses the same interface and dialer as the automated dialer. What’s the difference? The calls in this instance are not made through CallHub. Instead, the agent would need to dial the number manually on a telephone and then use CallHub for the script and survey questions.

Why not use collective calling instead of dialing a number by yourself or with a group volunteer?

It might work if all agents are located in the same area, but it will not work if they are spread out geographically. Coordinating with each other is a huge hassle.

Collective Calling makes the calling process fluid and dynamic. Contacts are assigned based on how many agents are active at any given time.

This makes sure that all contacts are reached and that no one is left out. It is also possible to delete agents who aren’t performing well using CallHub’s software. Oh!

Pricing

Who uses what?

Automated calling is possible if

  • Are you a political campaign trying to reach voters?
  • An advocacy group
  • TCPA regulations do not apply to you

Alternatively, if you have the correct equipment, you can use Collective Calling.

  • You still want to optimize your campaign even though TCPA regulations limit you
  • You have most of your contacts on mobile phones (not landline) and you prefer to call them than using an automated dialer. This is due to TCPA regulations.

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