Data drives the business world in every area from marketing to sales. If you don’t use the best tools to analyze the raw data coming in, you will lose out on potential customers and revenue. Call tracking metrics are a brilliant way to optimize performance and improve customer satisfaction.
Phone calls vs other channels
Despite social media’s popularity in digital marketing campaigns, many consumers still prefer phone calls to reach out to a business. Whether they are calling you for technical support or to buy something, inbound calls are a valuable opportunity for your company.
Many businesses rely on inbound calls for lead generation and conversion. But not everyone tracks those incoming call metrics. Maybe you have a rough idea of how many calls are coming in and you remember seasonal trends but that’s it.
Without access to call tracking metrics, you don’t really know much more than that. You don’t have access to detailed reports and tools. Managers have no idea if call metrics have remained constant or have changed through the years. In other words, businesses don’t know if they are doing well, if they could be doing better or if they’re losing out on potential revenue.
Why do you need call tracking metrics?
What information can you get from call tracking software and metrics? Turns out you can learn a lot.
- Find out which keywords are generating calls – spend more on the keywords that improve conversions and get rid of others
- Understand which marketing campaigns are doing well – one campaign may do better than others in a particular market, so you can focus sales efforts in that region
- See patterns in your incoming calls – which calls have higher conversion rates, when and where they are coming from, etc.
- Track the return on investment (ROI) for specific campaigns – if an ad costs more than the revenue it generates, it’s not worth running it!
- Make sure you have enough people to answer the phones – if you know when you have more calls during the day, you can stagger staff hours accordingly
- Track a customer’s journey through multiple channels – identify when, where, and how customers are interacting with you
Which metrics to track?
There are a number of call tracking metrics you could potentially measure. Some metrics such as call volume are valuable to almost every organization. Other metrics are only valuable to some type of business. Deciding which metrics to measure depends a lot on the particular business.
For instance, a B2B company that makes engineering tools may have a longer sales funnel with multiple interactions. They may want to track multi-channel conversations over months. On the other hand, an online clothing retailer may want to focus exclusively on call metrics for keywords, PPC campaigns, and online ads.
Business decisions may also change over time. You may no longer use a particular channel or expand into new markets. Those circumstances may warrant a change in the metrics that are most important to track.
6 call tracking metrics you should be measuring
Call volume
Now this one may seem obvious but you really should monitor your incoming call volume. Most organizations monitor call volume to make decisions on hiring staff, scheduling shifts, acquiring phone lines, etc.
But call tracking metrics offer valuable insight at a much more detailed level. You can record and analyze call patterns by hour, month, or year. You can see the numbers for previous years and find out where you can do better. The best part? All this is done automatically, there’s no need to manually monitor anything.
Call source
Apart from call volume, call tracking metrics also capture attribution data which means you can track calls per channel. No business uses just one or two marketing channels, it’s often a mix of digital and analog sources. Organizations can use targeted email campaigns, social media landing pages, websites, keyword searches, online ads, billboards, TV promotions, and send flyers in the mail to reach potential customers.
How do you track the call volume from each source if you use the same number everywhere? Combine local numbers and call tracking metrics to find out which sources are driving incoming calls. Call tracking software can even attribute calls to specific keywords or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, so you know where to spend your marketing dollars.
Time of day and location
Depending on the business, leads and conversions can be higher based on the time of day or week. For example, a hotel in a tourist area may notice fewer calls on Mondays and Tuesdays compared to the rest of the week. So they may decide to spend less on PPC ads during that time since they don’t generate leads anyway.
Location can also drive your incoming call metrics. If you have multiple offices or service locations, you can tailor your online ads to appear accordingly. It allows you to minimize spending on ads in areas where your potential customers are not seeing them or where they are not relevant.
Duration of calls
Call duration or how long the conversation lasts can determine call quality. Shorter calls are less likely to be genuine leads or to result in successful conversions. Your incoming calls will also include annoying telemarketers calling your business numbers, automated robocalls, and spam calls. You can set a minimum threshold of 30 seconds or 1 minute to weed out such useless calls.
However, longer calls are not necessarily going to lead to actual sales. You need to listen to calls to determine call quality. You can use call recording to make sure you capture every incoming call and use them to analyze conversion rates, train agents, and improve the customer experience.
Conversion rates
Again this may seem pretty obvious but you do need to track call conversion rates. You should know your average conversion rates overall as well as by each channel or attribution source. This will allow you to compare conversions for each source (web vs email for example) and optimize your strategies.
It’s important to identify and attribute calls correctly every time. An inbound call may not convert to a sale in that first conversation. It may take weeks or months depending on the customer, type of product/service, contract value, etc. That means it’s crucial to know where that first call came from so you can optimize your sales cycle and know how long it takes to convert a lead to an actual sale.
First-time callers
Separating first-time callers from repeat callers can give you better insights into your marketing campaigns as well. First-time callers are those who have never contacted your business before. These are a valuable pool of potential customers and represent growth opportunities.
Identifying first-time callers can help you tweak your sales pitch accordingly. You can train call agents to provide information that’s helpful to first-time callers and new customers. Or even you can identify which campaigns work better for repeat callers (may be existing customers or old/returning clients) and which ones are good for first-time callers. You can also measure the number of first-time callers and see if you are meeting your monthly/annual goals.
Call tracking software
Naturally, you need call tracking software to access all the above call metrics and many more. There are many analytical solutions on the market but you need one that will integrate with your existing technology and systems. If you already use a set of tracking or reporting tools, this new addition should fit right in.
Some businesses opt for call tracking features offered by their existing service provider. This approach offers significant benefits:
- Since it’s developed by the same vendor, you know it will work. If something does not, you know who to contact for help. There is no passing the blame on to someone else.
- It may also work out cheaper as all your tools are manager by a single vendor. The provider may offer a discount if you sign up for several solutions at once or if you add more over time.
- You also spend less time and money on converting data and building integrators. There is no need to dedicate staff to manage the pipeline as everything is already connected.
- You don’t need multiple applications or software licenses. There’s no need to have dozens of open windows just to see all the numbers in one place. Everything is visible in a single dashboard.
Unfortunately, not all phone service providers offer such tools so you may need to purchase solutions from elsewhere.
Some call tracking software integrates with several tools including Google Analytics, CRM solutions, and sales tools. It allows you to view crucial data in several ways and compare them side by side. Small businesses may not need an expensive system if they only need to track a few specific metrics. Get the right call tracking tools and choose the best metrics to optimize your marketing strategy and get more bang for your buck!
If you want to know how to get the most out of your company’s telephone system, contact VoIPstudio.
