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Good morning everyone!
It's Andre - CEO/Founder at OnlySales. Welcome to week three of our "Weekly Major Updates" initiative!
If you missed our last two updates, you can find them here:
4/29 - Reblasting CSV's Update
5/6 - Lead Transfer Update
We spent most of the week on internal meetings- going over all of the feature requests, and help articles, trying to find the best items we could work on to help the most people.
Some of the work this week we're still polishing for a larger update a few weeks from now - but that's not to say our hands are empty this time.
Here's what we have for you all!
This request we're still working on internally. Most of you have noticed the ticket reply speed has increased substantially from the last few weeks. Some requests are still slipping through however, and we will continue to reorganize our end until we can get back to everyone at lightning speeds.
In the meantime - on nearly every page in the app, you can now find a Learn button:
When clicked, you will find a dropdown list of all applicable guides to that feature/page. Select whichever one you'd like - and it'll open as an in page pop up. Part of the new help system we're using!
This should help with most commonly asked features - but as always, we're available in the chat to help directly as well!
This one - we really like, and we hope you do too.
When I was an agent myself, I obsessed over optimization. How to do the most in a day, in the least time. Not to take off time, but to do double the work. I think that's a trait we all share here - and this should help.
Some of you might already be familiar with this feature (it's offered through some internet extensions) - but we now have it built into the app directly.
If you go to Message Templates, and edit a template - you'll notice a new field called Shortcut:
Here's the magic - whatever shortcut you set in place here - you can use in any message box in the platform, to instantly copy your template in place:
Two weeks ago, we released an update to the uploader, to allow anyone to upload a CSV again, ignore duplicates - and add that CSV to a specific workflow.
One of the major requests since was - can we exclude a specific tag? So, we added it into this update. On the third page of the uploader, to use the feature - turn on Ignore Duplicates, then set the tag you'd like to exclude, like this:
For any operations that apply to a large group of leads (upload, add batch to workflow, download leads, etc) - we sped up the time it takes to complete, at a factor of 2x on smaller lists to 4x on larger ones. Basically - downloading or adding a workflow to a large list, should now take a fraction of the time.
Next Monday- we'll have another update for you guys. And the Monday after that, and so on!
Each time, the new features come from you guys - so don't hesitate to reach out with ideas, or submit them through the changelog tool.
As always - thank you for using OnlySales!
Good morning everyone!
It's Andre - CEO/Founder at OnlySales - welcome to week two of our "Weekly Major Updates" initiative!
The majority of the work this week has been internal - team restructuring, hiring, training, and promoting key developers into team leader positions so we can split into multiple independent teams for working on larger features with more impact.
Even with that - we were able to put together some of the features requested most by managers and agents. We'll continue working on team structure, so each update can include even more than the last few!
Keep in mind- nearly all of the updates come from feature suggestions from users - so if you have something in mind, please send it through support, or through the changelog widget here!
With that out of the way - let's get to the updates!
There are two requests that come in the most into our help channels: better feature clarity (better analytics, easier to see/read displays), and faster support.
For the support section - we had a few issues to solve. First was, we didn't have enough staff available. That's already on it's way to be resolved, with new staff being trained as I write this today.
The other issue was - the system we had itself, was clunky and a bit hard to follow, on our side. It worked - and it was affordable, for a company at the scale we were at when we added it, but it definitely doesn't work as well now.
As of this update, we've migrated to a completely new, state of the art support platform! Here's how the changes apply to your accounts!
If you need help, you can click on the help chat icon, at the top right of the screen by your balance, where it's always been:
However, now it'll open a new system:
The system allows us to respond much faster, attach support articles in the chat itself, monitor large scale analytics to make sure reply times are as short as possible - and if something requires long term follow up, the ticketing system is much, much better:
Not only that - but we can also do direct to browser calls to resolve or understand your request as quickly as possible - including screensharing, without needing to download/update third party tools like Zoom every time - and without needing to leave OnlySales at all!
There is additional features available with this new system for product tours for new agents, feature highlights, and others - that we'll continue integrating over the next few weeks. But even now - it's already much, much better than before.
If you still had any open requests on the previous support chat that need answering - please open a new chat through the new system. We didn't have too many open requests at the time of the migration - but we want to make sure we don't miss anyone's questions anymore.
Once the new team is in, goal is for live chat availability from 8AM to 8PM, first response under 3 minutes, and full resolution under 30min.
Also - every single member of our support team now, including the new members in training - are all US based, with more than 3 years of experience in both support and CRM software, so that as we scale, there is no decrease in quality of responses to our users.
This one - is another major update that's been mentioned more than a few times. And we'll be upgrading it over the next few weeks as well to be available to everyone, not just managers.
For now - here's what the feature does:
Use case:
Managers requested a way to message leads in bulk, and transfer to their agents, hot leads that responded back interested - in a seamless way.
It's now implemented, and ready to use! We'll write up a guide that explains more in detail, but the basics are this. Managers can click this button on a conversation, to transfer a lead to one of their agents:
When the agent receives a lead from their manager, it'll show on Recents - with a green icon by the name of the lead (which stands for Transferred Lead). The conversation shows the exact date and time that the lead was transferred, from manager to agent.
And - here's the best part: When a lead is transferred, the agent that receives it, borrows the sending number for that lead only. Meaning - you can pick up where your manager left off, and message the lead from the exact same number they were already messaging - or opt to use one of yours, if preferred. Seamless, quick transition.
We also added 3 new sorting classes to Conversations - Received, Transferred, and Archived:
If you select Received, your conversations will be filtered to only transferred leads you've received. If you select Transferred (only available to managers) - you'll see all the leads you have sent to your agents (including the conversations after the transfer took place. And - managers can claim the lead back from the agent they sent it to, if needed).
And - if you select the last option, archived - well, that's a quick bonus feature we added that was also highly requested...
We've been going off our our most requested support chat messages to build new features off of. This one is just the latest one!
Use case:
You're browsing conversations, replying - and manually archive a hot lead by accident. You look in the All tab, but can't easily find it. You contact support, we find it for you, and unarchive it.
Now - this can be done from the user end!
Just use the sorting view on conversations called "Archived". You'll see manually archived leads only, in the order they were archived (most recent at the top), and can restore them to the main conversations tab by unarchiving them.
Updated/fixed the drag/drop sorting in the Tags tab - and increased the total tags displayed on screen from 20 to 50.
This one was requested - rarely, but enough to build. Once a password is reset (either by "Forgot Password" at log in, or in settings when already logged in), it'll force a log out of all sessions for the account.
If you've given access to your account to others, and want to quickly revoke it, this is instant.
This one's a little technical to get into too much detail - but the summary version is this:
We've put in a lot of work recently on rebuilding parts of the app with redundancies and scaling in place - so we can quickly take on new users without needing to redesign app fundamentals, or slowing down app speed on peak times, and similar.
This week, we moved the backend API of the app from one cloud server into a cluster instead. 3x faster at back end calls, 3x as reliable in case of a crash - and easier to update in the future.
More to come this coming Monday - although that update might be a bit light in content vs this week's. The week is mostly scheduled internally for training new devs and support team members - but we'll still take some features from the suggestions and build them for you guys.
If you notice any issues with the new update, or have suggestions on how to make the new features better - send us a message through the new support system!
Talk to you again next Monday morning - and as always, thank you for using OnlySales!
Good afternoon guys!
It's Andre. First of all - big welcome to OnlySales to all our new users!
What started as a side project, made by health insurance agents, for health insurance agents - continues growing by the week. So, before we get started with the updates, just wanted to say thank you to all the health advisors out there trusting OnlySales to help their business grow! 🔥
Now - one note to mention. Our team has been working double shifts for the last few months to keep up with tickets, new features, bug reports. Don't get me wrong, we love it - but we needed a moment to get a team together for the year! Over the last few weeks, we've been working on doubling the size of the development team, adding more customer service agents, and introducing an onboarding system into the app - so new agents can get a customized walkthrough on how to use everything as soon as they get started.
We're already training the new staff now, and in the process of hiring more - and we've done a lot of foundational work on systems and organization, in a way that we hadn't done to date.
We're still working on this new version of ourselves - if it takes a bit to get a reply on support chat, or you can't reach me directly - just know we're not ignoring anyone, but unless we finish with this pause, and focus on documentation and hiring, we're going to continue playing catch up for the rest of the year while the game gets harder and harder:
(The team closing one ticket for 3 more to open up 😅)
There will be another update this coming Monday - and while we'll continue releasing updates every week, every Monday - the next major update (large features, completely new) will take a bit longer to put together than this one - but the good thing is, once the new team is fully set in place, we should be able to get back to our original speed of 1-2 major features EVERY single week, while getting back to everyone for support in 1-3 minutes.
In the meantime - if you have any feature ideas, you can use the Features and Feedback widget in app (Top right by your balance, book icon) to submit them. Most of the features from this update - were requested directly by users just like you.
With that out of the way - let's get to the updates!
We've received requests for this feature a lot over the last year! And we're excited to finally open it up to everyone.
Here's the situation it solves: Let's say you upload 100K leads, over a few months, to your account, from sources like NextGen, Marketplace, Vanillasoft, and others.
One day, you decide to run a campaign to leads from the Marketplace that you bought last month. You download them from the marketplace, upload them to OnlySales - only to receive an error. Every single contact shows up as a duplicate.
The way to work around for this in the past, was to try to find the specific list in the app, select the list, and delete it - then, upload it again. But, this took time to find, and was sometimes impossible.
Requests to our customer service team to delete contacts so users could reupload a specific batch again, have come in more often over time - so we decided to engineer a way to allow everyone to do this on their own!
Here's how it works now. When uploading a list, on the last page of the uploader, you can now turn on this toggle:
If it's enabled - the system will NOT reject duplicate leads, but merge them instead. So - if you'd messaged them in the past, those conversations would still be there, but they'd be added to the workflow of your choice, instead of rejected as a duplicate like before.
What this means really - is you can use an outside list, as a reblast filter, even if it already exists in the app, without ever needing to worry about duplicate contacts!
And what's better - if by some reason, you accidentally add them twice in a row, workflows are programmed with a safety now, to only allow the lead to run through it once at a time (even if allow multiple is enabled). So there is no way, to end up messaging a list the same workflow back to back by accident.
This feature is a bit complicated to understand at first glance - if you have any questions about it, please refer to this support article:
https://help.onlysales.io/article/60-reupload-csvs-and-ignore-duplicates
On ocassion - some users request to cancel their accounts. More often than not, the same users return after a few days or weeks as well! But the issue is - we haven't had a consistent system for account connection deletions. User cancels today - returns in 6 days, and sometimes we could fully restore all connections (don't need to register for 10DLC again, and can use the same numbers), sometimes we couldn't.
Account cancellations are more straightforward now. At the time the account is cancelled - the subscription is no longer charged, and the account cannot send/receive messages any longer.
We've coded in a 30 day period after account cancellation, where we keep the website, 10DLC brand and campaign, numbers, and any other external connections needed. Restoring an account within that window, should take the support team a few minutes to do for you. After the 30 day mark however - we'd love to have you back, but there will need to be a new account fully created from scratch, including a new waiting period to get the account registered and approved for 10DLC.
This will be noticed by new accounts most of all - all tabs (contacts, tags, conversations) will have a better default blank value that explains more easily how to get started. It's the first part of our multi stage approach to rewriting from scratch, the way we onboard new users to the platform.
We also updated the opportunities tab. Some of you that work with other plans outside of UHC, CIGNA and PHCS networks, requested a way to update the selection on the pipelines/opportunities section.
You can now start an update, by going to opportunties, and editing one. Once you're editing an opportunity, you can edit the network list, like this:
Updating your network list will not modify your existing opportunities, only new ones.
When you select, in the contacts page, a list of contacts to add to a workflow - the toggle option is now a bit clearer to understand. If use Current number is selected, all contacts will be added to the workflow of your choice, using the number they've already been previously been contacted with. This is most useful when bulk following up with lists of already interested leads.
If Use Different Number is selected, all contacts will be added to the workflow - but messages will go out from a different number than the original one used. This is most useful for running reblasts to older lists.
As you use your account, you'll eventually replace older numbers with newer ones. We updated the display of this page to be easier to read. Deleted numbers are kept out of view, but can still be accessed if needed through a button.
Not sure if a number you're looking to replace is in use, or if you already removed it from your workflows?
Now, as you click to delete a number - there will be a count of all workflows which are active, that currently use it to remind you.
Bulk replacing a large list of numbers, all at once? Now instead of doing each one individually, you can select them in bulk, and delete them once, saving a lot of time:
There's about a dozen other small updates throughout the pages, from tiny fixes, wording changes, and optimization of loading times and server load as well in this update.
I know this update is the first one in a few months - and for that, I want to apologize again. Myself and the team were originally obsessed with quality - it was this attention to detail, that got some of you to fall in love with OnlySales, and refer us far and wide!
And that growth, came with it's own struggles. At some point, we moved away from the single minded obsession of new quality features and app optimization, into keeping up with a larger, more diverse user base - putting out fires left, right, up and down.
We tried to hire without pausing - but our new hires, in development, or customer service, didn't work out as we would have liked, and that was our fault. We didn't have the time, or the systems in place, to properly set them up to help us succeed.
To fix this, we had to fully pause from running from one task to the next - and rebuild from scratch the entire organization system we use internally.
(If you're curious - here's just a part of the research the team and I have been reading through!)
So if you've been wondering where we've been (I know some of you have called/texted me directly), or why we've been quiet - that's it! Expect to see us around way more often now - as we go into the rest of the year as a much stronger, mature version of ourselves, having learned from our mistakes.
As always - thank you for using OnlySales, we wouldnt be here without you. Whatever suggestions you have, send them our way, updates should be faster than ever now.
Next one, this coming Monday. Talk to you then!
Good afternoon everyone! Sorry about the delay with this announcement. The update was applied this Friday afternoon, and we've been stabilizing a few parts with it. It's now working entirely - and we're getting ready for the following release!
Check out all the new features and changes below - and if you want anything else, please send it in through support, or on the update suggestions feature!
As the app grows more and more - we realized our original way to do large scale actions wasn't too quick, or performant. Selecting a large list, and adding them to a workflow, or deleting them, or downloading them as a CSV, took longer than expected - and you were forced to keep the tab active, until the action was completed.
That is no longer the case. If you select a previous upload, and add them to a new workflow, or delete them, or select them for a download - instead of the action being done immediately and on your browser - it's queued up to be done on our end.
You'll receive a notification as soon as your request is completed, and can see all previous completed requests under the new tab - Bulk Ops.
We've noticed 2 things with the new carrier. That while delivery percentage, for the messages that are sent, is extremely high, in the 95%+ range - that sometimes sending is slower than it used to be.
This is related to carrier limits - a 10DLC brand is, by default, given a low score that allows it to send up to 2,000 messages per day to T-Mobile, and a slow amount of messages per minute to other carriers.
If a low limit brand uploads 10,000 messages to be sent out immediately, it might take a bit until all go through.
We've done 2 changes to support this - first, analytics now shows the total amount of messages that have been queued for sending, but not yet pushed through, by carrier limits.
And second - we've updated billing on our end to be connected to sending, instead of uploading.
The original billing per message system, would bill as soon as a message is passed to our carrier, even if that message sent an hour later due to limits.
The new billing code, will bill texts as the carrier confirms that they've been sent, and delivered, or failed.
The total cost per day is still the same, if you're uploading the same - only now, billing is processed at the time messages start to arrive to your leads.
Our original system also used some approximate math to show the balance at the top right of the screen - so that the balance would go down the second a message is sent out.
However, that caused some issues, where users saw the balance at the top right change up and down, if a lot of messages were going out at the same time.
That was purely a display issue only - and to fix this, we've updated the balance at the top right, to update every 30 seconds, by direct database pull. Meaning- every 30 seconds, your balance will update, and display what it's currently at, for all messages that were billed in the 30 seconds before it.
Again - this doesn't impact the total cost of messages per day, just makes the display more accurate and avoids any miscommunication issues.
We'll be working on further analytics changes and other requested features for the next update - but also open to suggestions, if anyone has anything else.
Thank you for using OnlySales!
This is Andre Arancibia, owner of OnlySales. We all are aware that 10DLC registration has become a staple for messaging for a few months now. Carriers are making it more impactful for an account to be 10DLC registered.
The majority of CRM's have made 10DLC registration mandatory sometime back in 2023. OnlySales is one of the only systems left still supporting unregistered traffic for our users.
However, there is no longer any advantage in allowing unregistered messaging. Not only does it cost more for us to send the messages, but as carriers update their internal rules to enforce 10DLC registrations - less messages have the chance to be delivered now.
It may have been convenient previously, but there is no longer any point in sending messages that hurt you guys by delivering less than expected and hurt us on costs.
Therefore, 10DLC registration will become mandatory on OnlySales over time. We will provide an ample amount of time for everyone currently using their accounts now to make this transition. If there are any registrations stuck, we will pay to expedite them, at our expense.
This is not something we are taking lightly. As many of you are aware - nearly all our ownership and support team has worked in the insurance industry previously and we completely understood that there was a certain freedom, or advantage, in not doing 10DLC registration. We never wanted to get in the way of that choice for our users. We have allowed as much as we could, for as long as it was possible for us.
However, the negative points of unregistered messaging now outweigh any positive sides by a large margin. As much as it pains us to add a forced rule onto OnlySales, we are at the point where we ourselves are forced to include it.
If you have any questions about this, or need help registering your account, or checking into the status of a current registration, please contact support - We are here to help and make this process as easy as possible!
As always, thank you for using OnlySales - We appreciate all of you for your continued support!
Let's have a great 2024!
Good afternoon guys! It's Andre, owner @ OnlySales! First of all - happy new year! Hope your OE went great. We'll be releasing more updates now that we're out of OE - starting with today's.
Since the update is coming in mid day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.
The 2 main requests we've been receiving in support chats, is help with delivery issues, and help with 10DLC approvals. If you'd like to improve your delivery rates - you have to register for 10DLC.
Now - the 10DLC process we had already, worked easily in the case the brand was older.
The new process now will allow users to upload new EIN's, and have them approved for use within 1-2 days.
To get started, to to Settings > 10DLC, and use the new button to register your brand and campaign.
Your brand approval will be processed in 45 seconds. If the brand does not immediately approve - it could be because of two issues. A misspelling in your brand name, or the brand is too new to show on the Campaign Registry's search.
If the brand does not immediately get approved in 45 seconds - you'll have the option to update the name, and resubmit for approval. If that doesn't work - you'll also have the option to submit your EIN letter directly to the registry to approve the brand - without needing help from the customer service team.
If your brand is older than 60 days or so - it should take about 3 minutes to complete the full registration.
If the brand is newer than 60 days, and uploading the EIN to the registry is required for approval - it might take 1-2 days until the brand is approved.
Keep an eye on the top bar of your app:
If you see Action Required - just click on that banner. It'll take you back to the registration process, where you can follow the steps on the screen to complete it.
Current approval times are:
30 seconds for brands older than 60 days
2 days for brands newer than 60 daysAnd for campaigns - 3 business days in average.
Time to full approval:
3 days for older brands
5 days for newer brands.
If you're curious as to how much an individual message cost when sent - you can hover over a specific message - and see the total cost.
As a reminder - if you do see an error displayed on a message that was sent out - if the error shows as a red triangle, it was not billed or sent.
Now that we're saving the price per message inside of every message itself - it should make it that much easier for our next follow up update - where you'll be able to see more detailed billing breakdowns, like cost per workflow, or per day - to better track how profitable a specific lead provider or campaign is.
New update coming next week with more features - this is just the start of what we have in mind for this year.
As always, if you have any feature ideas - please send us a message on chat, or in the feature ideas popup.
Thank you for using OnlySales!
Good afternoon guys! It's Andre. Small update this time - more to come soon!
Since the update is coming in mid day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.
For those of you that have already migrated your account to send messages using our new carrier - as you know, inbound/outbound calls have not yet been enabled.
As of today, inbound calls are enabled!
Here's how it works.
Go to Settings, then scroll down to Call Forwarding, as seen here:
If call forwarding is disabled, and someone calls any of your new carrier numbers, the call will ring until the lead hangs up.
To enable this feature, toggle on the switch, then input your personal line, and save, like this:
If a lead calls any of your numbers (through the new carrier), they'll ring through to the number you selected in settings.
Once you speak with them, and end the call - a record of the call will show inside of your conversation with the lead, as well as under call logs, like this:
As always - if you have any ideas, please contact us through the help chat, or submit them to the suggestion board!
Most of our users that have migrated their sending from the old provider to the new one - have seen delivery increases into the 90-98% range! So, if you'd also like to increase your own delivery, and you haven't yet migrated or don't know how, please reach out to support so we can guide you through the process.
Also - as most of you already know that submitted a 10DLC brand, all pending brands and campaigns have gotten approved - and the new approval timeline is:
As always - thank you for using OnlySales - and have a fantastic rest of your OE!
Good morning everyone.
I know it's OE - so, this changelog will be a little different. A summary of all changes is included below. If you'd like more information about the changes, you can skip below the summary for a full detailed writeup.
Update Summary:
Bulk refund for 10DLC users:
- For any users that submitted a 10DLC brand accurately (Your brand was verified, regardless of if your Campaign was verified or not) - we're processing a refund for your account, for any messages failed due to spam filtering. The first half of the refund will be processed immediately today, and the second half, when your campaign is fully 10DLC verified. More details on this below the summary.
Deliverability Fix
- We have a new provider for messaging services. By switching your account to use new numbers, we can increase deliverability up to 90-95% for unregistered accounts, and 95-98% for registered accounts.
- Any accounts which have a 10DLC brand registered (even if it has not yet been approved), can switch their sending to the new provider. If you have not registered your account, you can do that today, and switch to the new service, even while the registration is pending.
- There is one caveat with the new provider, at least for the time being. Inbound/outbound calling is not yet available for any numbers through the new service. If you have a lead which needs a call, we'd recommend sending something like : "Perfect, let me give you a call from my direct line", and then calling from any other business line, or from one of your older numbers on OnlySales, which are enabled for calling.
Other features:
- You can now pause or resume workflows, from the workflow page (without needing to click into the workflow and change it there).
- Users can now delete numbers from their account, or replace a number.
- If you replace a number using the new feature - the original number will be removed from all workflows that were using it, and automatically be replaced with the new number you selected.
- When bulk selecting leads, and adding them to a workflow, you can now exclude lead by tag (ie: Send a workflow to my last upload, except for any leads tagged as "Sold")
- The 10DLC registration process is now a lot easier to navigate, and doesn't require any help from support (you can register a brand, and a campaign as well from your end)
That's it for the summary! If you want a more detailed breakdown, please read on:
As the industry moved towards 10DLC registrations, the process to get campaigns approved was not too clear, and while some users have gotten verified, others have not yet.
This is not something we take lightly - so when it became clear that we cannot push the situation with the current partners we have, we secured a deal with a new messaging provider - and got OnlySales verified directly with the Campaign Registry as a carrier, so we can handle registrations directly, instead of sending them to our messaging partner, to then submit to the Campaign Registry.
While approvals were not up to us to process (or we would auto approve users when their brand is first submitted) - we do understand that a decrease in delivery rate means an increase in cost for any users of ours.
So, at our personal expense (since we ourselves were charged for every outbound message, even those which were spam filtered) - we're processing a courtesy refund for any users which followed our recommendations for deliverability, even if that did not happen as we expected it.
If you submitted a 10DLC brand, and the brand was verified - meaning the information about the company was correct, as shown on the screenshot below:
Then, you'll be receiving the first half of the courtesy refund as of today - and the second half, once your campaign is verified. We've resubmitted all campaigns directly to the Registry, using a new expedited method, and expect all campaigns to be approved in under 7 days.
If your campaign is already approved now, then you'll receive both halves immediately. You'll be able to see these in your billing page, as "REFUND".
This process is automatic, and the calculation was:
Since we communicated that campaigns should be approved within 2 weeks of registration (as we were told ourselves), then - from 2 weeks from the time your brand was verified, up to now, the automated refund you'll receive is for any failed messages due to spam filtering, up to 90% deliverability.
For example:
You submitted your 10DLC brand on October 1st, and we expected it to have it approved by October 15. From October 15 to date, you sent 1,000 messages. 700 delivered, and 300 failed from spam filtering.You'd receive a refund for 200 messages (which would have put your delivery at 90% retroactively) - the first half of which just went out, and the second half is automated to go out when the campaign is fully verified.
We hope this helps anyone that had an issue - and moving forwards now that we have a new provider, and a way to expedite these - that it will not happen again.
For the last month - all I've been working on is finding a way to increase deliverability again to the numbers we used to see before 10DLC started to get regulated.
I'm happy to announce, we've found a solution!
We just signed an agreement with a new messaging provider, and worked on a workaround to get delivery back to what it used to be, while avoiding spam filtering as much as possible.
So far, in testing, the results have been stellar - For example - the campaign below went from a 65% average, to a near 98% average - and also, doubling the amount of replies received!
There is currently a few drawbacks to the new carrier, that we're already working on improving.
The first one is - to make use of their messaging services, we need the user to have a pending campaign with 10DLC. If it has been approved, great, but if it's still pending, that's not an issue either. The only thing we cannot do, is enable the new messaging provider for any account which does not have any 10DLC information submitted at all. It is a requirement on their end, and the reason why the deliverability is a lot higher.
The second drawback, is calling services. As of today's update - neither outbound calling, nor inbound calling is available using numbers from the new provider. In the next 2-3 days, we should have inbound calling enabled (you'll be able to choose between receiving calls inside the OnlySales app, or forwarding all calls to an outside line of your choice).
As for outbound calling, it'll be a while longer until we figure out a way to implement it. Since most of our users use OnlySales exclusively for messaging - letting their leads know to expect a call from a private line once there is an appointment made, and calling from their own cell or another service, this shouldn't have a big impact.
However, if you count on the ability to be able to call a lead, using the same number you've been messaging from - you can choose to continue using our current provider. We'll notify everyone as soon as inbound calling is enabled in 2-3 days, and when we do, also provide a timeline estimate for when outbound calling will be available.
Keep in mind - to be able to switch to the new provider, you need a 10DLC brand submitted and verified. If you do not have one yet, you can submit one today. Verifying a brand takes 2-3 minutes - and the second part of 10DLC approval, registering a campaign, takes around 1 week now. You can use the new provider as soon as a brand is verified - even if the campaign is not.
Also - as mentioned above, the new provider numbers are not yet able to do outbound or inbound calling. Before migrating, please make sure that will not be an issue with how you use your account.
If you'd like to move your account to start sending messages through our new provider, there's an easy way to do so now.
First, go to the Phone Numbers tab, then, use the new button located near the top to begin:
You'll then be directed to this pop up, where you can select one number at a time, to replace a previous one:
Once you're done replacing all numbers - the system will automatically update all your workflows to use the new numbers instead of the previous ones.
Any leads that were already in a workflow, will continue to receive their follow up messages from the original number they were assigned to - and if you need to add a lead to a follow up workflow, you can always use "Use Current Number" to send from the original number as well.
The original numbers will not be disconnected, and can be used for manual inbound/outbound messages and calling - but they will not be able to be assigned to workflows anymore.
New leads uploaded to your account, will receive their first text, and all follow up texts, from the new numbers.
The 10DLC approval process is as follows:
When clicked, we'll run a search for available domains for purchase, matching your brand name. Select from the dropdown, whichever option you prefer, and click "Use".
If the automated system is not able to find a match, you'll have the option to type in a website name that could work (as close to your company name as possible), and purchase that instead.
OnlySales will cover the cost of purchasing the domain, and setting up the website.
Once you've selected a domain, the next step will allow you to choose an email address. We recommend using your first name as the email handle.
When you select the email handle, and click next, we'll create an email profile, and any emails sent to that will auto forward to the one in your account.
We do this to expedite the approval of your 10DLC application - as the Campaign Registry can sometimes flag a campaign for further review, if the brand has a free email destination as the point of contact (like one ending in @gmail.com)
Finally, we'll need you to confirm that 2 fields are correct - the name of the company, and the first name of the point of contact. If the name of your company as it is on your EIN registration is just your name, try to make it sound a bit more like an insurance company, like modifying it from "Andre Arancibia, LLC" to "Arancibia Health".
Once you've confirmed this, click Submit.
That's it!
Once you submit it - a campaign is instantly created, and forwarded to The Campaign Registry, matching all requirements for compliance, privacy policy, terms of service - that includes the brand information.
This website, along with an explanation of how insurance agents get and respond to leads, is immediately submitted on your behalf - with all requirements perfectly matched to ensure a speedy approval.
If you want to pause, or start a workflow, you can now do so from the workflow summary page, without clicking into the workflow itself, using the new pause/resume button as shown here:
If you'd like to delete numbers from your account, you can now do that from the numbers page, without needing to contact support. The button to delete numbers is located here:
Once you do so, you'll need to confirm your selection on the pop up, by holding the delete button for 3 seconds. We added a confirmation, just to make sure no one deletes a number by accident. If you delete a number, it's permanently unlinked from your account - not able to be used to send messages, or receive them anymore.
If you notice that a specific number does not have the deliverability you expect, and would like to replace it with a new number easily - you now have an option to do so using this button here:
When clicked, you'll be directed to this pop up, where you can search for, and purchase a new number:
Once you look up an area code, and purchase a number, by pressing buy on whichever number you select, like this:
Then, on all workflows that used the number you selected to replace, they'll instantly be updated, to use the new number you replaced it with - so you don't need to update each workflow one at a time.
Any leads that were already in a workflow, will continue to receive their follow up messages from the original number they were assigned to - and if you need to add a lead to a follow up workflow, you can always use "Use Current Number" to send from the original number as well.
The original number will not be disconnected, and can be used for manual inbound/outbound messages and calling - but it will not be able to be assigned to workflows anymore.
New leads uploaded to your account, will receive their first text, and all follow up texts, from the new number(s).
We have a new notification system for messages! To turn this on, go to Settings > Push Notifications, and enable them there:
Once it's enabled, if you receive an inbound message, you'll get a browser notification like this:
If you click it open, it'll take you directly to that conversation, so you can reply right away.
Any messages that are opt outs will not trigger a notification (STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, etc), so your browser isn't flooded with them.
You also have the option to enable notifications both when the app is closed, and open. If you enable both options, you'll get a browser notification, even if you have an OnlySales tab open.
If for any reason, you need to cancel your account, there is now a button in settings to do so, which will ask you to confirm, before taking effect. If used, any subscription cost will be immediately stopped, but the account will also not be able to be logged into/used anymore.
We've always handled cancellations manually through support, but now as we grow we figured adding it as a feature should make it easier for anyone that might need it.
As always - if anyone has any ideas, please contact us through the help chat, or submit them to the suggestion board.
We're very excited about the new carrier, and the changes to fix deliverability for all users - and the following update will expand those features.
As always - thank you for using OnlySales - and have a fantastic OE!
Good morning everyone! OE is right around the corner - so let's keep these notes short so you all can get back to work!
Since the update is coming in mid work day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.
As time goes on, we've noticed changes in the way in which carriers mark spam. In addition to filtering by the content of the messages, sometimes, if a message/number is reported enough, they can elect to filter any message coming from that number.
This means that sometimes, for a campaign that's not delivering as much as expected, sending through 4 numbers - that the fault of the low delivery is not the message, but one of the numbers.
To make this easier to spot - on the main page of analytics, you can now see the delivery rate per phone number in your account, as well as reply rates per number.
If you notice that a number has a delivery rate you're not happy with, and you'd like to replace it - you can go to the phone numbers tab.
Once you're there, search for a new number, and buy it as you'd usually do.
Then, on the number with a lower delivery rate, click on "Replace Number" as shown here:
Once you do, a pop up will display, letting you choose from any newly purchased numbers. Select the number you just purchased, and click "Replace"
when you do, any workflows which had the original number assigned, will now send from your new number instead - meaning you don't need to change every workflow that uses it, one at a time.
If a number assigned to a campaign hits an unexpectedly low delivery rate (currently set at 40%) - the campaign will pause, and you'll receive a notification, so you can replace the number that is causing the issue.
With this, and the analytics per number - it should be much easier to maintain a delivery percentage around the 70-80% while you're waiting for your 10DLC campaign to be approved.
For anyone that has already gotten their 10DLC campaign approved, you'll notice delivery percentages similar to 3-5 months ago - but if yours is still pending, this should keep your delivery percentage high as we get into OE, until your campaign is approved by The Campaign Registry.
We moved lead downloads server side! If you'd like to filter your contacts, and download a certain selection (all contacts with x tag, or uploaded from x to y date, etc), the process is the same as before to begin with.
Go to contacts, filter by your desired goals, select all, and click Export Contacts.
The change is after that - originally, a pop up would display on screen, and stay on screen until the list could be put together and downloaded.
Now - the app will notify you at the bottom right, of the estimate it'll take for your list to complete downloading - as well as a follow up notification, once it's ready.
To download your list, once it's ready - click on the bell icon at the top bar, by your balance:
And click on the Export Completed notification to download the list.
If anyone has more ideas on what to change, we'd be happy to work on integrating them, just let us know!
As for 10DLC - we're getting more and more approvals every day, but we know some of you are still waiting, and for a few users, it has been a while. For anyone that submitted theirs longer than 3 weeks ago, and the application was neither approved nor denied (so we could appeal it), we're resubmitting them, using a different process than our original way.
We can't guarantee that will increase the speed at which they're approved, since we don't handle approvals ourselves (or we'd auto approve everyone from day 1!) - but we're doing everything in our power to make sure these are completed as soon as possible.
As always - thank you for using OnlySales - and let's have a fantastic OE!
Good afternoon guys! It's Andre, owner of OnlySales. Over the last week or so, we've been working on some highly requested improvements- and they're now ready to go!
Since the update is coming in mid day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.
All of these features were requested by users like you, so if you have any ideas, send them on the help chat, or the changelog suggestion feature - we'd love to hear what you have in mind!
This is a feature we've been working on for a very long time! If you have anyone that would benefit from using OnlySales, you can send them a referral link, and get credits when they sign up with us!
Here's how it works. First, if you go to Settings, you'll see the new tab, Referral.
You can press on the copy button by the Referral link, and send that to any coworkers that need a great CRM solution. As soon as they register, you'll see their name under the list below, as well as when they registered, and whether or not they've purchased any credits.
As soon as your referral spends $50 in credits, your account will automatically be credited $50 as well!
The credit will appear on your billing page as Referral - and the name of the user that triggered it, like this:
This feature is subject to terms, and might change over time. Terms are included at the bottom of this announcement!
This one is a highly requested feature, and will come in handy as we get closer to open enrollment! To begin - you'll notice that on each conversation, if you've messaged a lead from 2 numbers or more in the past, the latest number you used to message them, has a marker showing it as the active number:
You can click on the circle, in another active number, to change it, from the default (which is, the last number that sent a message to the lead is the active number), to whichever number you'd want to manually assign to. If manually assigned, the display will be green, like this. You can click it again, to disable your manual selection, in which case the system will auto select the latest number as the default. No matter what, there is always one number selected as default, provided you've messaged the lead at least once before.
Now that we're saving a default number on every conversation (the reason why we weren't able to bulk add to a follow up workflow before), to add a group of leads to a workflow, you can select them from the left list in conversations, like this:
And then, press on the Workflow button at the top of the list there, and select the workflow you'd like to apply, keeping "Use Current Number" toggled on.
Each of the leads you selected, will receive the workflow you assigned them to, from the number they've been receiving messages from already, not one randomly assigned by that workflow's pool.
You can also bulk select leads, and bulk add to a workflow using the current number, inside of the Contacts tab, not just Conversations!
This feature is a bit harder to explain, but will certainly be noticeable. We updated the way we load contacts in the Contacts, and Conversations tabs. Tags are stored better now, and conversations now load from newest message to oldest.
Long story short - for leads you've been chatting with a while, loading time is now reduced from around 3-4 seconds to under a quarter of a second. For conversations with only a few messages, loading times are down from half a second to under a tenth of a second!
We updated the 10DLC tab in settings, to add additional information about the current step of your registration, and what comes next from that step:
It should help better understand the process. And - if you currently have a pending registration, the review process still seems to have a long delay at the Campaign Registry. We've looked for a way to pay a fast track fee to get our users to the front of the review queue, but as of now, that is not offered by the Registry. We'll continue to look for ways to speed the process along, and improve deliverability in the meantime.
For managers - if you go to Settings > Agents, there is now a search bar, not just an agent list. For small teams this helps a bit - but for those of you managing a team of 20+, it's a lot easier now to find an agent, and transfer funds to them - just type their name in!
Besides for the major features above, there is a couple minor changes as well, if you're curious, read on here:
If anyone has more ideas on what to change, we'd be happy to work on integrating them, just let us know! From our end, we'll continue working on ideas we already have in the development pipeline, as well as anything we can do to address the 10DLC process delays from our end, and help increase deliverability inthe meantime.
As always - thank you for using OnlySales!
The referral system is for all of you bringing on new users! We track a few unique identifiers on sign up, and if a user is found creating duplicate accounts for referral payouts, the feature will be disabled for their account.
Also, now that referrals are automatically tracked, please make sure that when referring someone they use your code or link, instead of messaging support after they signed up to manually assign it. For the first week, we'll try to accomodate support requests in the case of a missed referral code - but as of 9/21, if a new user did not sign up with a referral code, there will not be any exception for manual referrals through support.
Good morning guys! First of all, since the update is coming in mid day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.
Even though it's past the 1st of the month, you can still text, even if you've not yet registered for 10DLC. I know there has been news by other apps, that September 1st was the deadline for registration, but this does not apply to OnlySales.
Although 10DLC has been an optional process for a while now - it wasn't a major cause of concern for any of our users, as it wasn't a requirement, or had any noticeable impact. However, this is changing with time, as carriers push towards the process eventually becoming mandatory for all.
This last month, we've been rushing as a company, to deal with the influx of users asking us for 10DLC features, and figuring out the best way to get campaigns approved for all.
With that out of the way - let's recap what 10DLC is, and why it might be important for you to register.
It was announced years ago, and it is this agreement by all of the major carriers that one central company called the Campaign Registry would be created to vet which companies are sending out texts and where messages are coming from so that they could track giant spam campaigns like tax fraud campaigns or your car's extended warranty campaigns and block them at an easier level.
It's been available as a feature for a year or two, but just lately it's become mandatory by a couple of companies.
As time passes, we've noticed that accounts which send messages after they're fully vetted, deliver a staggeringly higher amount than before they were registered. Meaning that you can reach more leads, and get more responses - and so, more sales, with the same amount of leads, and the same amount of spend as before.
The images below are for a heavy user - both before, and after 10DLC vetting, without any changes to the lead sources, or message wording. Nearly a 33% jump in delivered messages!
While the cost to send messages for us as a company has stayed relatively consistenly - allowing us to offer the same low prices we always have, carriers that receive your messages (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile), have started charging a pass-through fee to us, for any messages that are not sent through a 10DLC registered number. These fees are extremely large, to the point where as a company, will be forced to eventually make a decision as to whether we raise costs, or force 10DLC registration for all users. We don't like to force any of our users to do anything - as we value everyone's freedom to use OnlySales as a tool for their own business, without any overly pushy rules or regulations (after all, OnlySales was made by a health insurance agent, for health insurance agents), but the cost increases will eventually force our hand. At the moment, there is no deadline announced.
Regardless of how long we as a company can offer the same rates for a service that now costs us way more to provide, OnlySales does not directly send messages to receiving numbers, but instead goes through partner sending carriers. One by one, these carriers have started to make it mandatory for anyone that uses their service, to force 10DLC registration for their app users. We've seen this with Bandwith, which powers TextDrip, forcing on registrations by May - and most recently, Twilio, which powers most CRM's on the web, including High Level, Agent CRM, Ringy, and hundreds of others (including some of our routes), making it a requirement as of September 1st.
While we still have a carrier partner that allows for this, it's the last major carrier that does as of the 1st of this month - and if the trend that's impacted all other carriers holds, it means that eventually, they too will make it a requirement. While at the moment, it isn't, which means we can allow unregistered texting, if we can bear the cost of the increased fees - once it is forced onto us, there will be no way that we could secure an exception for any user - or that we could find another partner to send unregistered messages, as there is only one left now.
If we get a date from them on when exactly it might be forced on, we'll immediately notify everyone (from our conversations, there is no date yet, or even a loose date, but it's likely it'll happen).
However, we recommend all users start the process as soon as possible - as Open Enrollment is right around the corner, and we wouldn't want to have it line up where OE starts, and our partners force it onto us, which means we wouldn't be able to send until accounts are registered - and messages would fail during one of the most crucial parts of your business for the year, until everyone is vetted, which can take a while. Better to start the registration process now, and still be able to normally send, while it's vetted and approved, than register last minute, and go through some time were your account cannot send (if it's forced on, there would be no way around it), until the registration comes online.
The status of your account, and whether or not it's already registered, or in process, is now displayed at the top bar, by your name, and balance.
If you click on the new 10DLC status displayed at the top bar, or go to Settings > 10DLC, you can access the registration page, showing you the current status of your registration, if any, or allowing you to start one, if you haven't done so yet.
Since the Campaign Registry asks for very specific requirements on the website that is the source of your leads, when registering - to make things easier for all of our users, we'll help you complete your registration, by having a partner website company create you a site which matches all required parts for approval, free of charge!
This website we create for you, will be editable from within the OnlySales app on a later update as well, so you can not only use it to help your campaign get approved, but also to help you run your business.
In the case that your account is getting a large number of messages caught as SPAM by receiving carriers, you'll now see a suggestion to register for 10DLC, as well as a likely delivery rate once your campaign is approved.
Now that the 10DLC process is fully tested, and all features are in place to help anyone register, or keep up to date with any pending registration, we can get back to other updates. The next one will expand analytics to show which types of messages receive the most responses, and which types of messages get caught as spam more than others.
With this revamp in analytics, and the registration process in place, we should see delivery rates increase across the board for everyone that might have had an issue with that.
As always, if anyone has any suggestions, please send them our way. Looking forward to hearing from all of you - and thank you for using OnlySales!
Hi guys! Today's update is small, but should help make the app easier to use over time! All of the updates on this list were requested by multiple users like you. If you can think of any features you'd like, please use this button to bring up the Changelog pop up, then go here to add a feature request or vote on others. Those with the highest amount of votes are done first!
To help users with smaller screens, or that use multiple windows on the same screen, the left menu now automatically collapses into icons only, but displays full tab names if you hover over it. With the top right button, it can be forced to stay open, like it was before, if anyone prefers that as well:
To make it easier to see all available info on a contact when opening a conversation, we shortened the spaces between fields, and also added a color bar at the top, displaying the tag color currently applied to the lead. Should reduce scrolling to get information like city, or state!
Also, we fixed the Send button to always display on screen (it sometimes dissapeared if the window was made small enough)
We made an internal update on the balance displayed on the top right on the screen. It was possible, if leaving the current onlysales tab open for longer than a day, that it could desync from the actual account balance, showing $50 on screen when in reality it was $30 for example. It now includes additional checks to keep it up to date, even if the tab has been left on for longer than a day (although we always recommend logging off and closing the browser, then logging on again on the next day!)
To help move sideways between stages on the Opportunities tab, we now have two buttons on either side of the screen that can be used, instead of using the browser scrollbar (Which sometimes doesn't display for some users)
Still working on the next major update, to increase deliverability and displays for analytics. If anyone has any small UI changes that would make the app easier to use in the meantime, feel free to suggest it!
Looking forward to hearing from all of you - and thank you for using OnlySales!
Good morning guys!!
It's Andre - founder of OnlySales. It's not been that long since the last update post - but now that we finally have most major issues handled, we have the time to implement a lot of what you guys have requested, and we've been working on in the background!
The first feature in this list - is the most important. For anyone struggling with delivery rates, this should help you get more of your messages delivered to your leads - so you can get more results with the same spend/lead flow.
If you guys have any more ideas for things we could add - please add on our changelog pop up, or open a help chat and request it there. Everything on this update was asked for by one or more of our users, and we have the manpower now to add more, so ask away!
End carriers are changing up things bit by bit. Over time, spam filters evolve, and carriers add additional rules that didn't previously exist - so we too must adapt to match it.
The only type of message we filter on our end, are first messages from a workflow, if they don't include an opt out. For any other filtering issues - they come directly from the company that manages the phone line you're texting (ie: T-Mobile, AT&T, US Cellular, and others).
There is 4 main types of rules they use to try and filter traffic. Keywords, keyphrases, whole message matches, and sending numbers. If certain keywords or keyphrases they have included in an internal list are sent, they filter it more - and over time, if you're sending the same message thousands of times, and that message continues to get reported, that also makes it to a keyword/keyphrase list - or gets the whole message marked as spam.
We've recommended to use Spintax to help counter this (add variations of your message that are randomly sent - see here for help article), but we also know it's a bit difficult to sit there and come up with so many of them!
So - we trained an AI model to do this for everyone, and it's now included in the app - free of charge!
This is how to use it. On the Edit Workflow page (of any workflow), if you open any message step, you should now see a new button available, called AI Rewriter.
Once you click it - this pop up will appear on screen, and it'll start rewriting your message for you. After anywhere from half a second to 3 seconds (we're working on speeding up the AI system already) - you should see the original version, and the new AI written version underneath! You can click on Generate again, if you'd like the AI to create a new version instead of that one - or click Accept to replace your original message with the new version.
If you like the AI Version, but want to make some changed, you can accept it, and then edit it in the regular window.
For now, there is a rate limit of 100 total rewrites per day (hosting AI servers is a bit more expensive than regular features), but we're working on optimizing this so that it's easier, and we could make it unlimited.
If you've been struggling with deliverability, please go on as many of your messages, and add as much variation as possible, you should see an immediate increase in deliverability. We'll release follow up features to help with deliverability as well.
And while we're talking about workflows - wanted to quickly mention a feature update. The calculator in the message editor in workflows used to be very literal - count the total letters/symbols in the message, and then tell you how much the message was likely to cost.
The issue with this display, was it made estimates a bit confusing. The more spintax you added, the more it looked like your message would cost- yet, the price would be much lower in the end, as we only charge once a message is sent, and only for the exact message content that went out.
The new display now - displays a more accurate range, ignoring editing. So, for example, on the same example for the AI rewrite feature, all variations of this message will end up being 2 segments:
However, on this version, that removed some of the wording at the end - the total segment count should be either 1 or 2, depending on which variation is chosen on send, since some are longer than the others. This should help more accurately estimate costs to send a campaign.
We just updated the Chrome extension to include support for other popular CRM's that have been requested by you guys!
To make sure you're on the latest version - check that you downloaded the extension from the latest source, chrome extensions, instead of the original download and manual set up. The link to the Chrome version is here.
And, make sure, that if you already had it, and see a pop up at the top right requesting additional permissions, to approve it - since we're not just looking for leads in Vanillasoft sites only.
The new sites you can now pull lead data from are:
If you want other sites added - let us know!
For those of you that are managers - 2 new features that should help a lot!
To begin with, managers can now link their account to another manager. This gives access to the manager you allow, to add funds and clone their workflows to either your account, or to your agents'.
This should now help with managing offices - we only allowed 1-1 manager relationships, so adding funds from the office owner/manager, to a team manager, to an agent - is now a lot easier and doesn't need custom support!
And - the next one, is manager presets. As a manager, you were able already to clone workflows to your agents, or tags, or message templates. You can now save them all on your site as a preset.
From the agent side, agents can now link their account, and then clone the entire preset:
So - they can link themselves, and clone all from their end as well, making new agent set up a much easier process moving forwards!
Following user requests - we updated the Advanced Filter to make searching for tags much easier. Our previous version required manually typing tags - this new update uses the same UI from Contacts, making it easier to select tags.
We also updated the time component, on both workflow settings, and waiting list settings, to make it easier to handle. You can now type in a time instead of needing to press up/down arrows to select a time.
Our next few updates will focus on what we get asked the most - increasing deliverability. We're adding additional analytics, so users can spot faster if an individual message starts to get flagged, or an individual sending number starts to get flagged, and take quick action.
On top of that - the mobile app is nearly ready! The Android version is already being tested by users that volunteered - and the iPhone version should be ready in a couple days more.
If you guys have any other feature requests, please let us know - and thank you for using OnlySales!
Good morning guys!!
It's Andre - founder of OnlySales. It's been a while since a changelog announcement like this - so before we get into the changes, I wanted to give you guys some context.
In the last few weeks, we've grown quite a bit! But as we added more and more agents, features that were stable with the amount of use we got, got more difficult to use. The last few weeks have been dedicated to fixing our legacy system to accomodate all of you that are new to our app.
Most importantly, all 3 main reported issues are fully solved now, which were, workflows sometimes double sending messages (only on some users), general app slowdown (that was harsher during peak use hours), and notifications not displaying as quickly as they should. Anyone that ran into any of these issues, also received automated refunds for any credits spent while they were taking place.
Now that we finally have a little bit of space to breathe with all multi account errors handled - we're also updating our system internally to be able to handle helping everyone, and fixing errors faster.
To begin with - we have a new customer service rep!
Some of you might have seen her online. Melissa was an agent with USHealth for a short while, and we've worked together on other projects in the past - so she's familiar with how everyone works with OnlySales, and how we work internally!
In addition, we've connected our front end user chat with our developer work platform - so both bugs, and user requests for bulk actions, can be assigned to a developer faster than ever before.
Now that we have more support staff, and are hiring more still - please use the help chat in app to report issues or ask for help, instead of slack, telegram, text messages or the like. Having one central system to check and work out of helps all of us respond faster, and stay organized so everyone receives a fast reply.
And - to finish things off, there's something we've been working on for a bit, but never released publicly - OnlySales received funding! We're partnered with a seed capital fund, TinySeed - that recognized what you've all seen so far, how quickly we've grown, and how much further we could go!
The original deal was announced in November on their site here:
https://tinyseed.com/latest/fall-2022-launch
We're working closely with their advisors to help plan the expansion of the app to the next level. Besides for TinySeed, Stripe Capital has also provided additional funding. The amount in total exceeeds $500K, and is all earmarked towards additional growth, staff, and technology to help us help you better.
Over the next 4 weeks, we should have 5 more developers, so we can work in parallel in between adding new features, and also fixing any errors if any. More to come after that!
Our extension that helps you bring leads from VanillaSoft to OnlySales received some quality of life updates! Faster loading, better field extraction - and more importantly, easier downloading, and automatic updates!
It's now listed on the Chrome Extension store, and you can download it here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onlysales/agblkophjoimeppcefjpbnmggonbfghc/
For those of you that have the older version of the extension, that you downloaded from google drive and installed manually - please delete it from your Chrome browser, and download from the link instead, so that you have access to all latest bug fixes and future updates.
The older version of the extension will continue to be supported for 2 months, while everyone makes the transition - but won't work after that, so make the transition when you can.
For a very long while, we've supported integrating with the USHA marketplace, by adding a special email as a destination, that we could listen to, and then send the leads into your OnlySales account.
That version is good, but prone to issues, and sometimes a bit unstable. We worked directly with Jason, and the rest of the team at Sonic/Marketplace to integrate OnlySales directly into their app!
You should be able to see it under integrations, in settings. For additional help on how to set it up, we wrote a guide here:
https://help.onlysales.io/article/47-how-to-integrate-onlysales-with-the-usha-marketplace
We've released this feature out to a few of you already in the last few weeks - and as far as the team at the Marketplace assures of, all issues with saving an OnlySales destination are now resolved. However - if you get an error when saving your OnlySales Integration within the marketplace, please screenshot the error message, and send it into our support chat - so we can forward and coordinate with MP techs to fix it.
Added into the app without an announcement in the last week or so, this feature has been refined over the last few days, with the last update applied yesterday.
For those of you that have yet to use it - with this button in the contact tab:
You'll access this pop up.
At the top, in the selected filters box, you can add additional options to filter by, or remove some of the ones displayed by default. I know the UI needs some work (Most of us in the team are stronger at team and functionality than design) - but now we have this available, anyone can run searches like:
And more! We're also adding additional options to the filter, to be able to filter out all tags (find contacts with any tag, find contacts with no tags), and to filter by workflows, opportunity status, and more.
For additional info on how to use this - we created a help article:
https://help.onlysales.io/article/48-advanced-filters-in-contact-search
For those of you uploading leads with Age - you can now match that from your csv, to our new field named Age. And, for those that quote a lead, and then add them to a ghost quoted drip, we also added a field for Quote.
These fields are also available under shortcuts, when typing a manual message to a lead, so that you can automatically use them on drips. (For example, {{contact.age}} would convert to the age of the contact on send, and {{contact.quote}} would convert to the $ value of the quote you sent them.)
At least, that's it for the visual changes. I know, its not as many as on our last update release - but the majority of changes these last few weeks have been under the hood, increasing speed of loading, adding redundancies into the system, upgrading the way in which we store and display data like messages and leads, and much more.
Our next update is already in progress - and should be a lot faster than it took to get this one done. And - it's the start of us tackling the main issue agents ask us to help with - how can we send more messages, while still delivering the great majority of them, avoiding spam filters.
Spintax usually helps with that - but who has time to add a lot of randomization options to every message? With the help of AI - we should be able to do it for you...
That's all we'll say about that one for now - but keep an eye out next week for the full feature release.
As always, thank you for using OnlySales - and we look forward to see how much it helps you grow your business!
From around 1:05-1:45PM EST today, the log in and general API's were out of service or severely slowed. If you were having any issues logging in during that time, the app is restored now, so feel free to log back in!
To make sure you have the latest version loaded, use:
Control+Shift+R
or
Command+Shift+R
to hard reload the chrome tab you're using OnlySales on, then try to log in. Should be able to access from there.
FAQ:
Did my messages send during the outage?
Yes, our workflows run on a separate service that never crashed, messages continued to send as usual.Did I miss any inbound messages during the outage?
While you might not have been able to see them from not being able to log in, inbound messaging is also a separate system, so any inbound messages received during that window, you should be able to see in your account once you log in - nothing was lost.
Hi guys!
Quick update this time. For those of you that work for US Health, we're now approved by the company, and the DNC feature is now enabled!
When uploading a list, the system will always check the company's internal DNC before uploading it. This is not charged to you.
This ensures that you don't accidentally message anyone that could cause an issue for you or your office.
Any leads uploaded through the Vanillasoft extension, or directly through the Marketplace or NextGen, are not checked, and automatically go in.
If you want to additionally check the list for landlines, the cost of $0.002 per lead (excluding duplicates in the list, and already in your account) applies. If you do not want to do this, uncheck the toggle when uploading, and the cost estimate should update to $0 as well to show it.
Hi guys!
It's Andre - smaller update this time, but have a few new features for you!
Since our 2.5 update 2 weeks ago, we added a feature to scan your uploaded lists for landlines as you upload them.
We've improved this feature on this release! Now, in addition to landlines, you can also scan for DNC (For those of you in USHA - this is also checking the company's internal DNC!)
To scan for landlines and DNC, just select "Verify", and then pick whether you're filtering out DNC, Landlines, or both.
The price was free as we released and tested it, and it's now moved to the $0.002 per lead as announced.
OnlySales Scrubber takes out Federal DNC, TCPA Complainers, DNC Complainers, Litigators, and the USHA Internal List/DNC.
For those of you already using similar services online - you'll be happy to know OnlySales Scrubber is not only faster, but also more affordable!
Here is a full feature comparison vs other services:
And also - we tested the speed difference between our scrubber, and Landline Verifier. The results were interesting! For a list of 10k leads, took 32 seconds for OnlySales to start sending messages (as the list gets verified, whatever is already checked is sending).
On Landline Verifier + Textdrip, took 4 minutes for the list to complete, and another 4 minutes to modify the csv to match the format (only upload under 5k at a time, must include names)
By going to the message templates page, or the tags page, you can drag and drop them in any order than you wish. On all menus that refence either tags or message templates, they'll show in the order you set up on those pages.
We're already aware there is an issue with drag and drop not always picking up that you moved a lead - should have that patched later today or tomorrow.
More changes coming soon! We're working on AI features to help users look through all their messages, help with responding to leads, and of course - the mobile app.
If you have any ideas on what to add - please, let us know! Here to help.
Thank you for using OnlySales!
12:35 PM: Any messages stuck during the outage window have been auto retried for all accounts. Issue fully resolved!
12:01 PM: Issue likely resolved - we're able to send messages again. Workflows have resumed sending. Any workflow messages that were an error, will auto retry soon, working on that code.
Any manual messages that failed sending- please hit retry to send again manually- we want to avoid auto resending those for those of you that already retried/resent them, so we're not adding that to the code.
Will continue monitoring as well.
11:46 AM: Issue escalated to the carrier's engineering staff. Working on it now!
11:42 AM: As of 4 minutes ago or so - our cell carrier started having issues. We're on a call with their engineers now to see how we can fix it.
We're tracking which messages failed to go out from our end - as soon as we've found a fix, we'll resend any that failed as well.
This page will be updated as the situation progresses.
-Andre
Good morning guys!!
It's Andre - founder of OnlySales. The day is here! And some of you might have already noticed the features- we spent the morning fine tuning and just now have the chance to write the announcement.
A few of the most requested features are included in this update - with more to come! Let's get started:
Deliverability average across all accounts has always been in the 96-99% range, when not counting landline messages - meaning that for 100 texts sent to a mobile number, on average 96-99 were delivered!
But now, you don't have to take our word for it! In the case that a message is not delivered, it'll show inside of the conversation, along with the reason why:
For messages that failed because they were sent to a landline - those are also removed from the workflow, so that no more messages are queued to a number that can't receive them!
Curious about how your account is performing? Now you can check at any time!
Go to the left menu, then "Analytics". The first view - is a summary for today, as well as the last few days. (It'll show the last 6 days worth)
The main issue with deliverability in OnlySales - for the few agents not over 96%, is landlines - so if your messages are getting sent to a high percentage of landlines, you'll see a warning for this here:
Keep in mind - you can check your lists for landlines inside of OnlySales, when uploading CSV's - so if you notice that problem, make sure to enable it on your next lead upload.
Feature is free up to this Friday, then will move to $0.002 per lead. Only the leads that aren't excluded for invalid format or duplicates are billed - so if you upload a list of 2000, but 200 had a word instead of a phone number, and 400 already existed in your account - only the remaining 1,400 would be billed for verification.
Also, this feature is the lowest priced option available online - and also the fastest! On average, it takes under 2 minutes, and since it's blended into the upload process - once it's verified, the right leads move on to your Workflow or Waiting list, depending on what was selected at upload.
Now that we have analytics - we've also figured out a way to allow for nearly real time searches and calculations - so if you're ever curious about deliverability for a larger range than just today, you can go to the next page, select 2 dates, and it'll check, as well as give you a count of every issue, and why. For example, the sample dashboard below shows that out of 19,852 messages sent, 431 were errors - and only 30 of those were landlines. Great stats!
If you have a lot of errors, check on this page to see, on the right side, if the majority of those are landlines - which is an easy problem to fix.
We're adding more pages to analytics soon - including positive reply rate per workflow, positive reply rate per workflow step, per list, and more!
Imagine: Soon, telling if your second campaign does better than your first won't just be easy - but you'll be able to tell, on top of it, that your 3rd message gets twice as many responses as your first one does - so maybe we could do something to change the first one?
We have a few changes on this page that were requested by you guys!
To start - you can now select multiple leads inside of your recents, or all - and tag them all at once!
And also - if you have a contact which you'd rather not lose track of - you can now pin a conversation in recents! To do so, click on the star, by their name, in the conversations page.
Once a contact is pinned, it'll not be pushed off by any other new messages! So, it'll remain at the top of your recents, and marked by a darker section to be able to tell the difference - until you unpin the contact again
But - more coming soon! As time goes on, the texting industry is changing, introducing limits and regulations making it harder for honest people to work through text, just like when Spam Likely caller ID started, and every local business started showing as that as well!
So - the next frontier is not in sending more, but getting more replies, and more sold policies, with less messages.
With analytics now - we're able to tell which campaigns and lead sources do better than others. The features we're working on next continue to improve on that idea of getting more bang for your buck, like:
This - and more, coming soon. As always, we welcome more ideas - and are looking forward to your feedback. Thank you for using OnlySales - and lets continue improving it together!
Hi guys!
Just wanted to send out a quick reminder, because from support messages - I think a few of us might have missed this feature:
Once enabled, you can see call recordings embedded in any chat with a lead you had a call with, like this:
As well as see all calls in the Call Logs page, accessible with the left menu:
The deliverability and statistics update should be ready in a day or two as well! Team and I are wrapping up on that. That's it for now - and thanks for using OnlySales!
Morning!
As we wrap up on the deliverability display - we also fixed up some parts of the CSV uploader for you guys!
We built our own, internal system to verify lists for landlines! It's also incredibly fast, and integrated into our CSV upload process.
To use it, on the last page of your upload process, you should see a new toggle.
This will have a cost of $0.002 per number verified - but it's absolutely free to use for the first week we have it!
If you turn this on, this will check all your uploaded contacts, and filter our any that are not a mobile number. Since it's integrated with our uploader - you just add it on to any list you upload, and after verifying, they will immediately start into the waiting list or workflow you selected!
Under the new Uploads tab on the left menu, you'll see details for every CSV upload, including how many were rejected because they were a landline:
The 2nd page is now vertical and a little easier to work with on smaller screens.
And, the 3rd page's tag selection is better as well - it no longer loads every tag in your acct on screen, but instead uses the same UI as contacts and workflow default tags.
What this means is - instead of Chrome sending us every lead one at a time, your whole CSV is uploaded to our app, and processed internally!
The practical difference is, for CSV uploads of lists over 3K in size, you can continue working with the app as soon as you hit submit, instead of keeping the upload tab open until all leads made it in - freeing up your time even more.
That's it for now - and the next major update will be deliverability displays and analytics! If you have any ideas for what to add, please reach out. Looking forward to hearing more!
Hi everyone! Seems likely that the USHA DNC check might have an issue, so until further notice, the feature is disabled.
Refresh the page, and on the top left, make sure you're on version 2.4.3. Uploads will work as they did previously.
Thank you.
Good morning!
Small update live today! Team and I still working on the larger one with deliverability display, but in the meantime - this is added to current version:
For US Health agents using the platform, any CSVs uploaded to the app will now be checked against your internal DNC list, in case any numbers have been marked as litigators, previous complaints, etc. This ensures that you don't accidentally message anyone that could cause an issue for you or your office.
Any leads uploaded through the Vanillasoft extension, or directly through the Marketplace or NextGen, are not checked, and automatically go in.
Hey guys! Andre here with another update for you!
First of all - inbound messages are now free for all! We've gotten your messages about affordability for new agents - and decided to absorb all inbound costs on our end to make things easier for any agents using us.
Also - we ran a count for any inbound charges over the last month - and added it back to credits to everyone! To check how much you received, you can go to your billing page - or check the email we just sent as well.
We rerouted our original help documents button, this one here:
to open a chat in app instead of just redirecting to our help page. The help documents are searchable through here - and you can also use the Ask tab to open a chat live with us. All previous conversations are also stored there - so if there's anything you need, just send us a message!
Internally, we have the live chat connected to our development team now as well, so bug reports can be fixed a lot faster than previously.
We have some big things in the pipeline to be released soon with version 2.5 - including:
If you guys have any ideas of anything else to add - please send it over either through this feedback widget here, or on live chat.
Thank you for using OnlySales!
Good morning everyone! This is Andre, founder of OnlySales - hope everyone is having a great first quarter this year!
It's been a couple months since our last major update, but we're always doing small improvements!
Today though - a new major update is ready. And although this one doesn't include flashy features - I'm sure you'll notice how big of a difference it makes:
This upgrade took a week's worth of consulting with database experts - but happy to say the app is 100x faster! When loading contacts, or conversations, or running searches, results show up in an average of 1/4 of a second - big improvement over the old average of 2-4 seconds for larger accts!
Around 30 more pages added to help.onlysales.io! All the basics on how to use every section of the app are now covered there. On top of that - as the app gets larger and there's more people to help, we hired someone to help with customer support along with myself!
Some of you might already know her - Alivia Oakes! For those of you that don't, Alivia worked for USHA for about a year, and got her beacon on her 2nd 13th, before moving away from insurance.
It's our commitment that everyone that interacts with you guys - already knows your business and process back and forth, and can answer all your questions easily. We all know how frustrating it can be talking to outsourced off-shore customer service.
For any help requests moving forwards - some of you message me on slack, telegram, text, messenger, email, etc - you still can, if you need to reach me directly! But for faster support, open a chat in help.onlysales.io (Check articles too! Might find your question already answered]).
Alivia and I both receive those, in one central app location, and whoever is available can quickly respond.
That's it for now! As a sneak preview of our next update, within a week from now, you can look forward to these features being added soon:
If you have any other ideas for updates/upgrades, you can either submit them using our widget here (same one you're checking this update in), or by opening a chat on help.onlysales.io and sending it in. Looking forward to hearing from you all!
HI everyone!
Due to a bug with yesterday's release that caused some problems in the morning - we rolled back to the previous version, until we can fix it, and add it back within a day or two.
Moving forward this year - you'll start to see more updates from the team and I, and also feedback requests in app (the first one will pop up today)
If you have any requests, or have noticed a bug in app you want us to know, you can respond to the prompts when they come up, use the feedback buttons in app, or book a time to speak with me here.
-Andre
Hi everyone!
This is Andre, founder of OnlySales. I hope every one of you had a great open enrollment!
Now that OE is over - we have a ton of updates that we've been holding off on releasing! (we wanted to make sure that everything stayed stable during OE for all of you)
Here is everything that's new - and videos will be coming shortly to walk though each new part in detail:
You can now send and receive images in texts! You can do this in manual texts by inserting into the conversation, and you can also use images in workflows (like starting your first message with your business card)
MMS is billed at $0.024 per segment (double a regular text's cost)
Now, when you get, or make a call - the dialer will show you the contact's name, last name, deal value (if opportunity attached), and a preview of the last text they sent you! By clicking on the contact's bubble, you can also open their detailed contact page, and get all their information.
In addition - we now have a call log page! You can use the left menu to find it, and see all inbound calls you might have missed.
You can now automatically record every inbound/outbound call to your account! To activate - go to settings, and turn on Call Recording. Now, every time a call happens, you'll see a recording available to play or download inside of Conversations, and also in our new Call Logs page!
Our Contacts page has been inproved! Some of these updates we released already, and the rest are with today's update. But now, you can select leads based on the CSV they were uploaded on, or based on tags. Once selected, you can download them - or add them to a new workflow, either to send immediately, or a few at a time through the Waiting Lists feature.
- Subscription details and next billing date now available in billing page
- Faster load time in conversations page
- New message count displays on left menu, and on the browser tab itself (i.e: '(2) OnlySales' in chrome, if two unread messages.)
- Fast copy buttons added for Email, Phone, DOB and ZIP in Conversations page
- Faster load times in conversations page
- If you run a seach for a tag, and open a contact, when returning to contact page, your search is still active. No more running it again and again!
- Lead Source now available! You can use this field when uploading CSV's to keep track of where they came from
- Inside the billing page, you can click on Details at the top right, to see all transactions for text/calls individually
- Improved UI: Colors in dark mode for certain sections were changed to match the style, and the wording in a few parts of the app were updated to be clearer!
On top of all this - we also finally launched a first version of a front site, available at www.onlysales.io - where you can refer teammates to sign up!
And also - if you get stuck as you use the app - you can use the top right's (?) button to be redirected to help.onlysales.io - our help site, which is now live as well! Some articles are already available, and more will continue to be added daily!
And finally - if you need to reach us for feature requests, or customer support requests, you can use this widget to do so. You can also check the roadmap here, and get an idea of the next things we're working on.
Now - I understand a large update can sometimes be overwhelming, so if there's anything you need clarification or one on one help with - I now have office hours set aside for it! Feel free to book a time with me here.
Opportunities saved in app were temporarily hidden by error, but have all been restored! Should see them inside of opportunities tab.