Options Tab – BNTouch Voice Module

The BNTouch Voice module is an expansive, powerful addition to your BNTouch CRM. Using this feature, you can communicate with your borrowers and partners in more personal and direct methods than simple email and postcard marketing. This module allows you to send text messages to your leads, click on phone numbers in your CRM to call partners right from your computer, pre-record audio messages to send with your marketing campaigns, and more!

Only Administrative accounts can enable modules for your CRM, so if you want to use this module and do not have access, please contact your administrator for help. If you are your account’s administrator, you can enable BNTouch Voice for your business by clicking the user menu in the upper-right corner of your CRM. Click “Modules”, then find the “BNTouch Voice” module in the list. You can hover over the module to check pricing rates and account availability, then just click “Activate Module” to get started.

Once enabled, you will see many new options and features throughout your CRM that allow you to communicate via texting or calling. This video will first explain how to configure BNTouch Voice settings to best fit your business needs. Afterwards, it will highlight some of the new things you can do in your CRM.

To configure preferences for the BNTouch Voice module, open the Options tab of your CRM and click the “BNTouch Voice Settings” link. You can easily find this option by clicking the “Modules” category to the left. Here, the various settings are separated into several sub-tabs, starting with “Voice Home”.

This section will give you a link you can use to call yourself and test the click-to-call functionality, as well as the dates of your current billing period, your plan allotment for call minutes and SMS messages, and the amount of those minutes and messages that you have used this billing period. You can also activate and deactivate the click-to-call feature using the checkbox here.

Below, you can determine what phone numbers will be displayed to recipients of your calls and SMS messages sent from BNTouch Voice. You can use your own phone number for the Call ID, or you can use one of the available numbers below for calls or SMS messages. Your calls and messages will be routed through these numbers. You can find phone numbers to use for these fields in the “Available Numbers” section. You will have the option to choose an area code, then a list of numbers will appear that you can select from. Once you choose one, it will automatically assign to the “Caller ID” and “SMS ID” fields above, which can be validated using the button to the right.

In addition, you can use the checkboxes below “SMS ID” to choose which SMS Messaging buttons appear in your CRM, which incoming messages will be saved to client records, and whether to shorten URL links in your SMS messages. By default, incoming text messages to an assigned number will be logged only to records of users with that assigned number. If the “Log to All Users” box is checked, the system will instead look through records belonging to all users to find a matching record. The text fields below are used to set any necessary compliance phrasing for SMS messages that you send, both individually and via campaign steps.

If you change any information in this section, be sure to click the “Update Preferences” button below to save your work before navigating away.

In the “My Recordings” sub-tab, you can record voice messages that can be used elsewhere in your CRM. This page will have a list of all recordings that you currently have ready to use. To start a new recording, just click the “New Recording” button above the list.

Using your computer microphone, record a message that you would like to have available to send to clients and partners. Enter a name for the recording file, then choose which users in your account will have access to it. You can listen to these recordings using the play button to the right, and you can remove unwanted recordings using the “Delete” link. If you change any recording names or sharing settings, click “Update” to save your changes.

The “Call & SMS Logs” sub-tab allows you to review all phone calls and text messages that have been sent via BNTouch Voice for a time period you select from the drop-down menu. This includes details about what user sent the message and when, what type of message was sent, who sent it to whom, call duration and SMS status information, and any associated costs for the message. Below the report, you can check the total call cost for all messages in the selected time period.

You can also see what users in your account have been using BNTouch Voice in the “Usage Summary” sub-tab. Here, you can view how many SMS messages and calls have been sent for each user in the current and previous month and year. These users will be organized by user group, and you can view group total messages in the row below each group.

In the “Phone Numbers Assignment” sub-tab, you can see which phone numbers from the “Voice Home” tab have been assigned to various users in your account. Numbers can be assigned to a user by clicking the action icon to the right, and numbers can be removed using the checkboxes to the left and the “Remove PN Assignment(s)” button. If you have several users to track, you can refine the list using the drop-down menus above to see only those with specific assignment numbers or those from specific states. The “User” drop-down menu can also be used to search by typing into the search box above.

Registering and assigning multiple phone numbers from various area codes can be a very helpful way to reach your clients. You can assign several state-based numbers to a user, and when that user sends messages to clients and partners, BNTouch Voice will automatically select a "local" number based on the state of the recipient. This will make your text messages and calls seem local and improve the rate of successful receipt.

If you have several users but do not use personal phone numbers for each user, be sure not to assign the default number to only a single user here. Otherwise, the other users in your account will not be able to send or receive messages.

To manage which phone numbers are assigned to your account, open the “Assigned Phone Numbers” sub-tab. Each number you have associated with your BNTouch Voice calls and texts will appear here with the date and time they were assigned. You can release numbers you no longer use by clicking the action menu to the right, and you can acquire new numbers by clicking the “Purchase New Number” button above the list.

Just like in the “Voice Home” tab, you will be able to search for numbers by area code and add them to your list. Please note that each additional phone number assigned to your account will accrue an additional monthly cost.

Lastly, you can view a list of all marketing campaign triggers that are tied to SMS text message content in the “SMS Triggers” sub-tab. Triggers listed here will activate marketing campaigns for clients and partners who text you specific words or phrases. Each SMS trigger will display below with the campaign name and type, the trigger conditions, its creator, and when it was created. You can edit or delete any of these triggers using the action menu to the right.

To add a new SMS Trigger, click the “Add Trigger” button. You will then be able to choose a campaign to activate from the drop-down menu. In the “Users” menu, choose which of your user accounts will trigger this campaign upon receiving an SMS text message. Next, you can enter text that will trigger the campaign if the SMS message “Contains” or “Exactly matches” the listed characters. Once finished, click the “Add Trigger” button to save the campaign trigger.

Now that you know how to change the settings and preferences for the BNTouch Voice module, let’s look at some of the new features you can use.

For Text Messaging, you will now have the ability to send SMS messages similarly to how to send emails in your CRM. As a quick example, you can open any client record in your Mortgages tab, view their “Mortgage Info”, and now see a “Send SMS” button, which allows you to send a text message to the borrower. You can type any message you like and attach an image to send with it.

If you send similar messages to many clients, you can choose to “Add as a template”, which will save a copy of the message that you can re-use later. You can set tags for the template and even share it with other users in your business. All templates you have available can be viewed in the “Templates” tab when sending a SMS message, allowing you to quickly and easily communicate with your clients and partners.

Like email communications and other events in your CRM, SMS messages you send will appear in a record’s Tracker, allowing you to see a history of your contact with the client. The client’s responses will also be logged as Tracker Events, along with any pictures sent or received. You can even send a text message from a client’s Tracker by using the “Contact” menu and choosing “Send SMS”.

In addition to sending text messages directly, you can also now use SMS text messages as a delivery option for your marketing campaigns. This way, you can automate your text messages, allowing you to reach more clients in a more convenient way. When editing a campaign in the Marketing Tab, your Campaign Steps can now use “SMS Message” as a “Method”, just like an email, printed letter, or CRM message.

You can also send bulk SMS messages to several clients or partners at once from the Pipeline View screens in your database tabs. Use the checkmarks to the left of the records you wish to include in the messaging, then click the “SMS Send” button above the list. This will open an SMS Text Message screen like before, and the number of included recipients will display at the top of the page. You can compose your message or use a template just like sending a message to an individual client.

In addition to text messages, BNTouch Voice also offers several new features regarding phone calls, recorded voice messages, and the like. Whenever you click on a telephone number link in a client’s record, you will now be able to start a call with that person from your computer. This will use your computer’s microphone and headphones or speakers, allowing you to easily carry out conversations while working in your CRM.

You can also record voice messages and send them to clients and partners from your CRM.

In your Marketing Tab, open a Campaign. Next, add a new Campaign Step that you’d like to include a voice message. When you choose the step method, click “Call”. As you create your campaign step as normal, you’ll notice a new option below the “Method” drop-down menu. Here, you can choose from the pre-recorded audio messages you’ve created in your account!

In addition to recording your own voice, you can also choose to have any text in a marketing campaign read by a synthesized voice as an audio message. In the same “Call” method of a campaign step, just choose “Play: Custom Text via Text-to-Speech Processor” from the drop-down menu. This will function like a pre-recorded voice message, but a computer voice will read the material in the text field for the step aloud.

These new features will work from your BNTouch CRM in a computer browser, but they can also be accessed from your phone or mobile device using the BNTouch Mobile App. Here, you will have new icons available for sending text messages and phone calls directly from within the app--without the need to copy phone numbers or message details.