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“CallSource^® Reflections” is a blog series by CallSource’s^® co-founder and President, Elliot Leiboff. Elliot co-founded CallSource^® alongside the late Jerry Feldman in 1992. Over the years, Elliot has developed a small call tracking company to a full service lead generation performance organization. CallSource^® invented call tracking. Elliot has witnessed a myriad of inventions, tried different strategies, invested in technologies and basically seen it all.

CallSource^® is a classic American tale of an idea that turned into a business that has thrived through grit and determination. “CallSource^® Reflections” is Elliot’s blog series on lessons learned as a business owner before the era of startups and VC funding.

Elliot’s monthly blog contributions take the reader on the journey of how our solutions have evolved.

 

Do Vanity Numbers Still Matter in our Click-to-Call World?

How can a Vanity Number help your business when the internet seems to rule all?

You may think that a static call tracking number, such as a Vanity phone number, can’t benefit your business without having click-to-call tracking metrics.

But that simply isn’t true. Here’s why:

A Vanity Number that spells your company name or describes your business helps to build your brand. Think 1-800-Flowers.

Not every form of advertising is clickable. A Vanity Number increases consumer response to billboard, radio, television ads, and more – simply because it is easier for us to remember a word than a briefly-viewed, random series of numbers.

A Vanity Number reduces the chance of losing a prospective client to your competitors. How? A consumer who remembers your telephone number can contact you directly, without searching online where they are exposed to competitors who may even be using your company name in their Adwords marketing.

You might be surprised that a Vanity Number is valuable even if your company name is too long or too difficult to spell, or the particular Vanity Number you want is unavailable. While it may not build your brand, a “Repeater Number” confers the other benefits described above. A consumer is far more likely to remember a sequenced or patterned Vanity Number than a random series of numbers. Which would you remember: (844) 381-6257 or (800) 800-8000?

While certain Vanity Numbers can be expensive, particularly those required for nationwide coverage, local or regional businesses may find them surprisingly inexpensive. That’s because Vanity Numbers are programmed for shared use; meaning the same number can route calls to different businesses based on the area code of the originating phone number. In other words, you can license the use of a Vanity Number for just the market(s) in which you do business.

Want help finding your own Vanity Number? Search our database online or call us at 855-GOT-VANITY.

Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.

Name: Josh Oosterhof

Title: Strategic Partner Manager

When did you start working for CS? October 2010

What position did you start in? Sales Opener

What is your current position? Strategic Partner Manager in Home Services

What do you like best about working directly with our strategic partners? What are your relationships like?

I enjoy working with the partners because they are groups that have contractor members who are all serious about growing their business. For us, we want to put tools in place that can help companies grow, and all of these companies have that same goal in mind. It’s also nice to travel to their events and get face-to-face time with owners and managers that we have had great impacts on.

What do you think sets apart the Home Services community from the other verticals that CallSource works with?

The people. I love the small to mid-size business owners that I get to work with every day. The conversations and connections I have made with so many great people over the years have created many lifelong friendships.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment so far with your career at CallSource?

I would have to say the way our solution has impacted the businesses that I work with. The stories that come back about how we have helped companies save and make money are so awesome. I have heard people be able to take extra vacations, send kids to college and spend more time with family because of the growth they have seen due to CallSource, that’s pretty cool stuff!

You play sports with CallSource employees outside of work as well as enjoy watching sports. What are your favorites to play and watch?

I enjoy playing flag football, basketball and softball. Growing up sports was all I knew; I played football, basketball and baseball all through high school and football in college. Not being part of a team now is tough, but it is fun getting out there and competing in corporate games.

I also love playing golf, but don’t get to play much anymore with work and family taking up most of my time. Watching sports, I got to say I enjoy watching football the most. Playing fantasy football along with watching the games makes it pretty exciting.

And which teams are your favorite for each sport?

I am a Seattle area guy so I stick to my roots pretty much, Seattle Seahawks, Washington Huskies, and Seattle Mariners.

You recently had a baby girl with your wife (well – not super recently anymore; time goes by so quickly!) What’s fatherhood like?

Fatherhood has been so awesome; I am blessed to have a great wife who takes care of our daughter Lindy, so that helps a lot. The first 6 months was a lot of mom time, eating and sleeping. But now she is almost 16 months, talking and running around, we have a lot of fun together! She definitely puts a smile on my face every day!

You travel a lot, either with CallSource or on your own. What are some of the favorite places you’ve been to?

We love Hawaii, it’s probably our favorite vacation spot. I do also enjoy the mountains in the winter, kind of brings me back to my roots a little growing up in Washington. We go to Mammoth every other year and really enjoy the snow up there.

I also really enjoy being on the water. Lakes or rivers with jet skis and boats are always a good time; we go to the Colorado River some and enjoy that. San Diego is also a great spot that has become a tradition, we go to Paradise Point down there every August for a couple nights, its a great spot for kids!

Where would you love to go next?

One day I would love to take my wife to Bora Bora.

Every year, you help with a toy drive during the holidays. How long have you been doing this? Tell me more details.

I have been doing this for about 5 years. Our local Church (Calvary Community) is very involved in the toy drive for Conejo Valley. The first year, we bought a few toys and threw them in the box. The next year I thought, maybe if I bring a box to work my colleagues would help out; sure enough we got great participation.

Every year since then we have filled 2 boxes with toys which are then distributed to underprivileged families in the area. The coolest part about this is going to the actual day they give out the toys and seeing the smiles of the parent’s faces that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to have Christmas for their kids. We have been so blessed growing up and raising our daughter now, the least I feel like we can do is give back to those in need.

Do you do any other volunteer work outside of this?

All of the volunteer work we do is through our church. My wife, daughter and I are greeters twice a month at the church; we are involved in a homeless lunch program and plug into a couple other ministries when we can.

What are some of your favorite hobbies to do outside of work?

Golf, fantasy football, vacation, spending time with my family, country concerts, and I love good food.

Lastly, tell us one of your favorite special or interesting client stories.

It’s always the best when a client leaves us, thinking they don’t need our services anymore, but then they come back.

I had a client one time leave us because the other company was slightly cheaper and had a better looking dashboard. After the move, they came back 3 months later because the customer service was nowhere near what we offer and the accuracy of data was much lower. There is something special about getting someone back who felt like they didn’t need you anymore.

Another story that comes to mind is one of persistence. There was a company out of Utah that I started speaking with in early 2014. Between emails, calls and in-person discussions, I connected with them over 60 times in 2 years. Finally, in early 2016, they signed up and they are still having great success with the program.

Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.

Name: Kyle Klimusko

Title: Finance Manager

When did you start working for CS? I was a temp hire in 2010, and then rejoined the company in February 2014.

What position did you start in? I started as a financial analyst.

What is your current position? Finance Manager.

How have your priorities and responsibilities changed and shifted with each different position you’ve held with CS?

My role started off doing various internal analyses for the company, and has slowly added additional responsibilities which now include inventory management and KPI reporting.

What is your favorite part about your workday?

My favorite projects involve the creation and use of dynamic models. Those involve a bit more creativity than other aspects of my job, but ultimately pay off in time savings and being able to compare multiple financial scenarios quickly. I find these projects more interesting.

What would you say is your greatest accomplishment so far with your career at CallSource?

A few years ago I helped identify significant inventory savings at the company, which is probably the biggest single project in terms of direct ROI. Most other projects are simply creating reports to present information to management for decision-making.

I’d proclaim you an Excel Wiz – even though I am proficiently terrible at Excel. How long have you been working with it and do you have any lesser-known tip or trick for us?

Thank you for the compliment! While I get that looking at a wall of numbers can be intimidating, you really just need to jump into it and you will find it quite easy to use. Excel is just a very large calculator for which you need to understand two things. One is just basic math operations, and I mean the basics…equal sign, plus, minus, divide, multiply, sum, and lookups. Two, you need to understand relative and absolute referencing, which is how moving a formula changes which cells it is referencing to. If you understand these few items, you can do most things in Excel that you will ever need to do.
The wizardry is more of an illusion. I learned which buttons to press on the calculator, and then the shortcuts Excel provides to do those same operations more quickly.

When I was hired at CallSource as a temp in 2010, I was able to spend some time playing with the calculation functions in Excel which taught me those basics I just described. If you put in just a little time on the internet asking “What are popular Excel functions” or “What are the best Excel shortcuts”, you can very quickly improve your Excel skills. The key is just to do a bit of research while playing with data.

Do you have a special or interesting CallSource story that is one of your favorites?

I like going to Corporate Games every year and participating in volleyball, bowling, and the 5k race. We won a gold medal in beach volleyball a couple years ago, which was a highlight from these events.

I’ve played volleyball with you for the past few years during our “Corporate Games” outings that we do against other companies in the area. You get very into it. What’s your favorite sport to play?

Volleyball was the sport I played in high school, so that is really my favorite. The sport I play the most of now is bowling.

We’ve also had some pretty competitive Fitbit weekly step challenges…what I’m getting at is that you’re quite competitive. Why do you think this is?

If I see it as a competition, then it follows that I should do my best to compete. For me, competition incentivizes improvement, which I am personally a fan. Beyond that, competing is a lot of fun. I would not really describe myself as overly-competitive.

Hah, ok ok! Competitive in a good way – not negatively. Do you watch any other sports besides those that you enjoy playing?

I enjoy playing any sport, and I have tried most of them. I never played soccer, but I love watching the international soccer tournaments and am a fan of the US and England teams. England had a great run this year in the World Cup so I had a lot of fun with that.

I also enjoy watching golf, and I do not regularly play golf. Call me crazy but I really like watching the Tour de France every year. I do not spend time watching any other sports unless going out with friends.

How about food…I’ve heard you’re a foodie and I know where we live here in Southern California has quite the array of food. What are some of your favorites?

I would not describe myself as a foodie, but am not exactly sure what the definition of that is. I like eating and I eat too much, but I am perfectly fine eating the same thing for lunch and dinner all week. Recently I became a fan of prepping all my meals for the week in one go. If I am treating myself, which happens more than it should, I would go to poke, sushi, or a chicken wing restaurant.

Lastly, I also know that you like to travel. Where did you last go, and where is on your bucket list?

I have been fortunate to have already done a lot of traveling. I studied in England for a year, and used that as a base for adventuring all around Europe and I even made it to Egypt. This year on a whim I went hiking in Colorado. Some bucket list trips would be hiking to base camp on Everest, a meditation retreat, spending time in any wine region, and Japan.

Each month, we sit down with a CallSource employee to get to know them and their role a bit more.

CallSource prides ourselves on being a people-focused company. We care about our clients, and we care about our employees.

The support-client relationship formed between our teams and our clients is one of the unique attributes that makes CallSource stand out from our competition.

Although clients know their dedicated support team very well, we thought it was time that everyone else got to know all of the great people that work at CallSource with regular CallSource team member interviews.

For our this installment of Meet the CallSource Team, I interviewed Jaque Sotolongo, a vital part of our automotive team here at CallSource.

Name:  Jaque Sotolongo

Title:  Dealer Success Manager

When did you start working for CS?  September 2015

What position did you start in?  Client Support Specialist

What is your current position?  Dealer Success Manager

How have your priorities and responsibilities changed and shifted with each different position you’ve held with CS?

When I started as a Client Support Rep, I simply assisted in client requests. As I moved into an Account Management position and now as a Dealer Success Manager, I nurture and build relationships with our automotive clients.

What is a challenging client request that you’ve received but were able to overcome and ultimately help the client out?

We had a client sign up with CallSource for the EveryLead program before it was launched. The first call was stressful to say the least because the client started to become doubtful that we would be able to meet their needs in a timely manner. After the call, the sales rep and I made sure we did everything in our power to get the client what they needed as quickly as possible, including features that were not available. By the next call, the tables had completely turned; the client was confident that we’d be able to meet their needs. I have now built excellent rapport with this client and their account is up and running smoothly.

That’s great! That is one thing about CallSource – where there is a will, there is a way! So I know that you are a fan of country music, as am I. Who are your top five favorites?

• Dierks Bentley
• Carrie Underwood
• Lady Antebellum
• Little Big Town
• Shania Twain

What is the last country concert that you went to and where? What was so great about it?

The last country music concert I went to was Shania Twain at the Staples Center. Her music was probably the only country music I listened to growing up so it was great to see an artist I grew up listening to, especially considering how much of a country music fan I have become.

I loved Shania growing up too that must’ve been a fabulous show! I also know you are a huge Disney fan! You also live pretty close to Disneyland. What are your favorite Disney movies and/or characters?

Going Disneyland is definitely my favorite thing to do in my spare time. My all-time favorite movie is The Little Mermaid which makes my all-time favorite character Ariel.

And what do you love so much about the park?

I’d say the atmosphere made up by all of the excitement. It’s literally the happiest place on earth.

Tell us more about what else do you like to do in your free time besides go to Disneyland and listen to country music.

I always say that my second happiest place on earth is the beach. I find the beach to be so relaxing and soothing.

You recently moved into a house with your significant other. Congratulations! How do you like your new place?

We’re actually just renting, but it has been a great experience thus far. Moving out of my parent’s house was a huge step but it has all been for the better because it has better prepared me to face adulthood challenges.

Leave us with one random tidbit about you.

I am very health conscious. I exercise regularly and focus on healthy eating habits.