How to Create a Phone Bank with a Virtual Phone System

Phone banks have recently picked up steam, becoming a popular method for canvassing and community outreach. As staff and volunteers moved to remote work, organizations shifted from traditional field operations to cloud-based VoIP phone systems to continue their campaigns without interruption. This article explores what a phone bank is, how virtual hotline services support remote phone banking, and how to get a phone bank started.

What is a Phone Bank?

A phone bank is a structured list of phone numbers used by organizations and call centers to run outreach and engagement campaigns at scale. They are often used for canvassing, informing, and spurring local communities into action. Phone banks are also a great way to organize lists and data between your staff and volunteers.

A modern phone bank relies on a VoIP phone service provider like Telzio to supply the cloud-based software needed to manage calls, volunteers, and campaign operations efficiently. As an organization grows and is able to take on a bigger task force, its VoIP platform must be able to scale with it.

Leveraging Telzio’s Virtual Hotline Services

Large outreach efforts require more hands on deck, and Telzio's phonebanking capabilities have helped campaigns and nonprofits manage high-volume nationwide calling operations efficiently. Utilizing Call Queues, Telzio hotlines connect tens of thousands of callers dialing in during televised events and route them to phonebank staff working remotely from any location. With call volumes increasing quickly, the ability to onboard new staff rapidly became essential.

With Telzio, organizations can instantly add users at no extra cost, allowing campaigns to expand their remote phonebank staff quickly without increasing communication expenses. This scalable pricing model for virtual phone services enables outreach programs to grow efficiently while maintaining budget control.

Many nonprofits use Telzio to phone bank and the data show their success. For the 2020 general election, just one of Telzio's nonprofit customers processed over half a million calls on its voter hotline in the few months leading up to election day. They held nationwide operations with 600 volunteers supporting their efforts and Telzio’s free unlimited users meant they could easily scale to match campaign magnitude. During their TV-broadcasted telethons, they were able to handle a high volume of simultaneous calls routed to their remote staff around the country.

After each completed campaign or event, organizations can use Telzio’s Tag Call Log feature to categorize and analyze incoming calls, helping campaign administrators identify regions, community concerns, and outreach opportunities more effectively. As traditional field operations became more difficult, organizations transitioned to digital outreach powered by remote communication tools like the Telzio Mobile App and multi-language phone menu options for non-English speakers. Additionally, organizations were able to obtain toll-free vanity numbers from Telzio to support nationwide campaigns.

Related:How to Set Up a Hotline in 3 Steps

VoIP for Phone Bank Campaigns

The first step to any phone bank is a list of contact information for those that your staff will be reaching out to. Once contact lists are prepared, creating a call script helps teams guide conversations consistently and improves phone banking effectiveness.

Call scripts will help keep messaging consistent and is particularly useful for volunteers that have minimal training. Telzio also offers a call monitoring feature with different options as a way to train and shadow newer staff. Call monitoring allows you to listen, whisper, or barge a call. Listening means nobody else can hear you, whisper is when only your staff can hear you, and barge allows for both parties to hear you.

Monitoring and tracking performance are essential final steps for managing a successful phone bank campaign. Telzio provides a live reports dashboard with a general overview of all queues with information such as hold time, agent status, active calls, and many more. For tracking, Telzio has Tag Call Log as a simple yet effective feature that can mark all incoming calls for analysis and keep your staff informed on types of received calls. This is a valuable tool when it comes time to measuring the effectiveness of a campaign or identifying high priority callers.

Learn more about Telzio Nonprofit Hotlines

Organizations around the world use Telzio’s cloud phone system to operate help hotlines and virtual call centers with remote staff and volunteers. Telzio provides toll-free numbers, vanity numbers, flexible call routing, text messaging, and much more – all through a modern, easy-to-use web interface that can be managed from anywhere.

Learn more about Telzio sponsorships, phone services, and our special non-profit discounts by emailing nonprofits@telzio.com or exploring how we can support your next outreach campaign.