A Marketer’s Guide to Call Intelligence:

What it is, and why you should care

844-462-2553

At the dawn of the Internet Age, marketing experts speculated about the death of call centers1 and the diminished importance of phone interactions on a business’s sales. In reality, the opposite has happened: the Internet, combined with the rise of mobile devices, has created a telephonic boom. Surveys show that inbound sales calls are increasing annually by up to 111 percent,2 and some predict that phone calls, resulting from mobile search, will surpass 70 billion per year by 2018—up from 30 billion in 2013.3

Beyond sheer volume, leads generated by phone calls also tend to be more valuable. 65 percent of businesses4 rank incoming calls as the source of their most qualified leads, with phone contact bringing in between five and ten times the revenue of online contact forms.5 But, while measuring online conversions has become standard practice for most businesses, many companies have a conversion blind spot surrounding their inbound phone calls. The solution to this blind spot lies in the application of call intelligence.

The Conversion Blind Spot

65% of businesses rank incoming calls as the source of their most

qualified leads, with phone contact bringing in between five

and ten times the revenue of online contact forms.

65%

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Call intelligence is the tracking, reporting, and application of metrics associated with your customer interactions over the phone—as well as the marketing efforts that led to those phone calls. The concept behind call intelligence should be familiar to anyone who’s used digital marketing tools; the two are very similar. Digital marketing tools capture information about the online keywords, landing pages, and advertisements that sent leads into your sales funnel. Call intelligence captures the same information, but uses phone numbers, rather than URLs, to tell you how your customers found you.

Using call intelligence means you don’t lose track of leads once they pick up the phone; a series of unique phone numbers captures the digital history of callers, finally giving you the ability to add call data to the other analytics that inform your marketing decisions. And, just as you can control and filter the flow of leads with digital marketing tools, call intelligence lets you set routing protocols and filtering rules.

Call Intelligence vs. Call TrackingIt’s important to note the difference between call intelligence and basic call tracking. Regular call tracking can tell you which ad has generated a given call. What basic call tracking can’t tell you, though, is the value of those phone calls. Are phone calls turning into quality leads, are conversions happening—and if not, why not?

The sad truth is that most marketers rarely receive credit for leads and revenue driven by calls;6

their companies do not track call data in enough detail—if at all. Put simply, most businesses have a very incomplete and inaccurate picture of what’s working. To have a clearer understanding of where their conversions are coming from, and how to make better use of their marketing dollars, these businesses must embrace call intelligence.

Part I. What Is Call

Intelligence and Why Do You Need It?

Almost 70%of marketer don’t have the

ability to track inbound calls through their current CRM

systems. 7

This conversion blind spot is particularly significant

when you consider calls drive

10x more sales than clicks. 8

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What Should You Look

For in a Call Provider?

Not all call intelligence providers offer the same range of services and capabilities. To help your business maximize conversions, your call intelligence platform should provide the following functionality and flexibility:

Easy integrationAdded functionality shouldn’t require the complete retraining of your marketing staff. Call intelligence should integrate easily into your current analytics platforms, including Google Analytics and Google Adwords and CRM platforms, such as Salesforce.

Customizable, flexible reportingThe wealth of data collected through call intelligence can be overwhelming if you don’t have the ability to sort and categorize it. An effective call intelligence platform should parse data by assigned rankings, conversions, locations, channels, or whatever information your marketing staff needs to isolate and investigate.

Speech analyticsYour call intelligence provider should incorporate speech analytics. The ability to recognize keywords of your choosing makes it easy to exclude wrong numbers, note scheduled follow-ups, understand which products your callers are interested in, and more. Not only should your call intelligence provider help you categorize calls around keywords, but it should also trigger actions based on them. Specific keywords should assign appropriate tags to calls, send emails, or exclude insignificant calls from your reporting.

Flexible tracking number optionsYour call intelligence provider should offer local numbers for callers looking for a hometown experience, toll free numbers, international numbers, and easy-to-remember vanity numbers.

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The benefits of call intelligence are proven. But CallTrackingMetrics (CTM) takes the conversion-building functionality of call intelligence even further. Historically, businesses have maintained systems that allow them to measure the performance of their staff, while marketers and advertisers have had the ability to measure the success of their efforts with basic call tracking systems. CTM combines all of these functions into a single, user-friendly tool—and then some.

Part II. The Conversion-Building Features of CallTrackingMetrics

The CTM platform does the work of a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, and more. CTM shows the sources of your incoming calls, records and transcribes calls, measures conversions, and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of both your marketing efforts and your sales team’s performance. CTM can help you hone your marketing efforts and manage the performance of campaigns and call agents alike. The result? Increased conversions, thanks to the following features:

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1) ReportingCTM’s extensive reporting features inform you instantly across a wide array of metrics.

• The Marketing ChannelWhere is the call coming from, and how did your potential customer find you? With CTM, you’ll know if the call is coming from your website, an organic search, Google Adwords, or any of your other marketing channels. And, if ad-driven, you’ll know which specific ad prompted the call. This lets your marketing team know which channels are working and which aren’t—helping you make decisions about where to allocate your precious marketing budget.

• The CallerWho is calling? From name, phone number, and location to company name, your agents will know exactly who they’re talking to. CTM even tracks which pages the consumer viewed on your website and be able to track specific keywords used during the call.

• The DataWhich metrics matter the most to your business? CTM’s custom reporting allows your team to view calls by a variety of metrics, ranging from date, time, and day of the week to gender of caller or referring URL. You can also sort info by advertising channel, call status, number called (or number/agent the call was referred to), devices, and more.

• Return on InvestmentBy tying advertising costs and call volume to conversion rates and revenue generated, ROI reporting shows businesses the amount of return they’re getting from their advertising and marketing dollars. It’s even possible using the reporting to forecast how changes in spending will impact revenue.

The CTM Advantage: Having instant

information about the caller helps sales agents

better understand customer needs.

Knowing what channels callers have come

through lets marketing teams know where

to focus their efforts and how to improve existing campaigns.

And understanding ROI is critical to spending

effectively across multiple channels.

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2) Scoring and TaggingScoring and tagging features add yet another dimension to CTM’s reporting power. With a simple click, agents can score calls from one to five stars based on the quality of the lead, and can tag calls with relevant information such as product lines. Using these features, agents and supervisors can also record dates of conversions, revenue, and more.

3) Speech Analytics & TranscriptionCTM’s speech analytics and transcription functions will both record and transcribe calls, scanning for keywords that might reveal significant information about the call. Negative words, like “angry” or “disappointed,” for example, can be set to alert a supervisor—as well as create a bookmark in a recorded call for quick replay.

The CTM Advantage: By sorting call scores and comparing them

across the channels that generated them,

marketers can learn where the best leads

are coming from. Assigning revenue

and other tags to calls reveals the best ROI.

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4) Post-Call SurveysWith CTM, sales agents take part in quick, easy surveys following calls—as simple as pressing “1” for a conversion or simply hanging up if no conversion occurred, with the ability to configure follow-up questions, such as, “If a conversion occurred, how much was the amount?” This allows effective agents and channels to be credited for conversions—as well as for revenue and other measures surveyed—without the need for a secondary system.

5) IntegrationsCTM integrates seamlessly with other tools important to your business, streamlining processes to save time and money. Agents who are accustomed to using particular CRMs can see their call details within those systems; while your marketing team can access conversion data in the advertising and analytics systems they’re proficient in. CTM integrates with a number of popular platforms, including Salesforce, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Marketo, KISSmetrics, and more.

The CTM Advantage: Measuring conversions within the same platform that tracks

the rest of your marketing and telephonic data saves

time. This also makes it easy to correlate conversions and

revenue within the context of other analytic and telephonic

data.

The CTM Advantage: With the ability to integrate with popular platforms like

Google Analytics, marketers can see calls within the

context of other traffic and use that info to optimize

landing pages and perform a/b testing. And because CTM integrates with the

platforms that businesses are already using, there’s no

time-consuming retraining involved.

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Phone calls are already your best bet for conversion, with as many as 30 to 50 percent of calls yielding conversions—compared to only 1 to 2 percent of clicks.9 If your marketing and analytics efforts aren’t taking phone calls into consideration, you’re missing the chance to upgrade the most potent sales and advertising arm of your business. Focusing on this conversion blind spot can mean significant increases in call-success rates, marketing effectiveness, and growth for your business, overall.

Call 844-462-2553 today to learn more about the advantages of CallTrackingMetrics’ call intelligence tools. Or click here to schedule a demo today.www.calltrackingmetrics.com

Conclusion:

Turn Calls Into Conversions

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1 http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Features/Death-of-the-call-center----Migration-to-Web-based-customer-care-has-begun-9158.aspxf2 http://ringpartner.com/call-intelligence-and-paid-search/3 http://www.biakelsey.com/Company/Press-Releases/140604-Phone-Calls-from-Mobile-Search-Will-Top-73-Billion-in-2018.asp4 http://searchengineland.com/infographic-search-call-tracking-1067055 http://marketingland.com/marketing-power-processes-the-lord-of-the-rings-613786 http://www.invoca.com/resources/calls-new-clicks/7 7 http://www.brightfunnel.com/marketing-roi/10-stats-that-will-change-the-way-you-think-about-attribution/8 http://go.invoca.com/ebook-lp-calls-are-the-new-clicks.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=banner_calls_drive_10x_more_purchases_than_clicks&utm_content=ebook&utm_campaign=calls_are_the_new_clicks9 http://blog.invoca.com/20-incredible-stats-marketers-need-to-know-about-phone-calls/

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References:

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