Bringing Personal Back To Business

We're going to continue the theme. We're going to bring over Matt, who's going to be talking about CircleLoop. One of the things that, again, a bit of a theme today is to get away from this concept of inbound as an entirely automated machine that just generates business for you. I think you're getting the idea here that some work is involved, that there's interaction required with customers. Sometimes we forget that we're all inbound and it's all great, but at the end of the day, we still have to work a telephone. We still have to pick up the phone. We have to talk to people. We have to engage with them, whether it's using video, whether it's using personal email, or in fact, telephones. Having said that, I'm going to pass over to Matt from CircleLoop because he's much better than I am at talking about that. Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much. I'm not sure about that. Cheers. Hello, everybody. A little bit of an intro before I kick on. This isn't a sales pitch, by the way, so don't worry. Basically, we've identified that businesses have become, actually, with all the advanced technology and all of the cloud-based products that we're now using and all of the cool new tech that's the millions and millions of tech startups around the world that are coming up with all these newfangled things that we can now use to communicate with our customers, that business is actually becoming less and less personal. I'll tell you that story shortly. First of all, just a little bit about me. My name's Matt. Hi. I'm a Northerner, as you can probably tell, so I've got a bit of a nosebleed the last couple of days, especially the credit card, which has took a bit of a hammering. Everything's so expensive here. Also, we're very high up as well, so this is about the highest link I've ever been. Great to see you all anyway. Hopefully, you can understand my accent. I do speak English, in case you're wondering. We're based up in the North. We're a technology startup. We're about three years old, actually, and we specialize in cloud-based technologies. Today, I'm talking to you about Circle Loop, which is our cloud-based phone system. Those are my online credentials. If anybody wants to follow me, I'm not particularly interesting, so I'd probably recommend that you follow the bottom two rather than the top two, but feel free if you wish. Anybody old enough to remember the 90s office? A few people are prepared to admit to that. Yeah, you all look very young. I've strategically chosen a grainy photo to add to the theater, really, more than anything. In the 90s, businesses worked fundamentally differently to the way that they work today, so we were very much office-based. Companies had offices usually looking a little bit like that with booths. Everyone had their own desk, and they probably had their name on it. We were all using those awful, great big computer systems, and we all had desk phones. People weren't particularly mobile. Everybody was much more office-based. Homeworking, what, really? What's homeworking? Wasn't really known in the 90s. I suppose it was coming through a little bit in America at that time, but actually, nobody was doing it. Actually, the way that phone systems worked back then kind of worked for business because they were all installed on the premises. Everyone had a desk phone, and it rang when it was meant to, and that was okay. But businesses in the 90s, I would argue, were a lot more personal than businesses now. I think actually through necessity. There was no... I mean, email was sort of coming through at that point, but you were pretty out there if you were using things like email. We were all using fax. Remember fax? We were using the phone, and we were talking to people. We were building relationships with people. We were managing customers' expectations using the phone, and that started to slip away. Even Brent knew that using the phone was a good way to keep his customers engaged or to insult his superiors, depending on which way you look at it. But then modern offices... So fast forward 20 years or so, and modern offices tend to look a bit like this. So there's sort of almost a graveyard of desk phones which sit around the building and don't get used, really. They kind of sit there, and everyone looks at them and kind of goes like that when they ring, or just goes, you know what, I'll just use my mobile. And so many businesses now... I see this everywhere. Rather than using the desk phone, people are using their own personal mobiles to make client calls, and it's just... I mean, it's not great, is it? Giving out your personal mobile number to your clients. What happens if that person leaves the business, and they take in the entire address book with them? Is it really that professional to be giving your personal mobile number out to all of your clients, or is it more professional to actually be able to keep that in one place? And I think a lot of the advances in technology have actually led to us going backwards in many ways, particularly with the phone system. And phone systems still now, even today, are still sold as if it's the 90s. So if you order a phone system from one of the big providers now, they'll send an engineer along, they'll install the switch, they'll activate the line, they'll assign a number, they'll plug all your desk phones in for you, they'll mess around with your switch and put all the cables in, and then a few days later the numbers will go live, and then everyone will sort of go testing one, two, and it's still crazy. Phone systems are still sold like it's the 90s. And what use is a desk phone when you've got a mobile workforce? So I'm based in the north, but today I'm in London. What use is my desk phone in Rosendale, where our office is? It's no use to me at all today, is it, whatsoever. So what's the point? So why have we given up on the phone? Because businesses have really given up on this now. It's actually, and I think there's been a perception over the last few years that it's cheaper. So I send an email, it's cheaper, it's quicker. Is it more scalable? So rather than having every time you get a new member of staff, you've got to buy them a desk phone and you've got to get it plugged in, you've got to assign a number to it. Or does it feel more modern? Actually, do businesses feel that the phone is no longer relevant in the relationship with their customers anymore? Is it about audit trail? So if you are sending emails to your customers, you've got a paper trail, haven't you? You know, if you're using a project management system or whatever, you've got that paper trail. Or is it because it's easier to hide? Actually, you know, we're a generation of keyboard warriors, aren't we? We're super, super hard, as it were, when we get on social media and tell everyone what we think. But actually, if you stand in front of somebody, you often won't have the same views or perhaps put them across in quite the same way. And I think there's a combination of these things that are involved and perhaps some of these things on the screen might even ring true to yourselves as well. But now our support inboxes and systems are starting to look like this. So because we've discouraged the use of the phone or because businesses have sort of subconsciously moved away from the phone, now we have support inboxes that look like that every morning or we're having to disappoint customers with not being able to respond to their help, inquiries and support. And that starts to strain client relationships. And so because of the fact that we've tried to go so digital with a lot of this now, and we're requiring people to communicate with us in a particular way, actually it puts strain on relationships. And something that could have been resolved in a 30 second phone call now takes 30 minutes on live chat or three hours by email or half a day by support tickets. And actually, what we've found and something that we strongly believe in at Circle Loop is actually if we just pick up the phone, we can resolve pretty much anything in a matter of seconds. And it really helps us not just to build the relationship with the customer in the first place, but also to retain them, to build the trust with them and also to help them if there is something that they want to talk about rather than spending all day tapping away like this, pick up the phone and we're able to speak to that customer and help them. 65% of customers still prefer to contact a business by phone. So why aren't we doing it? Why are we still asking people, why are we still communicating with new prospects by email? Why aren't we just picking up the phone and actually having a conversation with them? So incredibly, we've almost gone full circle in my view. So actually, we've got to a point now where 20 years since I guess using the phone was fashionable and using the phone was the norm and the done thing. I think it's now the way to stand out. I think one of the ways, it's not the only way actually, and the guys are going to tell you about the really cool stuff you can do with video and webinars to engage with customers as well, which I'm fully on board with. I also think that's pretty personal as well. But actually, one of the ways to stand out actually is to be attainable, build relationships with your customers. I'm not suggesting we go back to the 90s and I'll plug desk phones in again and all that, but we've got the technology that can help you with this, but in a really, really scalable and not scary and inexpensive way. So I'm not on a one-man crusade, but I'm going to call it a small crusade at the moment, but I invite you to join me on this crusade. It's not just a Northern crusade. People from London are also allowed on this crusade. And I'm calling it Bring Back the Phone 2019, and I'm calling it that because I couldn't think of a better name for it. But if anyone else has got a better name, then let me know and I'll steal the idea. Thank you. But it will be my copyright, just in case you're wondering. So yeah, I'm on a one-man crusade to bring the phone back into business for 2019, and I invite you to join me. And the kicker is that your FD's face won't look like this either, because it's actually very cost effective and easy to do. So why am I telling you all of this? So we're a HubSpot Connect partner. That means that we've built technology that integrates with HubSpot and that HubSpot has validated. So we've gone through a validation process with the HubSpot team, and they've tested and verified the software that we've built and said, yeah, this is good. It works. It does what it's supposed to do, and it's helpful to our users. So what does the circle loop and HubSpot integration do? Well, first of all, just a tiny little bit about HubSpot. Circle loop. Sorry again about circle loop. So circle loop is a cloud-based phone system. So it does away with all of the complexity and the hassle of traditional phone systems. So as I said before, historically, if you ordered a new phone system for your business, someone would come along, an engineer would do a site visit, they'd scope out what you need, they'd come and plug a load of stuff in, they'd provision some numbers, and then a few days later, everything will go live. With circle loop, you don't need to do that. So we don't require, in fact, you don't even need to use desk phones with circle loop. If you don't want, you can use our applications. So it runs in apps. You download the app to your computer system in your mobile, and the phone system comes with you rather than you needing to leave it in the office and do some sort of clunky redirect where you tap some numbers into the phone and hope that it finds you by forwarding it to your mobile. You don't need to worry about doing that with circle loop. The phone system comes with you. I have my business phone system in my pocket right now, in my back pocket. It's on snooze, just in case you're wondering, so it won't ring. But if anybody wants to reach me on any of our numbers, for example, our sales line or my direct dial, my mobile will ring and it will identify me that it's a business call. It will also identify who's calling me because we've got it synced up with HubSpot. And it will also redirect it to another member of the team if I don't pick it up. And I can manage all of that on the move. So what does circle loop and HubSpot do? Well, it does three key things. So if you integrate HubSpot with circle loop, it helps you to massively improve efficiency and productivity in the business. And it does that by doing three things. First of all, it syncs up your contacts in real time consistently. So if I, like I say, if I'm on the move today, if my phone rings right now, if that's an existing customer or someone that's in our prospect database, it will identify me who's calling on my mobile. So actually I can see that caller identification. If I'm using the desktop application, it also gives me a link into HubSpot as well. So I can actually go straight to that contact record. The second thing that it does is that it gives me click to call. So from HubSpot, if you press the call button, if you're using circle loop, it will actually place the call out through circle loop for you. So you can keep your team inside the CRM, which is actually a really efficient way of working and making sure that the right things are being done. So you know, talking before about using multiple different software platforms, this really is about trying to integrate this together to give you the ability to run your business through HubSpot and plug in the products around the outside that help you to do that. And the third thing that it does, which is probably the most valuable, I guess, is that it automatically logs all of your calls. So within the HubSpot activity feed, every single call that is made, received, missed, attempted, voicemails, etc., they all get logged against that contact automatically. So if you've got salespeople, for example, I know how hard it is to get salespeople to update CRMs because I run a sales team and it's a nightmare. But with circle loop and HubSpot, I get that call logged. The other cool thing as well is that I can choose to record calls on circle loop if I wish, and I can have the call recording sent into HubSpot as well. And why is that good? Well, it's great for audit trail, something that I was talking about before. So you know, if moving back to using the phone as a primary method of communication in your business scares you because you don't have an audit trail, well, now you do because circle loop will actually give you that call activity in the feed. It will allow you to log the call recording. It will log voicemails. It will transcribe them for you. You get your whole activity within HubSpot feed. And it's also great for things like handovers. So if you work in the creative or digital sector, that sector is quite a transient sector. There's quite a high staff churn rate. People move on, people move into different places. So how do you maintain a consistent relationship with your clients when you know that actually you might get 12 to 18 mums out of somebody before they move on? Well, things like this are ideal because it allows you for an entire history of the customer, you know, listen back to the call recordings, things like brief creep. You know, if you're an organisation that takes briefs from customers and then has to deliver on those briefs, briefs often creep, don't they? And then there's really no proof quite often in terms of what was said and what wasn't said. Well, now there is. Now there is because you can get that call recording and the call history straight into HubSpot. So it's a great way of, number one, making your team more efficient because actually they no longer need to worry about logging the calls themselves. And number two, it's also about making the business more professional because actually if you've got all that information to hand, if you're a team leader within a sales team or an account management team, et cetera, and you want to be able to track better in terms of the activity that's being done, Circle Loop has on board analytics that you can run reporting straight from, broken down by user, broken down by team, broken down by number. So you've got everything you need. If you use Circle Loop with HubSpot, it actually, it resolves the whole phone piece for you and it actually gives you the reporting that you need as well on the back of it. So it actually, it's really tight and from an efficiency and productivity perspective, it really helps you to make things easier, quicker, and a lot more personal. So just a little bit of bump to finish off with for you around Circle Loop. So Circle Loop is built around users, not hardware. So as I said, we are, we're not hardware centric. You can use it with a desk phone if you wish, but most of our customers, I would say 90% of our customers use it in the apps and actually have moved away from the desk phone altogether. It does everything. So I won't bore you with the list of features that Circle Loop has, but it does everything. So call forwarding, voicemail transcription, you can swap your dial out number. So that's pretty cool. If you want to have a San Francisco office, now you can get yourself a San Francisco phone number, choose it for the dial out number. And I mean, I could, I could call you now from San Francisco. I won't do it because it'd be embarrassing, wouldn't it? But I can, I can give you a call directly. And in fact, if you come and see me later, I'll show you, I'll show off that I can ring you from San Fran from the, where are we, 39th floor in Canary Wharf. And yeah, basically I won't bore you with the features, but it does everything you need. And then we also, one of the big things about Circle Loop, one of the big things that we've tried to do, you know, we've talked about disruptors. We consider ourselves a technology disruptor. We're a challenger teleco provider. The telecoms industry in the UK has a horrendous reputation, which is actually one of the challenges because no one wants to talk to you if you say you are a telco. But we are, we are trying to do things differently. Our vision very much is around taking the complexity and the jargon and the hassle out of telephony and also taking the unnecessary cost out of it. So this is a no contract model. We don't lock you in for any period of time. And we include all of our features in the subscription. So you don't pay for bolt-ons or add-ons. There's no surprises in terms of the pricing. If you want to use the whole stack, conference calling, analytics, call tracking, call recording, all of the features and the integrations, it's a simple per user subscription price. So we're just trying to make things really simple. I know this is a HubSpot event and so some of these logos on the screen are probably not allowed and I'll probably be lynched later or possibly thrown out of the window. But we do also integrate with a number of other CRM systems as well. So we've built integrations for various communities. So basically if you circle it with HubSpot, we will guarantee that we will make your team more personal and more productive. So that's pretty much it from me. So Damien and I are around, obviously for the bulk of the morning. I'd be really keen to talk to you about Circle Loop, find a little bit more about the challenges that you face in terms of maintaining and managing your customer relationships. Also, obviously happy to arrange a demo for you. Clearly not today, but we can talk to you a bit more and understand how we might be able to help. And please join my one-man crusade for 2019. And if you do genuinely have a better name for it, then feel free to put it forward. And I'll update my slides for next time. So I'm Matt, Damien's at the back as well. Feel free to grab us during the break if you wish or afterwards. And we'll be delighted to tell you a bit more about how Circle Loop and HubSpot can really help you to drive some efficiency and bring personal back to your business.