Nowadays, the consumers are becoming more specific and meticulous with their choices. They also wanted a convenient marketplace; where details about the prospective product they are eyeing can be easily accessed and compared with what everything available. With the growing number of businesses around, competition is becoming tighter as well. With the growing demands of both consumers and the business sector, a company needs to be ingenious in thinking of ways to add leverage to their business.
Technology in the Business Sector
Technology has become synonymous with ease, convenience and ingenuity. One may say it is a continuous process of birthing and re-birthing of ideas and inventions, which might even make people immobile in the future because everything they need is within easy reach. Technology has touched all the aspects of humankind, even their mindsets. It is something that caused many revolutions (of ideas), solutions, and time consumers. Technology has definitely reached a status of prominence in the society, and people don’t stop seeking more ways to advance it further.
The business sector – from the struggles of trade and product selling, to e-commerce and web based market platform, had really reached milestone after milestone through the innovations in technology. Many business people have utilized technology in almost all aspects in their businesses, causing them to see different perspectives and ideas for improvement. These things also significantly impacted their performances and business revenues. Business tools, in general, became “partners”, as well as investments in reaching goals faster. Business tools help a business keep up with market trends, predict future market situations, or maybe even dictate it. Technology and business make excellent partners in enabling the marketplace to maintain its stability, and as a place where only healthy competition takes place.
Marketing and Technology
An effective marketing strategy and execution is one of the foundations of a strong business. There are many available avenues for product promotion, which can be classified into two categories: through offline advertising and online means. Offline media pertains to a more traditional approach in marketing strategies. It includes billboards, print ads (newspapers, magazines), radio and tv commercials, flyers and posters. The online media, which is also multimedia in nature, utilize the internet as a marketplace, or a platform for business. The internet can be accessed easily through mobile technology. But with these market and marketing trends, is it really possible to make conclusive statements that one marketing strategy favors the other when it comes to efficiency and effectiveness, without making of a more detailed analysis of it?
In the past, marketing is only driven by the intention to think of creative ways in promoting the company’s products or services. Effective marketing translates to bigger sales and huge profits. This still holds true until now, but a deeper observation is that there is a huge gap that needs to be filled about knowing what particular marketing campaign contributed to the revenues of the company. A big chunk of the company’s resources is being used with such marketing campaigns, and not knowing what particular strategy worked may mean some of the money were just wasted away. There is not even a clearer picture about an accurate ROI for such investments. This dilemma has been experienced in businesses after businesses.
That phone call
According to a study conducted by NewVoiceMedia, customers still prefer phone calls to contact a prospective business. The reasons are because they felt that it was the most effective and the fastest way that the business can respond to their queries. They felt more satisfied with making phone calls, because of the amount of information and details they can get out of it. Realizing further, there is an untapped potential in these phone calls because as what the survey revealed, this is a faster way to take action from the customer’s part. But the question is, what driven them to call?
Call Tracking
Call tracking is a technique used by marketing professionals to be able to assess the performance of their marketing campaign. The basic way to do it is to “hook up” the system to their phone facility, designate its number as the primary hotline for contacting the company, and include this single phone number in every marketing collateral within the campaign. When a potential customer calls this number, the system automatically records all the information pertaining to the call, including the caller information (if applicable with directory based phone systems), caller’s geographical location, the call duration, time of call, and other recordable details. All the information will then be stored and will be classified, turning it into metrics or statistics type of data. The data will then be further analyzed through methods of data analytics. The report will be generated upon user request. From it, the marketing professional can accurately assess if their marketing efforts are successful, or not. Call tracking gives a new perspective in handling the marketing arm of a business. Now, the marketing campaigns aren’t just sales driven anymore, but also to be able to utilize the company’s resource allocation for them. The reports were all metrics based and underwent data analytics, so at the same time, it gives a more realistic scenario of the status of the company’s Return of Investment, or ROI.
A call tracking software is a platform based system, based its system from the call tracking techniques. It basically automates the whole process, and the system itself has been integrated with a powerful data analysis feature that can handle large volumes of data. It also connects all elements in a PSTN network, that is, including other network channels in your system like the internet or mobile phones, to be able to fully cover all possible sources of data. It is a more efficient way of optimizing the call tracking system.
A phone call tracking software is a dynamic business tool, however, some marketing people are skeptical about getting one for their company. Some were worried about it to be too costly. For some, especially with small businesses, would think they don’t even need one. With a number of benefits it offers, still here, are the common misconceptions that people have about call tracking softwares.
- It invades privacy
The technology of a call tracking system enables users to monitor and listen only to inbound calls made to the hotline it is integrated into. And most companies purchase a dedicated line for customer service inquiries. This will make customer relations a centralized system, and will adhere to company’s professionalism ethics and conduct. The line will be strictly for business purposes only, and more often than not, that same line cannot make outgoing calls, thus limiting employees from using it for personal purposes. Some companies even include in the pre-recorded messages in a hotline telling the caller that some calls may be recorded, to ensure the high quality standard of their service. It may refrain the caller from divulging other details apart from the details of the product or service he/she is inquiring for.
- It is unnecessary
Especially for small businesses, the idea of call tracking intelligence doesn’t seem to appeal because of other marketing performance evaluation tools available today. Some have been using one or two of these tools already and may say that it is effective, therefore doesn’t need an unfamiliar system anymore. But the idea of a sales call tracking software is a centralized system that is platform based, or makes use of technology to make it automated. It can replace the bulk of paper work from surveys, and the inconvenience of filling forms for the customers. The system automatically retrieves the needed data from the inbound calls received, which usually contains more detailed information than the forms can contain. The system is also “intelligent” enough to process the data it gathered and turn it into meaningful reports where the user can gain valuable insights about their marketing campaign performance.
- It is outdated
The popularity of web based advertising and online survey forms made call tracking seems to be an outdated technology. But what not everybody knows that it is almost basically the same idea behind the pay per click business model for advertising. Pay per click is a flexible feature of web based advertising agencies, wherein a business only pays the service provider for every “click” of their banners or advertisements in the internet. On the other hand, a call tracking software has this feature called Pay per call. Like the pay per click, the user will pay only for the number of inbound calls it receives via the phone numbers the software is integrated into.
Nowadays, a call tracking software is already interfaced with web based advertising, as well as the VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, or the Internet telephony. Every communication channel will be assigned unique call tracker, associated with a unique phone number. All data that will be gathered from all the elements of PSTN that are integrated with each other will be processed centrally by the call tracking software, and the reports generated will provide a more accurate perspective of the whole marketing performance across multiple campaigns and sources.
- The analysis is unreliable
As a business intelligence tool, a call tracking software makes use of a sophisticated form of data analytics, which uses metrics in gathering data from calls. It is a comprehensive system of analyzing data from patterns in time, location and other information. Thus the reports generated from its system is a reliable set of analysis that aids decision making over marketing performances. It also provides a more realistic view of the ROI within a specific timeframe. Its reports, together with that of sales and revenue report, will make more sensible overview of the company’s overall performance.
- It is an inefficient use of business money
Any purchase within a business is an additional cost, and must be supported with sensible reasoning to prove that it can be regarded as a worthy investment. A call tracking software’s benefits can be realized in a short period of time, say 3-6 months of continuous use, so the data that will be gathered will be more realistic. The flexibility of the system, like the pay per call feature will release the company from the burden of monthly subscription payments like that of other regular 3rd party services. Its impact on the lead and client generation, and most especially in the evaluation of marketing campaigns used will render an appropriate allocation of marketing budget, will make it an efficient use of the company resources.
A strong founded company recognizes the need for the utilization of its own resources, as well as what is available in the market, in order to achieve its short term and long term goals. The use of technology will diminish most of the inconveniences and time consuming demands of running a business and therefore make a useful investment for its resources. It makes its employees more productive, so in turn will be more sensitive and attentive to the growing demands of the consuming public. All boils down to choosing the right business tools for your business specific needs.
To know more about how a call tracking software can help you with your business, see this list of reviews of call tracking softwares, top call tracking softwares and best call tracking service providers here.
Keith Moore
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