In a highly competitive business environment, we have to make decisions with unpredictable consequences. Moreover, any decision is a compromise by its nature: giving up some alternatives we give up all the advantages they bring. The things are the same with call tracking – realizing its huge benefits, the companies don’t want to face the forced rejection of some things and it hurts. This article prepared by our call tracking therapist and CCO of Ringostat Konstantin Chervyakov aims to ease or cure the pains completely. The first article of this series is devoted to the most common fears, the third one is about prejudices.
Pain #1: I use a vanity phone number. It’s a part of our brand, and I’ll have to change it.
What is to be, will be
If you provide express services such as taxi service or food delivery, a vanity phone number isn’t only a part, but a vital component of your brand. In this case implementation of call tracking will become a harmful strike for you and your clients.
This is due to the fact that implementing call tracking with one phone number is an impossible task at the moment. It requires a pool of unique numbers for the SIP protocol, it’s very expensive and unprofitable to make them “beautiful”. Moreover, it’s nearly impossible with some telephone operators.
That’s why we recommend the method of promo codes for the types of businesses mentioned above.
There is always the reverse side of the medal
However, in all other kinds of business vanity phone number can be quite reckless and illogical of a tool. And here are some medications able to relieve or at least ease the pain:
- You spend huge amounts of money attracting clients, you use different kinds of advertising, and you usually don’t understand which of them are effective and to what extent. You lose money every second. You lose a lot of money.
- If your loyal customers know your vanity number, nothing will change for them. They’ll be able to call you on this number at any moment.
- It’s not necessary to show a unique number to each visitor of your site. In order to determine the efficiency of advertising it will be enough to use unique numbers only for new people who came from advertising.
- If your potential customer is loyal, that is, that he has come to the site through a bookmark in his browser, or after typing a branded request in a search string, you can show him your vanity number. The other clients can be tracked up to the keywords.
Conclusion 1
Using technologies with catchy phone numbers can be a part of your marketing strategy, but you don’t have to only focus on it. Currently the market is much bigger than it seems to be and not all your clients need a vanity number. That’s why don’t be afraid to segment your clients proposing them different phone numbers: “beautiful” or substituted. After all, call tracking isn’t just a call analytics, but also a tool for managing your advertising policy.
Pain #2: there are several local area codes and mobile numbers of different operators on my website. How will the implementation of call tracking change this?
Diagnosis
It’s necessary to understand the symptoms before prescribing a treatment.
- there are a lot of telephone numbers of different operators and regions on the website, in case of substitution implementation of call tracking will reduce profitability;
- I use a national toll-free number — a pool of numbers for substitution will cost a pretty penny. It will also reduce the profitability of using the service;
- stereotypes and the risk of losing precious phone calls don’t let to remove extra phone numbers.
What’s better: one or more?
The question is quite difficult. There’s an opinion that a potential client will choose your competitor if there isn’t a convenient phone number on your website.
Of course, it’s difficult to ignore that fact that some users leave the website when not seeing the code of their mobile operator or region. And there are people looking for a phone number on the header or on the contact page before exploring the content and searching for the price. Furthermore, in some specific spheres it’s necessary to have the numbers of all mobile operators and regions. For example, food delivery or taxi services.
Before making the decision you have to pay attention to these facts:
A set of phone numbers is not a guarantee of sales
If you can answer the following questions, you can be sure that the problem of having different phone numbers on your website is not of your current interest.
- Do you track the source of the phone calls? “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half”, – John Wanamaker, one of the founders of modern advertising business.
- How many calls do you miss? This number is big even when the company realizes the necessity to monitor, analyze, make conclusions, save money and improve.
- How many seconds does the client wait before your call agents answer? The average time is 21 seconds. But the client becomes a little bit nervous after 11 second of waiting.
- How do your managers work? 70% of managers don’t offer alternative goods in case of a lack in a warehouse.
- How do you calculate your income / profit / ROI? If integrate telephony (cloud PBX) and analytics with your CRM, you can get a lot of useful information. Here is the card of the client’s CRM used by the call tracking company Ringostat
- Do you have alternative methods of communication on your website? For example, automatic callback in 20-30 seconds with the definition of user data, online chat, or click2call (free call directly from the site).
Conclusion 2
Pay attention to different phone numbers on your website, but it’s not SO important. Use modern technologies. They play an important role in your business development.
We hope that this article has been useful. Do you want to know how to get rid of the most common fears associated with call tracking? Then the first part of this series of articles is written just for you.