Case study: Pamela Silver Real Estate
Pamela Silver is an estate agent based in Cape Town. Having sold a holiday home to a couple from London, she identified a gap in the market - making her selection of coastal South African properties more accessible to buyers from the UK and Germany.
The challenge
Pamela has a web site for her business but she always prefers to speak directly to clients. However, getting UK buyers to call has been a tricky. They are reluctant to put their trust in an 'overseas' agent... especially if it's a sole trader, not a larger company.
The solution
Despite being thousands of miles away, Pamela was able to choose a prestigious 0207 number that suggested she was based in the heart of London. Pamela used the free dmVoice service to divert calls to her South African number (without callers realising).
I make around €5,000 per commission and so spending a few cents getting those important extra calls is a drop in the ocean
Three other services also proved useful...
(1) dmSwitchboard
At first, Pamela wondered why a one-person business would need a virtual switchboard. But then it clicked. The dmSwitchboard service would present the picture of a much larger company. Callers could choose from a range of different departments - including an option to speak in German. Prior to connecting the call, the service would 'whisper' to Pamela which option had been selected, to help her answer the correct way.
(2) Professionally recorded messages and voice prompts
Pamela also wanted the switchboard announcements to be spoken with a UK accent, so she used the ProVoiceOver service for professionally-recorded greetings from a voice actor.
(3) A professional answering service
Pamela has a secretary working mornings but sometimes cannot take calls personally. At such times - day or night - callers are diverted to a UK call centre using dmAnswers, where a professional receptionist will take important messages. Better still, the receptionist has a UK accent.
Business benefits
- Pamela now has the 'look and feel' of a UK business
- Calls from the UK have risen from a handful to around 30 a month
- Calls are forwarded to South Africa at discounted rates and so cost very little
- Pamela can retrieve voicemails by phone or by email
- She can also see the Caller IDs of UK numbers if people decide not to leave a message and she wants to call them.
0207 number
This number creates a 'virtual' location for her business in prestigius central London.
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dmVoice
Calls can be forwarded to South Africa, and callers can leave messages that she can access by phone or email.
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dmSwitchboard
Callers can speak to different departments, suggesting Pamela runs a much larger company.
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ProVoiceOver
A professional voice actor - using a British accent - records the greetings, presenting a corporate UK image.
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dmAnswers
When no-one's available, calls are answered by a call centre team in the UK that will forward messages to Pamela by text and email.
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