RingCentral recently spoke with Derek Parkes, Internet Marketing Director of Appraiser General, which lists more than 4,000 real estate appraisers nationwide on its lead-generating Web directory, www.appraiserdirectory.com. Derek's focus is on helping larger clients with pay-per-click advertising on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
You use RingCentral in a unique way. Can you tell us about it?
DP: I use it as a tool to help me prove to my clients that I can give them results, and it's been a great service for us.
Please explain.
DP: For example, If you're a real estate appraiser that covers the entire state of Virgina and you're coming to me saying you want me to market your business on the internet, part of what we do is set you up with a RingCentral account and then put your toll free number on our lead-generating Web site. The calls from that site are forwarded to your phones, and we can track all of the phone calls you receive. If we weren't able to track the number of calls, then we wouldn't know the results that are coming from the internet marketing we're doing for you.
How many clients and RingCentral numbers do you have?
DP: I manage between 25 and 30 toll free numbers.
Your clients also use the Call Controller quite a bit.
DP: The Call Controller is great because when they get multiple calls and the Call Controller pops up, they know to take the marketing call as quickly as they can. That's another reason I really like RingCentral, because my clients can use the Call Controller to prioritize calls. When they're unable to take calls, those messages are stored in their account and are also emailed to their home office or office.
One of your clients received 50 to 60 calls a day from an ad with a their toll free number.
DP: That particular client was a national company, and one of the advertisers on our directory. Now, the only way I could prove to him that he would be getting calls from the ad was to put a call tracking number on his ad. And as soon as we put his ad on our directory, he was getting 50 to 60 calls a day and that's pretty good, but if I didn't put that 800 tracking number up there, there's no way he would have realized the calls were coming from us.
How often do your clients view the Call Logs?
DP: I can have the Call Logs automatically emailed to them once a month so they can see their results. And I have a summary of what's happening.
Why RingCentral?
DP: We love your service because it's really simple for our clients to log in and see the volume of calls they're getting, and it's easy for me to log in and keep an eye 
on their account. It's easy for us to use and for them to understand.
Do they set up their own service?
DP: No, I set everything up for our clients, and I have professional voice scripts available for them to upload to their voicemail. My clients set up their own Call Forwarding rules, which lets them pick up their calls while they're out in the field and they can forward them to a cell phone or a home office. Some clients use the multiple extensions, and all of them use the Call Controller.
What problem did RingCentral solve for you?
DP: I was working with clients and unable to track the calls, so in order for my program to be successful, it was critical for me to have a tracking phone number to show them the call volume.
Do you use RingCentral for your business?
DP: Yes, I use it for the main company number.
Well, this has been interesting. It's the first time I've come across this kind of usage before.
DP: I imagine you'll see a lot more. There's a lot of internet marketing companies out there that manage accounts, especially internet marketing companies. Our advertising niche right now is real estate appraisers, but we're growing and we'll roll it out to real estate agents, and others in the industry.
Thank you, Derek.
DP: Thank you.
