CallSource

CallSource

Performance Management for Sales and Marketing

Call Management

Spam calls are on the rise… but CallShield® has CallSource® customers covered.

by Leave a Comment

CallSource blocks unwanted spam calls to your business

During the first half of 2019, spam calls accounted for between 10% and 12% of all calls. This figure is based on approximately 75,000,000 calls to CallSource customers. If this were not bad enough, in July and August, spam calls spiked to approximately 17% of all traffic!

Anyone who owns a telephone knows all too well how many unwanted calls are targeting the public these days. Most are autodialed, prerecorded “spam.” Although these calls are clearly illegal, laws like The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and programs like the “Do Not Call List” can’t stop them. The FCC can’t stop them. The carriers can – but have little or no incentive to do so.

CallSource blocks spam calls to businesses

For many years, CallSource and a small number of call tracking and telephone performance providers have carried the burden of inventing and maintaining technologies to identify and block telephone spam and telephone hackers.

CallSource alone, via its proprietary system, CallShield, has blocked more than one hundred million (100,000,000) calls that would otherwise have plagued our customers or, in some cases, exposed their telephone systems to hackers attempting to hijack their phones in order to remotely place overseas calls while leaving their victims to pay the bill from their telephone carrier.

Increase in spam calls and FCC cracking down on robocalls

The recent increase in spam calls seems ironic, since the FCC very recently announced that they are cracking down on spammers and the carriers say they are working on solutions to address the problem.

The good news is that there are serious efforts underway to identify “spoofed” calls (calls in which the identified number is falsified) and to verify that callers correctly identify the number or the business from which they are calling. Rest assured, CallSource is also a participant in these efforts.

CallSource will protect your calls from spam

All CallSource tracking numbers, or numbers that are ported to the CallSource system, are protected with CallShield.

If you are interested in tracking your marketing attribution and want to protect your business calls from robocalls, spoofed calls, and other types of spam calls, set up a time to talk to a CallSource representative here.

Shield your calls from spammers

Get CallShield

I want to talk to someone about protecting my business
from spam calls.

10 Must-Know Inbound Call Stats for Home Services Companies

by Leave a Comment

CallSource has released new inbound call data for home services companies.

Businesses in the home services industry rely on the phone and appointments to be made in order to make sales and complete services for customers. While other mediums such as online booking or texting for appointments can now be used, the phone is still the most vital way that clients will contact home service businesses for help.

CallSource knows how important the phone is to home services companies – we’ve been analyzing their calls for years. In fact, we just released a new report analyzing almost 20 million phone calls to home services companies over the past 4 years with valuable insights that no home service owner or manager should miss.

Check out the report in its entirety here, or read below for 10 of the most eye-raising data points.

Home services companies know the importance of the phone, and these stats show that there are still improvements to be made in your business.

You need to maximize your appointment opportunities.

  1. Just over half (56%) of calls coming into your business are viable leads.
  2. Of these prospect calls, the average call-to-appointment conversion rate for home service businesses is 63%.
  3. 37% of prospect calls are missed opportunities – meaning over a third of your potential revenue is going to your competitor.

Why else are consumers calling in?

  1. 44% of callers aren’t an appointment-generating opportunity.
  2. 69% of calls are general business calls, and 28% are current customers following-up.

CSRs are great at making first impressions…

  1. 95% of call handlers offer his/her name to the caller upon answering.
  2. 98% of employees correctly introduce the company in their greeting.

But call handlers need to have improved conversations with callers

  1. Call handlers share a personal value proposition about the company only 1% of the time.
  2. In about half of calls, the call handler shows empathy with the caller about their problem, tries to understand their needs, and re-states the caller’s issue to help them feel understood.

Ask for the appointment

  1. CSRs use close-handed questions to ask for the sale, book the call, or gain commitment from the caller only about a third (36%) of the time.

Set more appointments with CallSource

Home services companies know the importance of the phone, and these stats show that there are still improvements to be made in your business.

Discover more facts in the full home services report here, and contact a CallSource specialist to get started improving your phone experience today.

4 Main Benefits of an 833 Vanity Number

by Leave a Comment

Why should you take advantage of the newest prefix for easy-to-remember custom vanity phone numbers?

Custom vanity phone numbers are a no-brainer for businesses looking to brand their business, market with an easy-to-remember phone number, and stay relevant in consumers’ memory when looking for a service you provide.

Most businesses are familiar with vanity numbers, and we’ve all called vanity lines in our lifetime. But what some may not know is that there are more options than the simple, old 1-800-number types.

In 2017, a new prefix for vanity numbers, 833, was released. Yet, not all businesses are aware of this new prefix and its benefits to use in your newest vanity phone number. If you are ready to choose the perfect vanity phone number for your business, you may want to consider an 833 prefix for your line. Why? Read on for some ways you can use this new prefix, and vanity phone numbers, to your advantage.

Prevent Competition with a Custom 833 Number

Successful companies that use vanity numbers like 800-FLOWERS, 888-ALLSTATE, and 866-PLUMBER will likely secure the 833 versions of the same numbers to prevent competitors from obtaining them. To keep their competitive edge, these established companies will obtain the same memorable number in a different toll-free prefix since it is available.

If you’ve looked at a specific vanity number in the past that wasn’t available in your area, it’s worth searching for a custom phone number again to see if it is now available with the newest 833 prefix. Or, if you have capitalized on a specific vanity number spelling your business name, for example, you may want to secure the 833 version as well.

Build Your Brand Using Vanity Phone Numbers

Using a toll-free 833 vanity number helps establish a brand. When done right, vanity numbers help build a brand that people always remember. Having a custom vanity phone number for your business is one of the easiest forms of brand awareness. By keeping their brand name synonymous with their vanity number, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM did just that. They matched their website address with a toll-free vanity number, and now everyone remembers them (and their phone number, of course!).

833 Vanity Numbers Are Easy-to-Remember

Which number is easier to remember: 833-225-5669 or 833-CALL-NOW? Using a vanity number that is easy to recall is crucial for expensive advertising campaigns, television commercials, and radio spots. Viewers or listeners will not remember a number unless it is easy to recall.

Even though 833 is not as easily noticeable as the old 800-vanity number, consumers will be able to tell that this is a toll-free prefix, allowing them to dial your easy to remember phone number from memory after seeing or hearing your ad.

Prevent Junk Calls with a Clean Tracking Number

Return on investment is a business driver. After spending thousands of dollars on expensive advertising campaigns, using an 833 toll-free vanity number is critical. By using this new prefix, you can ensure that all inbound calls generated by advertising campaigns will be intended calls, so misdials and wrong number calls will be eliminated.

800 number lines have been around for a long time – so you can bet that other businesses have probably used the number you want in the past. This may mean that people who have previously saved or remember this number could call it again, for calls unrelated to your business. Using an 833 toll-free vanity number provides clean tracking data and analytics for better insight into campaign effectiveness.

Get a custom phone number

If you want to know additional information about what to pay attention to when choosing a vanity phone number read this other blog article. Interested in obtaining a vanity number for your business? Search for a vanity phone number to see what possibilities are in store, or dial 855-GOT-VANITY to talk to a representative!

Make sure consumers remember your brand.

Get a Custom Vanity Phone Number

I want to talk to someone about
achieving a vanity number for my business.

CallSource to Reveal New Own-Set-Closesm Phrases & Skills to Sell More Cars at Digital Dealer 2019

by Leave a Comment

CallSource, the provider of insightful data and actionable analytics, now provides in-dealership & phone coaching so you can set more appointments and sell more cars.

Westlake Village, CA – August 19, 2019. CallSource, the inventor of call tracking and a leader in providing actionable solutions to the automotive industry, is pleased to announce the launch of Own-Set-Close Automotive Phrases & Skills Coaching. Own-Set-Close offers the best phone skills and word tracks designed for today’s highly-informed and digital-savvy consumer.

When recent automotive data shows that 80% of inbound auto sales calls do not result in an appointment, dealerships know that they can no longer ignore the importance of the phone.

“Own-Set-Close is unlike any other program offered to dealers,” says Pogo Parr, President of Automotive at CallSource. “By providing in-dealership and over the phone call coaching to dealers, CallSource now provides all the tools a dealer needs to operate and perform better on the phone to increase their bottom line. With CallSource’s call coaching and EveryLead platform, you can’t get more accurate data and reporting that boosts your dealership. That’s what it is all about, right? – having really great data that dealers can use so they can easily track what’s working and increase sales.”

Unlike other one-and-done automotive training programs, Own-Set-Close is phrases & skills coaching over time. It begins with word tracks that instantly make your team more effective on the phone. While our coaches are onsite, they will dive into your CRM and update templates and workflows as needed to measure your coaching success using key performance indicators.

One of the fastest ways to sell more cars in the dealership is to help your people improve their phones skills. With Own-Set-Close, you can use your CRM data to ensure that your employees are increasing phone skills by booking more appointments and making more sales. With coaches that have years of dealership and car-selling experience, they not only talk the talk but can walk the walk.

CallSource is excited to officially launch this new program at the 2019 Digital Dealer Conference & Expo.

About CallSource—Own Every Lead

CallSource provides dealers with visibility into what is driving customers to call, text, chat, or click on your website. We provide transparency into which calls are real leads, and which leads booked an appointment. CallSource helps dealerships track call-handler performance and provides individually targeted training and coaching. Dealers are alerted to missed opportunities in time to save deals. Our tracking numbers are text-enabled, and our digital attribution system tracks a customer’s complete online journey. We have a solution for you to track, set, and close every call- click- text and chat.

###

If you would like more information, please call Kelli Conley at 888-376-0123 or email kconley@callsource.com.

Successful dealers don’t sell cars. They sell their dealership.

by Leave a Comment

Boost your dealership’s profitability with superior customer service.

As new car sales lag and variable per-unit profit margins decrease, more focus must be placed on fixed operations to absorb costs and remain competitive in today’s market.1 The battle for sales margins is a losing one; consumers can price shop a vehicle across the world with a single online search. But technological advancement is a double-edged sword, and dealers have an opportunity to capitalize.

More technologically complex vehicles beget an increased value of specialization, technician certification, and service advisors equipped with OEM-specific expertise. Dealerships are uniquely equipped to service today’s vehicles and need to position this as a primary selling point to consumers.

Building lasting relationships and retaining lifelong customers depends on a well-oiled service machine, and the most important salespeople in today’s dealership are the service advisors. If they sell service effectively, the dealership will prosper as one-time customers become lifelong patrons and advocates, returning to buy vehicles and telling their friends and family to do the same.

Despite the increasing importance of the back-end, customers are all too often met with frustration, subpar transparency, multiple transfers, and a half-hearted voicemail message when scheduling a service appointment. Why?

This is especially disheartening when recent CallSource automotive data shows that 75% of inbound phone leads are calling into fixed ops at dealerships. The qualities of communication we love in salespeople have been historically frontloaded to the sales floor under the notion that a dealer’s success (or failure) is the consequence of sales activity. This mindset is so entrenched in the industry that we’ve come to accept service revenue as “fixed” and “consistent,” but these category distinctions are restrictive.

It’s time to break down the silos and start selling service.

The first step to improving a service department is to recognize and optimize the channels through which the dealership communicates with the customer. There are two primary channels in the service appointment-setting process.

  1. Website
  2. Phone

Every dealership should have a user-friendly online scheduler. But, don’t be overly reliant on this channel. Phone calls to the service department are on the rise.1 The phone is the lifeblood of the dealership and the first/primary point of contact for most customers.

Below are five steps you can take today to improve your service department’s performance.

1: Assess Call Data

How many calls are going to voicemail?

What percentage of inbound calls are service appointments vs. service status?

How many rings are customers hearing before speaking to a live person?

To answer these questions, call tracking and processing are essential. These technologies enable dealers to define KPIs, determine where there is room for improvement, and track these metrics over time.

2: Increase Connectivity

CallSource data shows that over half of customers do not leave a message when forwarded to a voicemail. But, service connectivity remains stagnant around 80%.2 What are we to make of the 1 out of 5 calls that do not connect to someone in the service department?

I think it is safe to say that these are lost opportunities. If the caller was interested in an appointment, they would move on to the next option. If they were inquiring about the status of their vehicle, they’re now the victims of poor customer service and are less likely to do business with the dealership moving forward.

There are two ways to offset this and increase connectivity immediately.

  1. Route calls back to reception/BDC after a set number of rings (4-5) so that customers are not sent to advisors’ voicemails
  2. Send status updates proactively to reduce inbound call traffic and improve the customer experience (See Step 4)

KPI – Answer Rate

3: Improve Phone Performance

Of the 80 dealers in a recent study published by FixedOps Magazine, it was found that “Only 10 percent stated that their teams were trained on a specific set of word tracks [and] only 10 percent stated they have scorecards for grading the performance of their Appointment Coordinators’ inbound calls.”3

This is an alarmingly low number – especially given the fact that “customer skills trump technical skills for service advisors.”4

Phone handling standards must be set, tracked, and scored for accountability and growth. CallSource scores phone handlers in key categories that directly tie into word tracks developed & trained by industry veterans.

Every call handler should know his/her appointment conversion rate and the goal conversion rate set by the dealership, as “effective call handling can increase conversion rates from an average of 30 percent up to 90 percent.”5

KPI – Appointment Set Percentage & Performance Scorecard

4: Offline Status Updates (Texting)

Establish an opt-in process to text service status updates. It’s convenient for the customer, keeps them informed, decreases inbound call volume, and improves CSI scores as “…scores tend to increase when car dealership service departments use customers’ preferred methods of communication.”6

5: Proactive Outbound (Service BDC)

Make proactive outbound efforts to increase service revenue. With a BDC or without, periodical outreach for birthdays, vehicle purchase anniversary, potential recall notices, oil changes, etc. should be the established process.

For most dealers, the end goal should be a service BDC. It can generate up to 1 million dollars in additional revenue through a carefully managed daily outbound calling campaign.3

Increase Your Service Skills, Increase Your Profits

For more information on how to increase your team’s phone skills and make your service department a higher priority, reach out to a CallSource Automotive Specialist to learn more about Own-Set-Close: Phrases and Skills to Sell More Cars.

Feel free to leave comments below with how you’ve made the service department a profit-machine at your dealership.

 

Why Your Dealership Needs CallSource

by Leave a Comment

CallSource works closely with many automotive dealerships, and while we know how we can help your dealership improve your marketing, phone skills, and more – ultimately attaining more leads and getting more sales, maybe you need to know better how we can help you. Read on to learn why your dealership needs CallSource.

The Cost of Not Measuring Marketing Attribution

Do you know how much each call is costing your dealership?

Without accurately attributing your online and offline marketing sources, you can’t make data-driven decisions for your dealership.

It’s time to start attributing your phone calls from these advertising sources, especially since phone calls are the second-most-common form of consumer’ initial contact with a dealership.2

Measuring attribution means staying in front of competitors. It’s time to start gathering real attribution with reliable analytics.

How are you tracking attribution and success
from these advertising sources?

Dealerships spent almost $10 Billion in advertising in 2018, with Internet, TV, Radio, Newspaper, and Direct Mail coming in as the highest advertising expenses.1

“Knowing what influences a shopper to contact the dealership, regardless of method, can help dealers determine the value of their advertising and understand where to most successfully invest marketing dollars.”1

The Power of the Phone

One out of four consumers will call dealers as their initial point of contact with the dealership; this method of communication comes in second only to walk-ins.1

What does this mean for your dealership?

You can’t ignore the phone.

Your Dealership’s Experience

Customer service starts with recording your phone calls to ensure a great phone experience that gets leads coming in the door through effective advertising. Call tracking measures what’s driving calls, so your sales team can move more cars.

By not paying attention to the customer’s phone experience, you’ve lost that sale to your competitor before your team has a fighting chance to win the sales.

16% of buyers note that they did not purchase from the first dealership visited because of a poor sales experience.1 Don’t let this happen at your dealership.

Do You Know Your Customers’ Phone Experience?

Do you know what your customers’ phone experience with your dealership is like? Call tracking will show you how many verified leads that call your dealership result in:

  • Connected Calls
  • Hang Ups
  • Voicemail
  • Wrong Department

With inbound and outbound call tracking, you will never guess at call outcomes again.

Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI)

With DNI, you can track the entire customer journey online to offline with dynamic numbers that isolate specific customers and what they searched to bring them to your dealership. Every ad source that requires code, like your website, needs dynamic number insertion.

DNI uses a pool of toll-free numbers in the background. The volume of numbers provided is based on your website volume to ensure that each user or source gets assigned its own specific number to be tracked from digital to offline conversion. Some number pools (like ours) are managed automatically, so you do not need to know ahead of time how many visitors you are expecting.

Most other solutions require you to provision the exact amount of numbers in your pool ahead of time. A phone number from the pool will display after being dynamically switched based on the user or source. This ensures that each user or source gets its own unique number.

Text-Enabled Numbers

Calling isn’t the only way consumers will use the phone to contact your dealership. When 97% of Americans text at least once a day, you know that consumers will text your phone number instead of calling.4

With one-click engagement, CallSource’s text-enabled numbers are fast, accessible, and multi-functional to ensure that you’ll never miss a lead.

If you aren’t using text-enabled numbers, you aren’t responding to all of your leads. The customer is left hanging and thinks they are being ignored. This means your potential customer is going to someone who will respond.

Reliability

No other system is more reliable.

CallSource uses humans, not robots, to score calls with 95% accuracy. Our competitions’ AI software accuracy rates can’t even come close to that, as it’s reported that speech and voice-to-text analyses only reach an accuracy of 77%.5

With our 99.999% uptime, you won’t miss a single sales opportunity due to a missed call.

CallShield

Make sure the calls you’re getting are worth your time.

The number of fake calls blocked through CallShield has been as high as 5 to 6 million, or 35%, of fraudulent phone calls being blocked during times of nationwide spam call increases.

Don’t let spam calls take over your dealership’s phone lines. Shield your phone system with CallShield.

Our proprietary IVR solution was built to block spam calls, so your employees aren’t wasting time answering fake and spam calls.

CRM Integrations

CallSource integrates with the top Automotive CRMs – so you can see what’s going on without logging into too many places.

CallSource seamlessly integrates with:

Don’t see your CRM on the list? Ask us about how we can integrate with your system. Chances are we can.

Chat Integrations

CallSource has partnered with almost all the major chat providers so you can see your chat conversations in our EveryLead Dashboard.

We also work with chat providers who have co-managed chat services, providing them with text-enabled numbers so you won’t lose out on any type of communication.

CallSource integrates with the following chat providers:

Missed Opportunities

Only about 20% of potential sales calls are converted to an appointment, according to a recent automotive study by CallSource.3

What is happening to the other 80% of leads? They are going to your competitor.

Missed a chance to get a lead to come into your dealership? We’ll let you know within 2 hours – usually as quickly as 30 minutes or less.

The other guys can take 10 hours or more to alert you – long enough so that missed opportunity has already gone to your competition.

3-screen-computer-alertsStop guessing at call outcomes. DealSaver alerts allow you the chance to recapture that lost lead and turn them into a fan of your dealership.

DealSaver will send you alerts when:

  • Disconnected: Sales calls disconnected in progress
  • Transfer: All Sales calls transferred to voicemail, where the caller leaves message or hangs up
  • Not Available: If the vehicle is not available and the rep does not suggest an alternative vehicle
  • Purchasing: Caller asks about buying/leasing car and is disconnected in progress
  • No Attempt: If no attempt is made to secure an appointment

CallSource analysts (real, trained, qualified people, not software, and not crowdsourced) listen to the entire call and alert management when an inbound opportunity wasn’t closed.

Calculate Your Loss

If an opportunity is worth $2,200, you lose $17,600 for every 10 calls you don’t convert.

But don’t believe vendors that promise you a 96% conversion rate – because converting every caller just isn’t possible. But there’s always room for improvement – we can help you with that.

Converting calls to appointments means you aren’t giving competition to your business.

Book more calls and recapture lost leads with DealSaver alerts.

Employee Performance

The battle of competition isn’t a game.

Missed a chance to get a lead to come into your dealership? Get your employees up-to-speed on best phone practices so they can start booking more appointments and getting more customers through your doors.

TPA - Four Core Principles

CallSource’s criterion for call-handler performance is based on over 25 years of analyzing and scoring phone calls. Call handlers are scored using a special scorecard developed by CallSource and honed over the years, called our Core Four Principles of a Phone Call.

The CallSource Difference

Attribution and closing deals isn’t a game.

Having tracked over 1 billion phone calls, CallSource is the industry expert in all things call performance. We have developed our products based on our clients’ feedback, wants, and needs.

Accuracy
Accurate and timely alerts

CallSource summarizes and contextualizes your data to help you make more informed decisions

Uptime
Reliability

Redundant servers with 99.999% uptime won’t leave you in the dark

Insights
Call processing and integration

Cut through the clutter and take control of your opportunities

EveryLead
CallSource’s premium automotive platform

Track your customer’s journey cross-channel and cross-domain while attributing every text, chat, and web form in real-time.

Support
Dedicated team

Our team has an average tenure of 10 years, delivering the expertise, training, and support you need.

Your Team

CallSource is much more than just a Saas call tracking company. With human-analyzed lead scoring, appointment confirmation, and employee performance overviews, as well as real call coaches and a reputation management system that responds to reviews for you, CallSource aims to help our clients improve in all aspects of their business.

Customer Service

Customer service is the number-one priority for CallSource, and every client receives a designated team of CallSource representatives. Your CallSource team will have an introductory call with you within days of signing up to guide you through any setup and walk you through our easy-to-use reporting platform.

Our continuing advisory services make sure you are not just getting data delivered to you, but that you know how to use this data and set goals.

Data-Driven Reporting

With customized and group reporting available, you can get your analytics the way you want them.

Reports aren’t helpful if you can’t use them. We make sure to deliver your data in the way that works best for your account, no matter how large or small.

Who We Do Business With

53 of the top 150 Dealer Groups partner with CallSource. Are you ready to partner with us too?

Contact us today and get started on your path to dealership improvement.