Why You Must Track Incoming Phone Call Numbers

Originally, I wrote this article for the July 2008 issue of Tom Piscitelli's monthly enewsletter System Selling Sales Bytes®. If you are not familiar with his training DVDs or seminars, you can visit his website.

If you’ve ever calculated the cost of producing an incoming telephone lead, you know how high it can go. This article explains how and why you should record and track incoming phone calls for your HVAC or similar business for three purposes: source of business, lead quality, and your company’s effectiveness of handling the lead.

How to Track Incoming Phone Calls
Asking a caller how they learned about your company is rarely reliable. First, hardly any phone reps remember to do it consistently, especially when other callers are waiting. Second, for internet leads, many customers do not know the difference in a natural search result (center part of a search results page) and your text ad on the top of the page or the right side column.

The solution: tracking telephone numbers that forward to your main telephone. These were created for marketing and offer many useful reports and features. They are available in toll-free or local numbers that look like your current phone number. In the process of forwarding, tracking numbers capture the source of the call and other important statistics. Recording the conversation is optional, and has benefits along with some privacy and HR responsibilities.

Tracking phone numbers have long been used for print ads. They can also be coded into your website to tell you the call came from the website. The latest improvement: dynamic substitution on your website to identify and track multiple sources of incoming calls. When both features are combined, you can see your calls from multiple sources in the same online dashboard: calls from natural traffic plus your marketing efforts by source.

Clients often ask us who owns a tracking number, and this is a legitimate concern. The better tracking number providers allow clients to “port over” a number at no cost. This means you can move the tracking number to a new service provider.

Why Tracking Call Numbers Puts More Profit In Your Pocket
Tracking phone calls provides three critical pieces of information: a-the source of the call (truck sign, website, etc.), b-the quality and potential value of the lead, and c- how well your phone rep handled the call. The first two parts are straightforward and monitored by some of the more effective HVAC companies. The third part gives you insights into how your phone reps can handle calls more efficiently or effectively, and often gets overlooked, especially during the busy season. Having listened to thousands of minutes of recorded conversations, I can assure you that listening to them is worth the time it takes or cost to pay a service to do it for you.

Your goal is more business and profits, not more phone leads, right? Then you must understand the source and quality of incoming calls and how effectively your company is handling them. It’s that simple. Tracking calls combined with improved internal handling allows you to spend less to get new customers leads you need at the time you need them.