Chapter 9

Common Arguments Against Call Tracking

1. My staff will get mad if I record their calls!

We hear this concern a lot. True, your employees might get a little upset if they find out that secretly being recorded. So, don't do that! Alert your staff of the new feature and all the benefits for doing so. After all, it does afford them some protection. Your staff will be okay with the new process once they understand how it will help the business. If one of them takes issue with it then you really need to ask the question, "What is happening on my phone that would cause such a reaction?"

• Recording calls provides tangible accountability for your staff. We've been doing this a long time. We know for a fact they will perform better once they know they are being recorded.
• Remember that if your staff is performing well on the phone, they know they have nothing to worry about. If a member of your staff is worried that the recordings will highlight all of the missed opportunities they are fielding every day, that's even more reason to track them! One of the top reasons for recording calls is maintaining a high customer satisfaction rating.
• Remember that recording calls also highlights the GOOD calls. Keep the focus positive and always include good calls in trainings and reviews.

2. Call tracking is just another expense to add to my budget.

On the contrary, Call tracking is one of the most effective ways to SAVE your marketing dollars! It makes it painfully clear how INEFFECTIVE some of your marketing is. For example, a $2 tracking number might show what a waste your $5,000 direct mailer was. Even more powerful than preventing you from spending money on what doesn't work, call tracking will point out what does. It will help you allocate your budget to spend more money on pieces that get you a higher return on investment (ROI). We always say that a good rule of thumb is to spend 3% of your marketing budget on call tracking to make sure that the other 97% is working. Call tracking pays for itself pretty quickly by helping you capture more leads on the same budget.

3. AT&T (or my other phone provider) can supply me unique numbers and tracking reports.

True, the concept of a unique number is not rocket science, and you could probably get different numbers and a call count record from your phone service provider. Unfortunately, getting useful data from those numbers will probably prove difficult. Here are just a few things that you would be missing:

• Call recordings and the feedback loop they provide for your staff.
• Knowing where your website calls are coming from.
• FREE routing features like bridges, round robin, voicemail lines, greetings, and whispers.
• A real time user interface.
• Knowing the quality of each call (Was an appointment booked? Was this a new prospect call?).

4. Call tracking just presents more risk for dropped calls.

Call tracking routes callers seamlessly to your business (without them noticing a thing). As for quality, we pay our carriers a premium to be on Emergency Responder/911 status. Our connection rate is over 99.99%, so you can sleep soundly at night!

In most cases, adding call tracking actually leads to less dropped calls. We often find that we're alerting our clients that they have a local network down or phone hardware issue before they're even aware of it. Call tracking then allows you to reroute those calls to cell phones with just a few clicks of a button while you work to resolve the other issue. Callers that would have gotten an error message are now able to get through to your business and get serviced.

5. It isn't actionable.

Fortunately, this argument couldn't be further from the truth! Each of our reports is designed specifically to provide simple, actionable data. Summary-level reports are designed to show which marketing pieces are the most effective in the simplest way possible. Marketing can always be improved and call tracking will consistently show you the most effective way to do that.

We even go so far as to listen to calls FOR you and pick out the most important calls that really need your attention, so you don't have to worry about listening to every single one. We'll also integrate that review data into your reporting so you can focus on patterns. We use the simplest feedback forms possible?red and green arrows?to make the required action obvious. You want green arrows! Call recording and agent activity reports drive action by providing a feedback loop that effortlessly encourages agents to make the most of every single phone call.

• Introduction: Call Tracking 101
• Chapter 6: Website Tracking?
• Chapter 1: Why Do I Need It?
• Chapter 7: Will It Affect My SEO?
• Chapter 2: What Does It Do?
• Chapter 8: What If I Get A Lot Of Calls?
• Chapter 3: What Else Does It Do?
• Chapter 9: Arguments Against Call Tracking
• Chapter 4: Is It Right For Me?
• Chapter 10: How Are Others Using It?
• Chapter 5: What About Outbound?
• Chapter 11: Getting Started