Insurance Agency VoIP Phone System/Internet Phones
Insurance agents: The best phone system for your agency? Bridge is that and SO much more.
Built exclusively for independent insurance agencies, Bridge includes all of the best VoIP/internet phone features (see below). Bridge is such a comprehensive communication suite you could overlook that it includes an enterprise-class cloud phone system—but don’t. If you’ve seen a feature in any phone system, chances are good we’ve built it into Bridge.
It’s true: VoIP/internet phones allow work from anywhere. But your agency needs more than a phone system.
If your agency is looking for a better phone solution, know this: There are many traditional and VoIP or cloud/internet phones that will “work” for you. However, Bridge is different. Very different. Yes, Bridge includes a state-of-the-art phone system that will more than meet the needs of your agents, producers and support staff. But that’s only the beginning.
So why do leading insurance agencies choose Bridge over other internet phone systems? In a word, integration. Your office is required to maintain E&O compliance, everyone knows that. Bridge does something about it. Bridge gives you an amazing suite of communication tools (advanced texting from your actual phone numbers, E-Signature, live chat, web forms, prospecting tools, sales tools, and much more…) And all of these communications easily integrate with leading agency CRM/management systems for what we call E&O-compliance-so-easy-it-actually-happensTM.
Calling and video with customers, prospects and employees. From anywhere. Selling more policies, retaining more clients, easily maintaining E&O compliance. Bridge bundles all the tools you need to make it happen.
(Click on each VoIP phone system feature below to learn more.)
Auto Attendant
Common Use Case
When customers call in, they can listen to a brief message and then select the department they’d like to be directed to. Or they can easily be redirected to an extension or even an external number. For example, after a large storm, you may record “press 2 for the claims department.”
Barge allows you to join in on an existing phone call to assist in answering questions, clearing up information, or closing a sale. Barge is one of three call monitoring modes. In barge mode, both parties can hear you, and it becomes a three-way conversation.
Common Use Case
You’re supervising an important call with a difficult client, and your new agent is getting nervous. Feel free to barge in on the call, fix any misinterpretations, and close the sale.
Call Analytics
Call analytics let you maximize your efficiency by viewing your phone-traffic patterns.
Common Use Case
Understanding when the bulk of your daily calls arrive can help you more efficiently manage your staff and plan marketing campaigns. Call analytics make it easy to analyze these numbers to create the best customer experience possible.
Individual Call Logs
View thorough data including dates, times, duration, users, extensions dialed, and the final action of both incoming and outgoing calls from every extension.
Common Use Case
A office manager can supervise the even distribution of calls by viewing call times and duration, and agents can see their own call statistics to progress toward goals and meet expectations.
Call Monitoring
Call Monitoring lets you monitor a current call on any extension or line without call interruption or intervention. Call Monitoring has three modes: Listen, Whisper, and Barge.
Common Use Case
As an agency, your team receives a high volume of calls. Feel free to monitor any agent without interference, feed your agent valuable information during the call, or join the conversation as a third party. This feature is especially useful for training purposes and quality assurance. Calls can also be recorded.
Call Recording
Record some or all of the calls to and from your account. Your recordings are stored in the cloud, so you can access your call recordings from virtually anywhere.
Common Use Case
Track quality assurance by recording your customer service calls for later review. Or if you have an important call coming up, rather than try to stay focused while taking notes, simply record your call for later review.
Call Reporting
Call analytics let you maximize your efficiency by viewing your phone-traffic patterns. These include data such as “mean/min/max” reports and time-of-day reports for all extensions and numbers. Filters can be applied that sort data by call count, time of day, call duration, and more.
Common Use Case
Understanding when the bulk of your daily calls arrives can help you more efficiently manage your staff and plan marketing campaigns. Call analytics make it easy to analyze these numbers to create the best customer experience possible.
Conference Call
Easily host a conference call with up to eight attendees. Attendees can be scheduled to join the call or can join without reservations. Conference calls can also be recorded.
Common Use Case
When meeting with remote colleagues, conference calls alleviate the time, money, and hassle it takes to travel or meet separately.
Conference Multi-Line
Meet with two different parties simultaneously by simply hitting the add call button while on a call and dialing the number of the third party you wish to invite. Warm or blind transfers are also available while conferencing.
Common Use Case
Need more collaboration? With conferencing, you can easily dial a third party into your current conversation without dropping your current call.
Custom Greetings
All greetings can be customized to meet your specific needs. For a more personalized message, simply upload the recording to Bridge and set as your greeting.
Common Use Case
You’ve had the same custom greeting for years and don’t want to lose it—so let Bridge adapt to your needs. Upload your greeting straight to Bridge and have it ready to use within seconds.
Custom Hold Music
Personalize the hold music heard by callers by choosing between different tracks available through Bridge or upload your own unique sound clip.
Common Use Case
No customer likes to be put on hold, and awkward silences only make it worse. Customize your hold music to ensure a professional wait time experience or use that time to further inform and educate the customer.
Direct Inward Dialing
Direct Inward Dialing allows users to receive calls straight to their phone from local, national, or international numbers.
Common Use Case
Users are able to receive calls from any PSTN, VoIP, or cellular caller with a standard format number (7-10 digits).
Direct Outward Dialing
With direct outward dialing, users are able to make outbound calls to anyone outside by dialing the standard format for local or national numbers.
Common Use Case
Users are able to receive calls from any PSTN, VoIP, or cellular caller with a standard format number (7-10 digits).
Fax to Bridge
Access important fax information from anywhere by receiving your faxes to your Bridge inbox as attachments. Now you can keep a digital copy as a backup for future reference.
Common Use Case
With virtual fax, there’s no need to worry if your fax got picked up by someone else in the office or was mis-delivered. Simply check Bridge.
Last Number Redial
Last Number Redial allows a user to redial the last number called or received.
Common Use Case
Just calling back? Connect in the click of a button, without going through the directory.
New Message Indicator
The new message indicator appears as a notification in your Bridge portal.
Common Use Case
You’ve been in meetings all morning and just got back to your desk. When logging into Bridge, you notice that you have 3 new messages. You quickly see one is from a client who you have been trying to get in contact with and two are from colleagues in the office. This makes it easy to manage your messages.
Status Monitoring
Status Monitoring allows users to visually monitor other lines (extensions) to know whether or not an agent is on an active call, at lunch, available, and much more. The status icon indicates which line is busy or idle. This allows others to see whether or not a colleague is available.
Common Use Case
You know your boss has been on a call this morning, but his 9:00 appointment has arrived to the office. You glance and see that he is still on his call, so rather than knocking on the door you quickly send him a chat message: “your 9:00 is here when you’re ready” and he pings back “okay, I’ll be right out—thanks”. Definitely beats knocking on the door and interrupting his call.
Ring Groups
Ring groups allow you to put certain phones into groups and ring everyone in that group when a particular extension is dialed by a customer. This is helpful in cases where phones need to be answered quickly. Devices in a ring group ring simultaneously and stop ringing once the call is picked up by any of the agents in the group
Common Use Case
Place all of your agency reps into a ring group, or even place certain agents into multiple groups depending on their expertise. Ring groups intelligently allocate calls fairly and efficiently to ensure those calling first get service fastest.
Unlimited Auto Attendants
With Bridge, you can create an unlimited number of auto-attendants. Auto-attendants are similar to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, except that the caller uses their keypad to choose an option rather than their voice. Create unlimited auto-attendants easily by dragging and dropping the correct elements onto the canvas. Customize with your own sound clips and menu options.
Common Use Case
If the main line at your agency needs to have a lot of options, an auto-attendant offers the functionality to accommodate those. Set up an initial auto-attendant to greet callers, giving them options to hear the company directory, dial by extension, or go to any option you set up.
Virtual Fax
Access important fax information from anywhere by receiving your faxes to your Bridge inbox as attachments. Now you can keep a digital copy as a backup for future reference.
Common Use Case
With virtual fax, there’s no need to worry if your fax got picked up by someone else in the office or if it was mis-delivered. Simply check your Bridge.
Voicemail
Enjoy an unlimited number of voicemail boxes and even shared voicemail boxes based on the number of extensions you set up within your agency. You can set up an auto-attendant to give callers options for which voicemail box to access, or simply use it as a normal voicemail box.
Common Use Case
Everyone needs a voicemail box, but with Bridge you can customize your voicemail message. You’ve had the same message for your agency for years and would like to update it. In Bridge, you are not only able to record a new message, but you can also upload a professional audio file any time you’d like. The customization is yours.
Whisper Mode
Whisper mode is one of three call monitoring modes available in Bridge. In this mode, a supervisor listening in on a call between a customer and a supervisor can speak to the agent live on the call without the customer being able to hear. This is helpful for training situations with new agents.
Common Use Case
Whisper can be utilized in a situation when a new agent is ready to take their first call in your customer service department. You, as a supervisor, would enable monitoring in whisper mode on your device and immediately be present to make suggestions and provide guidance to your agent. The customer would never hear you, but this would improve training effectiveness and customer experience through real-time training and feedback. Calls can also be recorded for future reference.
Call Forwarding
Bridge allow you to set calls to forward to a phone other than your office phone or to ring another phone simultaneously. This can occur either automatically or after a certain set of rings.
Common Use Case
This feature is useful if you’re heading out of the office for a conference in the next week. Simply forward all your calls immediately to your cell phone. Or you can record a new voicemail about being at the conference and set calls to forward directly to voicemail, with an option to push a button to reach your cell.
Call History
Call history can be accessed directly from the Bridge dashboard. Bridge contains call logs indicating what calls were made, how long they lasted, and which extensions users were active.
Common Use Case
Many agents are curious how many minutes they spent in a particular day, week, month, and/or with a particular telephone number. Likewise, supervisors can use this information for staffing planning, expansion, overall effectiveness, etc.
Call Mute
The mute feature allows you to listen to a call without having to worry about adding background distractions from the office.
Common Use Case
Muting your audio will prevent others from being distracted by the noise of your surroundings.
Do Not Disturb
Do not disturb is a status that will easily allow you to make yourself unavailable. When your status is set to Do Not Disturb, all calls go to voicemail automatically or are sent to a ring group.
Common Use Case
This feature is beneficial if you’re in an important meeting in your office and don’t want to be disturbed. Change your status to Do Not Disturb and you won’t have to worry about it any longer.
Call Queues
A call queue is a group in which incoming calls are automatically distributed among participating agents. You can customize a call queue to have agents regularly live in the queue, or to sign in and out when desired. This is useful for reporting and for ensuring effective customer service and minimal wait times.
Common Use Case
Say you have a small team assigned to take incoming calls for an upcoming events. By placing each of them into the same call queue, the calls are automatically divvied out to each agent as they come in, ensuring that the person next in line is helped first. The admin can control all the settings, including the duration of wait time between calls.
Call Routing
Call routing refers to Bridge’s ability to get your call connected to the correct endpoint. In the past, call routing in business phone systems was a complicated set of instructions to make sure everything connected properly. Bridge eliminates the confusion and gives you ultimate freedom in deciding where calls go and how your company calling options are organized.
Common Use Case
This feature is beneficial when every call made on the system is routed. The system does the routing, but you configure the settings for where you want the call to go. It’s simple to do. For example, you can set up your business line to answer after one ring then be directed to an auto-attendant, which will give the caller several options to choose from. You control those options, so you can really make the experience right for your customer.
Call Hold
Place a caller on hold while you transfer them or you take some time to look up an answer to a question. Callers listen to your specified hold music until you return to the call.
Common Use Case
This feature is beneficial in a situation where you’re on the phone with someone who has a question but you need to consult with your supervisor. Push the hold button while you consult with your supervisor or transfer them to a voicemail or another extension.
Call Transfers
Call transfer allows you to transfer a call from your line to the appropriate person without losing the caller. This allows you to get your customer where they need to go without forcing them back to a main menu.
Common Use Case
This feature is beneficial when a secretary has transferred a call to you but it turns out the call needs to be pushed somewhere else. Simply transfer them directly to the correct department or individual.
Missed Call Indicator
The Missed Call Indicator alerts you with a count indicator whenever you miss an incoming call.
Common Use Case
You might miss a call when you’re in a meeting. The Missed Call Indicator lets you know when someone tried to reach you.
Record Calls
This feature is a powerful quality assurance tool. It allows you to record calls and then use those recordings for evaluation and training purposes.
Common Use Case
Few agency owners have time during the day to listen in on calls. By recording calls in the queue, owners or managers have the flexibility to listen to those calls when it’s more convenient or appropriate. Recordings can be replayed multiple times to emphasize various aspects of training.
Call Whisper
Call Whisper is a great tool for supervisors who want to coach new employees on phone skills. Using Call Whisper, a supervisor can listen in on a call and speak to an employee without the customer knowing.
Common Use Case
New employees being placed on the phones for the first time can relax knowing that they have a safety net. If a client were to ask a difficult question or make unreasonable demands, the supervisor could walk the employee through an appropriate response.
Unlimited Call Queues
Because an agency has multiple departments, it may want to employ multiple call queues. The characteristics of each call queue can be customized to the customers’ needs and expectations. Customization includes hold music, hold messages, and so forth. There is virtually no limit to the number of call queues an agency can set up. Nor is there a limit to the ways each queue can be configured.
Common Use Case
The Multiple Queues feature is especially important for agencies that have a number of inbound calls or that handle different areas of focus. Setting up multiple queues cuts down on frustrating hold times, enhances efficiency, and…well, it’s just a nice thing to do—especially if you’re interested in retaining your customers.
Number Porting
You can keep your current telephone number(s) when you switch to Bridge. Bridge can port (transfer) your existing numbers over.
Common Use Case
If you have a long-standing number that your customers know or that has value for your business, we don’t want you to lose it! We’ll keep that value for you by transferring your numbers to Bridge.
Local Numbers
When you need to add telephone numbers to your agency, Bridge can provide you with numbers from within any of over 200 area codes.
Common Use Case
Selecting numbers within particular regional area codes helps you establish a local presence.
Unlimited Domestic Usage*
Any Bridge user can make unlimited domestic calls* without incurring additional fees. As currently configured, Bridge allows unlimited* calls to the 48 contiguous US states.
Common Use Case
Limiting your calls to save a few bucks could hurt your business. Don’t hurt your business! Take advantage of Bridge’s unlimited domestic usage.
* Any of Kotter’s service plans that offer unlimited minutes of PSTN calls (“Unlimited Plans”) are for reasonable business use of Customer only. Activities such as: autodialing, continuous or extensive call forwarding, use of virtual extensions for regular business use, continuous connectivity, fax broadcast, fax blasting, unlawful or unauthorized telemarketing, junk faxing, fax spamming, calling/faxing any person (through the use of distribution lists or otherwise) who has not given specific permission to be included in such a process, AND where Customer’s average outbound minutes per user (defined as the total number of outbound minutes used by Customer divided by the number seats/licenses purchased by Customer) exceed 1500 minutes a month, are NOT Reasonable Business Use as intended for the Service If Kotter determines that Customer use of the Service is not within the scope of Reasonable Business Use, Kotter reserves the right to invoice Customer for any additional users or usage (including the right to charge Customer’s Credit Card at the then current per-minute rate and/or to terminate or modify the terms of Customer’s Service.
Simultaneous Ringing
[PLACEHOLDER FOR DESCRIPTION]
Common Use Case
[PLACEHOLDER FOR COMMON USE CASE]Custom Messages
Your greetings don’t have to be limited to voicemail and auto-attendants—create a custom message to use at any point in your dial plan. Import your notifications and marketing messages in just a few easy steps and update and change them in real time right from your desk phone.
Common Use Case
Want to inform your customers that “this call may be recorded” even before the phone rings? You can set up a custom message to be played to all callers who selected a specific menu option informing them of specific information. This can be helpful for organizations who plan events—just create an auto-attendant option to hear information about upcoming events.
Dial by Extension
This feature frees you from the hassle of dialing a full number or the receptionist. Instead, dial an extension and reach your party faster.
Common Use Case
Dial your party’s extension straight from your desktop—no number or area code necessary, regardless of location.
Extension Dialing
This feature frees you from the hassle of dialing a full number or the receptionist. Instead, dial an extension and reach your party faster.
Common Use Case
Dial your party’s extension straight from your desktop—no number or area code necessary, regardless of location.
Advanced Ring Strategies
Bridge allows agencies to customize their ring strategies. For example, two or more phones can ring simultaneously, or individual extensions can be set to ring three, four, or five times before the call rolls over to another line. There’s no limit to the number of steps or the number of call paths (or extensions) that can be built into a ring strategy.
Common Use Case
If you own a small agency and have an office assistant who works only 9-to-5 on weekdays, you could set up a call sequence that initially rings at the front desk for three rings and then rings three times on the phone of other employees. Alternate ring strategies could be set up for times when the office is closed, like by pushing calls to your cell phone. The possibilities are endless…and easy to program.
Agent Login/Log out
With the Agent Login-Logout feature, employees can log into and out of their individual account at the start and end of each shift. They can also log in and out to accommodate meeting attendance or personal break times (or they can change their status). This feature ensures that each customer’s call is expedited to an available agent.
Common Use Case
By allowing employees to sign out, callers will be more quickly directed to the first available agent, rather than hanging indefinitely in call queue limbo.
Custom Hold Message
Making your clients wait in a call queue is never ideal. However, it can be made less painful and perhaps even enjoyable, depending on the music you’ve provided them. Alternately, you may want to upload a creative message that provides your customers with a positive branding experience. Give them reason to form a more favorable opinion of your agency’s personality.
Common Use Case
Don’t let an opportunity to create positive brand impressions with your customers get away. Hold time is precious time in which you have the attention of your customers, so give them a customized experience that leaves a positive impression.
Multi-Site Compatible
Bridge is accessible from just about anywhere. All you need is a stable connection to the Internet. You don’t need to be tied to your desk as Bridge is a cloud based system.
Common Use Case
You’re not always in your home office as you have multiple locations for your agency, which is why Bridge was made to follow you wherever you go. Whether you’re at a conference, at another office, or on vacation, you always have access to Bridge.
Online Administration
Bridge has an easy-to-use interface for setting up and configuring your phone system, setting up extensions, Auto Attendant, Ring Groups, and more.
Common Use Case
You are looking to make changes to agency/personal account information including passwords, voicemail, ringtones, and more without contacting support. Bridge makes it easy!
Agent Supervisor Tools
Stay on top of everything with supervisor tools that help you plan, monitor, react and control every important metric in your agency.
Common Use Case
You are looking for ways to improve customer retention. Get up-to-the-minute statistical information, listen, whisper, and barge, call recording, video recording, and much more. These can all help your agency adjust schedules quickly and easily to maximize contact coverage.
Dial Plan Editor
Bridge allows you to map your call flows visually using a drag-and-drop canvas. Plan out exactly where incoming calls will go with elements like wait times, auto-attendants, voicemail boxes, ring groups, and more. Make changes in real time to your dial plans as you’d like with endless configuration possibilities. Additionally, different call patterns can be set to accommodate variable work hours, after hours, or holiday hours.
Common Use Case
You just opened a new office and you’d like to have a menu option in your auto-attendant to greet callers and alert them to the new change (“Dial 2 for new location”). It’s easy. No need to call a technical administrator or pay a fee to have it customized or changed. Just log in to your Bridge, click to add a menu option to the auto-attendant, drag and drop the extension dial plan you want it to go to, and record a new sound clip. You can record as many as you want to get it just right. Once you’re done, close and click save. You’re done.
E911
E911 solution automatically associates a physical address with the caller’s telephone number and routes calls to the most appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for that address.
Common Use Case
In the panic of an emergency a critical detail like an address might slip someone’s mind, or a visitor who never knew the address to begin with may be placing the call. The E911 feature ensures that authorities will know where to go regardless of who manages to reach the phone.
Number Blacklisting
This setting allows users to blacklist a phone number. Once a number has been blacklisted, all texts from that number will be automatically rejected.
Common Use Case
Say you’re being inundated with text messages from a contact. By accessing Bridge you can blacklist the number in text messages, ensuring that the next time they attempt to text, you won’t know. You’re in control.
Dial By Name
Your clients are more than just numbers, so you shouldn’t be restricted to dialing them as such. Dial by Name allows you to dial any employee’s intended extension using only their name.
Common Use Case
Your client needs to reach you but doesn’t remember your extension. They can start typing your name. Dial by name allows your clients to reach just about anyone in the agency (as long as they can remember the name).
Listen Mode
Listen mode is one of three call monitoring modes available in Bridge. In this mode, a supervisor is able to listen in on a call between a customer and an agent without either party being able to hear. This is helpful for training situations with new agents.
Common Use Case
Listen mode can be utilized in a situation when a new agent is ready to take their first call. You, as a manager, would enable monitoring in listen mode on your device and be able to listen to the conversation and provide feedback immediately after the call. The agent and client would never hear you, but this would improve training effectiveness and customer experience through real-time training and feedback. Calls can also be recorded for future reference.
Call Forward on Busy
When your phone line is busy—even if you are on another call—you can automatically forward your incoming calls to any phone number you choose.
Common Use Case
This feature is useful if you’re on a call with a client and you get can’t get to the next call that comes to the office. You can forward to another number or even forward directly to voicemail.
Call Forward on No Answer
The Call Forwarding on No Answer feature enables you to redirect calls to another phone number when an incoming call isn’t answered within a specified number of rings.
Common Use Case
This feature is useful if you are not able to answer your phone due to a client meeting or you step away from your desk. You can forward to another number or even forward directly to voicemail.
Call Forward Variable
You’ll always keep in touch when you’re on the move by forwarding your calls wherever you go. Call Forwarding variable allows you to establish and change the number to where your calls will be forwarded.
Common Use Case
This feature is useful if you are not able to answer your phone due to a client meeting or you step away from your desk. You can forward to another number, including your cell phone, or even forward directly to voicemail.
Call Waiting
Call waiting allows users to see when a second call is coming in while on an active call. Users can answer the new call, which will place the standing call on hold. The users can then switch back and forth between the two calls as needed.
Common Use Case
This feature is helpful when you’re on hold with a partner, but someone on your team is calling you with a question. You’ll see the call coming in and pick it up, placing your partner call on hold without losing your place in line. Once you’ve answered the question, you can simply switch back to the partner call.
Caller ID
Caller ID is a name attributed to a caller, shown on the phone dial pad receiving a call.
Common Use Case
On incoming calls you will be able to know who the caller is based on the Caller ID information before even answering the phone.
Distinctive Ring
The Distinctive Ring feature allows you to set different personalized ringtones for phone calls, chat notifications, text notifications, and voicemail.
Common Use Case
With the ability to set ring tones for each type of message, you can quickly know what type of communication is coming in.
Remote Office Support
Bridge allows you to communicate with support within the system. Whether it be chat, email, or phone, it’s up to you. Bridge support is only a click away.
Common Use Case
You are trying to set up your account and need to contact support. Simply click on the Bridge Feedback, Talk To Support, or Chat With Support button, and you’ll be on your way within minutes.
Remote Call Pickup
Bridge allows you to forward to a remote phone number so that when you’re not at your office desk you are still able to answer calls.
Common Use Case
You’re not always in the office. Whether on the road visiting with a client or on vacation, you still need to be able to be reached for business. With remote call pickup you are able to forward your calls so that nothing is missed.
Call Duration
The Call Duration feature allows a user to understand what their talk time really is.
Common Use Case
You may ask your agents to keep track of how much time they spend communicating with clients during a period of time. Bridge makes this easy by capturing the call duration of each interaction.
Dial Pad
The Dial Pad allows you to have the desktop phone feel while being in the cloud.
Common Use Case
Just like any standard desktop phone you have the ability to use the dial pad for outbound calling. This is not your only option though. Type a 10 digit number, DID, or even extension to begin your calls.
Supervised Transfer
A supervised transfer is initiated when the primary call is placed on hold and a call is made to the party intended to receive the primary call.
Common Use Case
Someone is trying to get in contact with a different agent besides the one they were routed to. Through a supervised transfer, both parties are able to be connected instead of a message being taken and passed on.
Blind Transfer
A blind transfer is initiated when a transfer to an extension occurs and then hangs up and the voicemail system is finished with the call.
Common Use Case
Your office assistant is screening all calls that come to your agency. A partner calls looking to talk to anyone in the agency about a certain promotion they are having. Nobody is available to talk so the office assistant decides to send the caller to an extension and doesn’t have to wait until someone answers the phone (supervised transfer) before hanging up.
Holiday Scheduler
The Holiday Scheduler allows an agency to pre-set voicemail messages when the office is closed during a specific holiday.
Common Use Case
Your office decides that they want to take an extra day off for a holiday. Record a message and customize the dates and times so that your clients are always in the know about your office closure.
Weekly Scheduler
The Weekly Scheduler allows an agency to set their business hours messages for when they are open and closed.
Common Use Case
Your office decides your own schedule. Record a message and customize the dates and times so that your clients are always in the know about your office hours.
… and many more.