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Call Management

Can I Use a Tracking Number in Google My Business?

September 24, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna Leave a Comment

Google is not the enemy to call tracking – you can use them together.

Just as the digital world surpasses what we conceived imaginable as years and even days go by, so has call tracking.

Although call tracking is widely seen as useful for offline marketing, some marketers have had differing opinions on whether or not to use call tracking numbers in their online ads as well. Sure, most are able to use it on their website – especially with dynamic numbers available to track every consumer – but some specialists had concerns with using tracking numbers in other places. One of these places used to be Google My Business.

The good news is that this is no longer a worry for marketers. Swapping out your main telephone number for a tracking number, when done right, can increase your true Google My Business conversion data immensely.

Why do I need a tracking number in Google My Business when it already attributes my calls?

Well, although Google My Business does provide call attribution in the Insights Report, it only tracks click-to-call on mobile devices. While click-to-call is an incredibly useful tool, this data is incomplete. What about consumers that see the number on a desktop and dial from a different phone? Or even those who save the number for later and don’t click right through?

Besides that, the data in the Insights Report won’t manage dropped calls correctly either, while a robust call tracking system such as one that CallSource provides will illustrate all hang-ups, disconnected and dropped calls.

How do I add a tracking number to Google My Business?

  • 1. Log in to Google My Business.
    login-google-my-business

  • google-my-business-info-step12. From the Google My Business dashboard, click on the “Info” tab to update contact information.

  • google-my-business-info-step23. From the phone number section, move your main number (most likely the phone number that your call tracking lines point to) as the “Additional Number.” 

  • call-tracking-phone-numbers-google-my-business-step34. Make your call tracking number your new “Primary Number.”

That’s it! It’s quite simple.

You’re ready to track your Google My Business Calls

Now you will see a fuller picture by using a tracking number in Google My Business.

Not only will you gain more insight into the true amount of calls coming in through this listing, but you can also now receive your more robust metrics such as prospect reporting, appointment conversion reporting, and more that call tracking systems such as CallSource can provide to you.

Do you want to learn more about call tracking for your business? Contact a CallSource representative today.

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management, Digital Management

With Call Tracking, Your Auto Dealership Will Achieve Better ROI

August 27, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna Leave a Comment

Phone calls are important for your business – and that’s why the phones need to be tracked.

Gone are the days where consumers simply drive by car dealerships and happen upon the one closest to them to choose a car to buy from. With the phone and internet at our fingertips, consumers do a lot of their own research before purchasing a vehicle. Yes, know this already but we can help—just keep reading.

In fact, research shows that 86 percent of car shoppers conduct online research before visiting a dealership. That research may includes an outreach to your dealership via the phone to find out any remaining questions they probably have after doing hours of preliminary exploration on their own, as a quarter of all consumers use a phone call as their initial contact with the dealership.

There are a myriad of places to advertise out there – and if you aren’t correctly attributing your leads back to the various ad sources, you cannot improve your marketing spend.

If a consumer is calling your dealership, then your marketing has already done a great job – they’re reaching out to you! So now how much marketing dollars are you throwing down the drain by mishandling – or even worse – missing, these potential customers’ phone calls?

This is where call tracking comes to the rescue.

Below are 3 of the main reasons that your dealership should be utilizing call tracking (if you aren’t already).
 

1. Know which advertisements are driving the most phone calls

There are a myriad of places to advertise out there – and if you aren’t correctly attributing your leads back to the various ad sources, you cannot improve your marketing spend.

With call tracking, you can put more dollars into those advertising venues that are producing more calls and leads for your dealership, and invest less in underperforming ad sources.
 

2. Keep track of your missed calls

While it’s true that you should work on having zero missed calls– they happen. You need to be working to get the consumer’s business, not the other way around.

If someone is calling your dealership for a car or needs help from your service or parts department, you are potentially giving up that deal simply by missing their phone call. They aren’t going to wait for you forever – they’ll move onto the next dealership for their needs if you don’t answer, or get back to them, quickly.

With call tracking, you can ensure that you are answering all calls or be alerted every time you have a missed call in the office. Don’t let calls ring forever or go to voicemail – improve your answered call percentage by reviewing your call tracking data.
 

3. Improve employee phone performance

Call tracking includes call recordings, where you can listen to employees’ phone calls and ensure they are following proper phone protocol. When the phone is answered, your call handler is the first impression of your business. Are they leaving a good one?

And just as importantly, are they asking the caller for an appointment? Don’t let a lead that is far into their buying process slip away without making sure they are going to come by the dealership for your salesperson to close the deal.

Interested to learn more about call tracking and the effect it can have on your dealership? Contact a CallSource representative today.

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management

Optimize Your Marketing & Generate Better Business: 4 Duct-Tape Ways to Track Phone Calls Online, Plus the Reliable Way

August 24, 2018 by Kevin Dieny Leave a Comment

The best way to track your phone calls online is to track 100% of calls made online reliably.

As a marketer, it’s easy for you to track a form being filled out and a thank you page being viewed, yet many marketers stumble when it comes to tracking phone calls online correctly.

Featured Video:

While call tracking can solve this problem, not every company can afford call tracking solutions. Thus marketers roll up their sleeves and sink hours of time into learning shortcuts and back-alley, free end-around to everything.

Sometimes free can be good enough. Without reliability, it free solutions do not help your company make sound business decisions. Based on the assumption that we reliability is a must, let’s define good ways, bad ways, and the right way to track phone calls.

Reliable call tracking enables marketers to confidently source all of your inbound phone calls back to a campaign or promotional effort. It is important to note that not all call tracking providers all created equal – at the end of the day you are tracking calls for the results and a return, so a call tracking provider that does not have near-perfect uptime is not worth its effort.

Before we dive into different methods of tracking your calls online, make sure your customer journey is mapped out.

Mapping your customer journey is crucial before you track your phone calls online. This is necessary for a solid understanding of when your customers are presented phone calls in your marketing funnel.

Companies that heavily lean on phone calls to set appointments demo their products or discuss services often find that phone calls are pivotal to their business and can pinpoint how much revenue comes from every single call.

The more revenue a call is worth, the more important it is to track your phone calls. Additionally, the more money you spend on advertisements, the more companies tend to spend on reliable (there’s that word again!) call tracking.

Ok, from the worst to the best (or least reliable to most reliable) duct-tape online call tracking marketing solutions, let’s get into them all.

4) Asking the caller

“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

– Thousands of legacy sales teams who use this solution

There was a time that asking the caller how they heard about your business was the only way to know what made them call. “This is (888)-777-9999? I think I saw it online somewhere.” We’ve all heard this dismissive quote, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” regarding multiple things – but is that a good way to look at your business or to be innovative? If this is how you’ve always done it, why change now?

How it Works

What is true about this solution is that you are getting information straight from the caller about where they got your phone number before they called it. But the problem in the growing landscape of marketing communication mediums of emails, website, ads, mailers, podcasts, videos, etc.… your phone numbers could be everywhere. By asking the caller how they heard about your business, you are most likely just getting the last place they remember seeing your number before they called it. The good news here is that if you are at least asking people on the phone, you aren’t overlooking the value of knowing the source.

Why it Isn’t Reliable

The trouble with the “ask the caller” approach is that it is not reliable. For starters, every human being uses heuristics or problem-solving techniques that utilize feedback for self-education to navigate life. One of the most prevalent heuristics is the availability bias. You are more likely to claim that the last place you remember seeing the number is the last place you saw the number. Second, phone numbers (unless they are vanity numbers) aren’t likely to be remembered. Think you can remember better than our other readers? Take our poll below:

Can You Remember the Number?

Finally, under the pressure of the phone, callers may feel obligated to give an answer without remembering – or call handlers may forget to ask callers how they heard about your business alongside the many other obligations they have on the phone.

Anyone who has ever fielded phone calls knows that it is easy to forget to ask the callers a question. Additionally, callers can forget where they got the phone number, or they might lie… there is no way to be certain. Call handlers might even fake it and record something they thought it might be if they are required to ask and forget. When you rely on people, you are subject to the errors and issues of life. This is reason “ask-the-caller” method is not a reliable way to track calls, let alone campaigns or a/b tested ad types online.

3) Event Listening for Clicks to Call Tel Hyperlinks

When adding phone numbers to websites, you can turn the numbers into click-to-call hyperlinks by adding “tel” into the href part of the link. Here’s an example:
<a href=”tel:+1-877-225-5768″>Click this and give us a call to find out</a>

How it Works

When someone clicks this number, their default program for handling calls will open. On desktops, Skype is the general default, or you might be prompted to select your phone application. On a mobile device, you will be prompted to call the number you’ve clicked instead of remembering or writing down the number. Easy-peasy.

Marketers using Google Tag Manager or other analytics tracking solutions have had access to event listening for years. Events are actions performed by users online or interactions with the website in some way. Event listening is the ability to track events, trigger from events, and measure events across websites. One of the more popular events to listen for is the “click.” Specifically, this event listens for the click events on the Tel hyperlinks from before.

How Event Listening Works

When a web page loads with the analytics code, that code is listening for specific events like a click. When a user clicks on buttons, links, anything clickable, the event fires information off that this click happened. Savvy marketers have designed event listeners to look for hyperlinks containing phone numbers and to fire off an event for their analytics platforms when it does. For example, when you click on the link above, I could create an event that will tell my analytics platform that you have clicked on the phone call.

Using this method, marketers can measure and track clicks on phone calls across their entire website. They get access to the source information of what brought you there before the call, and they can see what page you clicked the link on. Contextualizing this data, you can tell a story of where people are coming from and who is clicking your call links the most.

Why It Isn’t Reliable

click to call sampleThe trouble with this approach is that a click-to-call does not reliably mean a phone call took place. If you click a phone number anywhere on our website, it gives you a prompt (see example on the right). If I hit cancel, a phone call has not happened.

Another issue with this form of tracking is that event listeners can fire multiple times on a page unless you restrict them to limits. If I click a phone number to call it (maybe I’m trying to copy and paste it), you will get multiple call events. Even if I click “call,” I could easily end the call before the call connects. I could hang up or may have called by accident. As you can tell, you are getting unreliable call data if you measure your calls based on clicks to those tel numbers.

Finally, what happens when someone sees the phone number and decides to type it, write it down, or read it off for someone else to call? In this case, the phone number was never clicked on and yet; you got data of received phone calls. These false negatives could also skew your tracking and leave out calls you got from certain sources.

2) Static Phone Numbers per Source (soft DNI)

There are two types of call tracking phone numbers based on the placements.

How it Works

Here’s the easy rule of thumb:

  • If you can put tracking code in the placement, use a dynamic phone number.
  • If you cannot put a tracking code in the placement, use a static phone number.

Examples of these two types of placements:

Static Number Placements Dynamic Number Placements
Whitepages Website
Review Sites Landing Pages / Thank You Pages
Physical Mailers Apps/Programs/Applications
Billboards Embedded Analytics
Cars / Decals
Google Ads / Bing Call Extensions
Google My Business
Business Cards
Email
Radio / Television

So what is the difference between a static phone number and a dynamic phone number?

A static phone number is the regular handling of a call placed to that number.

A dynamic phone number is one of many phone numbers in a pool (a group of numbers). Dynamic numbers are assigned sources, campaigns, ad groups, keywords, or even to individual consumers as they visit the placement. Here is a simple diagram for you of how a dynamic number ‘rotates’ to match a source:

Static vs Dynamic phone Numbers Diagram

Dynamic phone numbers change based on the depth of tracking desired. If you only need to measures traffic sources and you have low volume calls, then static phone numbers might be just fine for you. However, once phone calls become a mainstay of your customer journey or if your promotional spending warrants it, dynamic phone number tracking is the way to go.

I have seen some clever marketers employ a version of the previous duct tape solution alongside static phone numbers to hack call tracking; this is what I call soft DNI.

DNI (Dynamic Number Insertion) describes the process of ‘rotating’ dynamic phone numbers.

Some tools that allow marketers to personalize web pages have this capability. Some are:

  • Google Tag Manager (We use this)
  • VWO (We use this)
  • Unbounce (We use this)
  • Optimizely
  • Marketo (We use this)
  • Google Optimize (We use this)
  • …and many more personalization tools

How to pull off soft DNI? Remember, this is not a reliable way – so use it at your own risk.

First way; you need a website personalization tool or a way to personalize a website based on the referrer. The simplest way to run this is to look at the document referrer using javascript. If the referrer is, for example, Google.com, you could show your Google Static Phone Number.
Alternatively, if the referrer contains Craigslist, you could show your Craigslist Static Phone Number. Using this method, you are effectively using your static phone numbers and dynamically showing them to those visitors who come from different sources. Here is a code example we found that could work:

<script>
if(document.referrer = Direct[blank]/Google.com/etc….)
{
// Found so run script here.
} else {
// Not found so do not run or run exclusion script here.
}
</script>

Assuming you wanted to use an alternative code or location, you could change where you are looking for the source indicator. Sometimes it is valuable to look at the URL query string and change phone numbers based on a value in the query string. Here is a code example we found that could work:

<script>
if(window.location.search.indexOf(“query”) != -1)
{
// if query keyword is found run script here.
} else {
// else do something here.
}
</script>

The last thing to note before you start running scripts and altering phone numbers on web pages for personalization is that you should consider cookies. Cookies are ways to save data in the user’s browser. The use case for cookies here is that you can store the query/UTM or referring values into a cookie. Once you have this cookie, you can have that information persist across pages and second visits.

The big issue with using cookies is that browsers might not like them, visitors can delete their cookies at any time, and they do not transfer across devices or browsers. Utilizing cookies is better than nothing, but it’s no substitute for cookie-less tracking.

The second way to do “soft DNI” makes use of tools designed for this. You can use a tool like VWO to do the heavy lifting of the code for you.

Create a personalization campaign, set a control to the default landing page, and add variations based on referring sources or the query…it is up to you! Next, edit the landing pages of each variant and change the HTML for each of the phone numbers. When you are done, I mocked up what it might look like for you in VWO:

Mockup of tel example in VWO

The third and final hack is what I will call “old school dynamic insertion.” To pull this off, you need to make a lot of web pages (lots of unique URLs to keep track of). You make a distinct landing page for every source/campaign/ad/etc. This could be a lot of work or not much work at all because it depends on how granular you want to get.

For this, you send traffic from each advertisement to a different URL that contains a separate static phone number. This is actually how dynamic insertion got its start back in the day. Seems so long ago!

Why it Isn’t Reliable

The trouble with all of these solutions is that they are not reliable. Referring sources are not always present, nor reliable, and you still have the issue of having to merge and match data. If you are not using a dynamic phone number solution and are using any of the soft DNI solutions I have mentioned above then you will have one big problem…you now have to merge and match!

Merging needs to happen because you have two discrete tables of data.

One of those tables of data is your website analytics. This includes all of your UTMs, sources, device, and the web journey of your users. This is very important to understanding what happened to your website online.

The second of those tables of data is your phone call analytics. This includes your inbound calls, call ID’s, length of calls, possibly the call outcomes and results. This is also massively important to understanding what happened on the phone calls that took place. You now have to merge those two tables of data and combine them in order to see what website visitors called you and where they came from.

Matching has to happen while you are merging because you do not want to double count or paint a picture that did not happen. We have heard horror stories of how difficult this can be. You have to match the phone call date and time with the event firing for that specific tracking phone number. Once you have a match, you can safely say that the click2call event that occurred is the same call you have data on.

(TIP: Use the combination index/match function to make matching easier but not perfect)

Assuming you have merged, matched, and have the full picture… you’ve just achieved in hours/days/weeks (but hopefully not days or weeks) what DNI does instantly. Imagine the man-hours wasted by doing this yourself (ouch).

Honestly, if you’ve done this, you deserve a pat on the back for working so hard, and I’ll vouch for you the next time you are up to get a raise.

1) Generic DNI Solutions

There are a lot of competitors in the call tracking space. We own that CallSource has been here for 26+ years and invented the technology. Over our lifetime, we have seen a lot of call tracking innovations come and go. When the online web took off, many said that the phone was dead, a lost cause and that nobody would do business on that antique system. Well, …then smart phones arrived.

How it Works

Today every website is (should be) mobile optimized and deliver an equally positive experience for its mobile users. Users are on multiple devices is at an all-time high with projections of every person owning an average of 13 devices by the year 2021.1 This is shocking to imagine that your website could be visited by the same person across 13 different devices. Each of those devices could have a handful of different browsers making this even more complicated. Those complications of devices and browsers are different to track and measure.

How do we define generic DNI solutions? Generics are DNI solutions that essentially combine any of the basic methods I’ve previously mentioned and add little else to increase reliability. They are not easy to recognize unless you know what you are looking for. These are the big questions we suggest you ask:

  • How do they manage and ensure the pool size of dynamic numbers is sufficient?
  • What effort does it take on your part to manage the tracking of campaigns, ad sets, ads, keywords, and consumers?
  • Is the tagging of conversion events automated, do you have to monitor it and set up every single event on every page or for every different campaign?
  • Is the solution reliable across devices, browsers, and when your consumers are not cookied?
  • Does it integrate with Google Analytics? (Possibly other integrations?)

Why it Isn’t Reliable

The trouble with Generic DNI solutions is that they can be alluring with low costs, seem like high savings, but are often more effort than they are worth. What happens if you can’t trust your data? You are almost always better off with a standard or premium DNI solution.

Let’s be transparent…we are a call tracking company. Yes, we know a lot about call tracking; yes, we want your business, but we would be amiss if we did not work hard to make sure that you are satisfied with reliable call tracking (even if it’s not with us).

BONUS: The Right Way to Track Phone Calls Online

The right way to track phone calls online is to reliably track 100% of your calls, score them to determine if they are quality or not, score your handlers to ensure they are handling the calls right, and optimize your advertisements by the reliably tracked calls.

Businesses that do this are not in the 1% or even top 10% of businesses. Businesses that do this are businesses that want to make business decisions based on reliable and actionable data. That is, or could be you!

The right way to track phone calls online is to deploy a robust dynamic phone number system that can be utilized and customized to fit your team. The right way might also include:

    • Automated pool size management.
    • Automated event tracking of all conversions.
    • Automated tracking with granular measurements of campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, and/or consumers.
    • Cookie-less analytics that tracks consumers across devices, browsers, and unifies the users (merges/matches) for you.
    • Fully integrated solution that gets out of your way and gives you the optimization you need to maximize your advertisements.

Near 100% uptime of inbound phone lines and platform access.

(Plug: In case you haven’t heard you should check out our DNI/Dynamic Phone Number Online Call Tracking Solution, powered by AutoID)

At the end of the day, we believe that the right online call tracking solution is whatever is best for your business. Not all DNI solutions are equal just like not all businesses are the same. I strongly advise that you implement the best solution you possibly can afford and can maximize with your marketing team.

If you have questions, other solutions to add, or simply a nice word to say do not hesitate to comment or shoot us a reply. We are a dedicated team focused on doing everything we can for our users. Take care!

Work Cited

1. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/302663/north-american-consumers-to-have-13-connected-devi.html

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management

How an Incentive Program Can Help Recapture Lost Leads

August 17, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna 2 Comments

Use incentives to win back that lost caller.

While incentive programs are useful for improving overall employee performance, they can be especially helpful when it comes to refining certain KPIs – specifically recapturing phone leads that didn’t book an appointment with you the first time around.

Administering an incentive program based around recapturing lost leads can be very fruitful for both your business and your employees. It is a win-win: your business gets more customers, and the employee wins some sort of incentive.

It’s been discovered that incentive programs can boost performance by anywhere from 25 to 44 percent. What could that do for your business if call handlers could increase appointment conversion ratios in those same ratios?

Although incentives can also help in boosting call handlers’ performance in booking more appointments on first-time inbound calls, let’s focus today on incorporating an incentivized call-back program with for your top-performing employee(s).

A Successful Call-Back Program

It is important for whoever you choose to be your designated call-back employee to be individually motivated. If they work better in a team setting, then you may want to pair them up with another person to be responsible for call-backs too. But if you have one person who is very motivated to do things on their own, they would be a great choice for this type of incentive program.

Just like a sales person who has to make outbound calls and can make as little or much money as the effort they put in, the call-back employee must stay on top of any missed opportunity alerts received by your call tracking provider.

As far as what incentive to offer your call-back employee(s), try to figure out what motivates each particular individual and create a tailored program. Would your employee be motivated to work hardest at recapturing a lost lead if it means “X” amount of dollars per recaptured caller? If money right now isn’t the right motivation tool, perhaps working up to something bigger like additional time off or a reward program is better. Ask your employees what they would enjoy most, and incorporate that into your incentive program.

Effectively Book Lost Leads

As with any incentive program, there must be clear parameters. A few of the things to take into consideration for a successful call-back program are:

  • What percentage of lost leads vs. actual missed opportunities is the employee calling back on? Look at the number of missed opportunity alerts you’ve received, and use a tracker sheet to see how their call backs compare to that number.
  • How successful is the call handler at rebooking these missed opportunities? Of those that the employee called, how many did they convert into an appointment at this second attempt?
  • How quickly is the call-back employee following up after receiving the missed opportunity alert? The point of having these missed opportunities alerted to you is so that they can be followed up with right away. If the call handler waits too long, that opportunity may be long gone. Look at time stamps of when the missed opportunity happened versus when the employee called them back.

A key component of implementing this program is, of course, to actually know when missed opportunities are occurring. Receiving some sort of missed opportunity notifications, such as CallSource’s DealSaver program, is vital. Otherwise, your call handlers would have to manually inform the call-back person every time they didn’t set an appointment with a prospect – which is a very unreliable way to do this.

If you need some ideas for incentives to offer employees that are not strictly cash, check out our list of non-cash incentives.

Apply an incentive program and call-back program and start seeing your number of appointments skyrocket – it just takes a bit of effort and a little prize.

And yes, while you do have to be aware of your actual missed opportunities and put a plan in place, many CallSource clients have done so with much success. When two programs coincide with each other such as this call-back program aligned with an effective incentive program, it can be the difference that your business needs.

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management, Performance Management

Don’t Let a Prospective Hearing Patient Turn into a Missed Opportunity

August 14, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna Leave a Comment

Make sure your hearing loss callers feel heard on the phone.

Working in the hearing industry requires a certain kind of person – someone who wants to help others to live life as normally as possible. It’s a heroic decision to commit your working life to benefit others.

Being responsible for answering phones at an audiologist office also has its own struggles and hurdles to overcome. Callers are most likely either a person with hearing loss or a loved one who wants to help their family member or friend.

For those calling in with their own hearing issues, it may be evident on the phone call that they have trouble hearing. As the call handler, you want to be aware of this and make the best user experience possible. The goal of the call is to have the prospective patient come into your office to help them with his or her hearing issue; setting the appointment by the end of the call is vital.

If the call does not go smoothly and the caller has a bad experience, the call will end without an appointment. This is a missed opportunity. Missing just one potential patient could mean losing the opportunity to help more than just the caller. “According to W. Edwards Deming in his ground-breaking book Out of the Crisis, a happy customer who comes back for more is worth 10 new prospects. Happy customers spread their good news to 8 other potential customers, but unhappy customers spread their bad news to 16 potential customers,” says The Hearing Review.1

Here are a few tips to ensure that your next calls result in appointments rather than lost patients.

  • Speak slowly and clearly, using the caller’s name throughout the call. This makes it clear that you are paying attention to the caller and making everything as clear as possible, so there is no confusion on expectations or commitments.2
  • Try to minimize extraneous background noise. Most likely, you are answering calls in the front office where there may be many patients waiting in the waiting room area near the desk. When answering a call, try to close the glass partition to keep the noise level at a minimum, so the caller doesn’t have any trouble hearing you.2
  • Have the caller repeat vital information back to you. When you are confirming appointment times, a doctor’s name, directions to the office, or anything of the sort back to you. This avoids missed communication and prevents your caller from missing their appointment because of mishearing important details.2
  • Build rapport with the caller. People want to do business with people they like, so make sure to be friendly and hospitable with each caller. Treat them like a person, not just another phone call. Download our “5 Ways to Build Rapport” sheet for more tips on building rapport with callers.

Potential lost patients don’t just mean that there is one less person you are not helping to hear; it can also be detrimental to your business. According to The Hearing Review:

“Nearly 20% of people with hearing loss who choose to be non-adopters report their decision was based on the poor experience of a friend or relative. That amounts to nearly 4.2 million people. Considering their average age (66), the binaural rate (75%), and the expected 4-5 year repurchase cycle over their lifetime, if they cannot be convinced of the quality of hearing healthcare and that they will derive significant benefit from visiting a HHP, then the opportunity cost of this potentially lost consumer segment is staggering—perhaps a loss of 35 million hearing aids over the next 20 years.” 1

Follow these tips and make sure that you aren’t losing patients due to bad customer experience, especially before they even step foot into your office.

Curious to learn more about your missed opportunities? Contact a CallSource representative and discover how we can help improve your call-to-appointment ratio.

1. https://www.hearingreview.com/2014/08/customer-loyalty-quotient-clq/
2. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/communicating_with_people_with_hearing_loss/

Filed Under: CallTrack Tagged With: Call Management, Performance Management

Having Trouble Booking Callers into Appointments? It’s Time to Apply Reciprocity on Your Sales Calls

August 8, 2018 by Cassie Ciopryna Leave a Comment

By using this advanced selling technique, you’ll have less missed opportunities and more appointments set.

Have you ever noticed that you feel compelled to do something for people who have helped you along the way – even if they haven’t asked you to help them? As humans, we normally try to return favors, pay back debts, and generally treat others as they have treated us. This idea of reciprocity leads us to feel obliged to offer certain things to someone if they have offered something to us. This is because we do not want to feel indebted to someone else.

For example, you might feel obliged to help a friend move out of an apartment if they have helped you on a house project in the past. A client might decide to buy from you instead of a competitor if you are doing everything you can to get the best possible price or any additional services. Reciprocity can be applied in many different life and work instances, and it can benefit your ROI by making more callers want to book an appointment with your company instead of wanting to wait and call around for more options.

Applying Reciprocity on the Phone

To use reciprocity to influence others, you’ll need to identify your objective, think about what you want from the other person (the appointment/commitment), and then identify what you can give them in return.

By staying helpful and friendly on the phone, the caller will feel a connection with you as well, and want to give you their business.

In this case, the rule of doing someone a favor in order for them to feel obligated to do you a favor won’t exactly work. So what can you give to the client? You can give:

  • Your time
  • Your interest
  • Your expertise
  • Your understanding

Although they are not materialistic, by giving your clients these things, they will feel that you are doing them a favor by looking out for their best interests. You are directly involved, giving them your time and listening as well as giving your educated advice on their unique situations.

A potential client is calling because they need something from you. Just by being able to work with them and give them that appointment when they need it will feel like you are doing them a favor. As long as you are able to work with them, they will feel obliged to want to work with you.

By staying helpful and friendly on the phone, the caller will feel a connection with you as well, and want to give you their business. By understanding and listening to a caller’s issue, as well as offering your expertise on their situation, you are offering them something they want and need. Then, they will give you what you want: the appointment.

Importance of Using Reciprocity

Why is reciprocity an influencing tool that you should utilize in your business, especially as a call handler? People generally buy from someone that they like, and are more willing to give their business to someone that they feel is doing something great for them in return. It is important to showcase this while on the phone—you are trying to help the potential customer, and you have something to offer.

Reciprocity is a two-way street. If the client is going to pay you for a service, then you want to make sure to do it to the best of your ability and put as much time into it as necessary to make it the best experience possible. That starts right from the beginning when the phone rings.

If you promise something but then do not to reciprocate, you trigger a negative form of reciprocity. It is important to live up to your standards and promises. Otherwise, the client may not support you in the future, and may go as far as to make sure that others don’t as well. But if both sides hold up their end of the bargain (client calls for service, you deliver, they are happy), then that reciprocity will continue as they will do you the favor of recommending you to their friends and family.

Positive reciprocity will help you gain the appointment that you desire with the customer. It is important to remember that not only are you helping this person with their need, but they are fulfilling a need for you as well to help your business.

Filed Under: CallTrack, Call Coaching Tagged With: Call Management, Performance Management

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