Best Reasons to Change Your Number with Keymotive Marketing
This interview with the KeyMotive marketing team is part of the Convirza Webinar Series. The following Q&A portion of the presentation explains the best times to change your number when implementing call tracking.
Should you change your number?
McKay: Great. This is a good question. It’s, “Do I have to change the number on my website?” Good question. The answer is yes and no. You don’t have to change your business number that you’ve had for 1,000 years. That’s your business’s phone number, this phone number your wife calls when she wants to reach you at the shop and all that stuff. That’s not a problem. What we do recommend is a feature that is called dynamic number insertion.
So what that does is it actually automatically and dynamically uses a JavaScript code to change your number that appears on your site, depending on how someone visits your site. So if someone does a Google search, they would actually see a different phone number than someone who just visits your site directly.
That allows our system to tell how many phone calls each source is producing. Now, the next question is, naturally, won’t that confuse people if you change your number and so they see a different phone number?
There are two answers to the main question whether or not to change your number.
The first is anecdotally. Personally, I don’t remember one business’s phone number, literally one. With smartphones these days, I couldn’t tell you my brother’s phone number. I know my wife’s phone number off the top of my head, and my parents’ phone number. That’s about it. So phone numbers – people don’t care what your phone number is.
And then, second, the data – not anecdotally – but data that has been published in the New York Times and a variety of other places shows that people will call whatever number they see. So it really doesn’t matter what number you display on the page. It’s a matter of getting marketing information.
Scott: McKay, let me jump in there…
McKay: Yeah, go ahead.
Scott: I couldn’t concur more. Most people are doing a search or trying to find your business via mobile, so they’re going to start with Google Maps or Google search. They might use Yelp, they might use your website, they might use a Goodyear/Firestone or independent store locator.
Whatever number is listed in that search function, they will, with their smartphone, just tap on that number, and it’s going to call your shop, or it’s going to dial through to that number. They won’t know whether four different numbers are different numbers. It’s just the society that we live in these days. It makes it easier to track than what sources are really driving your market.
Jerry: I’m going to jump in here real quick. This is Jerry Terrasi, and, like McKay said, we don’t change your number. It’s a number that gets inserted. It gets forwarded to your phone number, so you never lose your phone number. You don’t change your number. When they call this tracking number, it automatically forwards to the number that you want to forward it to. So it’ll ring, the customer will not know that it’s a different phone number. The person calling it will not know that it’s a different phone number, that it’s getting forwarded, or anything like that. It’s just going to go right to the number that you want it to go to, so there’s really no reason to change your number, “Am I going to lose my phone number?” No, you’re not going to lose your phone number, anything like that. I want to mention a couple of things back into the presentation as far as the data.
Being that we would get your – if you’re a customer of ours doing other database marketing programs with us – we’re getting your customer data, and then what happens is when somebody calls, we can track that call back to the invoice as well, and that’s not a perfect match, because we’re going to be matching on the caller ID. I don’t know if you noticed on one of those screens that you got the caller ID where the call was coming from, the tracking number that was called, and then the number that the call was forwarded to. That one right there, yes. You just passed it.
McKay: I’ll go back to the first one there. There we go.
Jerry: We’re not getting rid of a phone number, like I said. If they called from the number that’s on the invoice, we can track that back to the invoice and actually tell how much someone is spending through a call that was made where we’re tracking. The scorecard – go back to that as well. The scorecard that we have set up is about 10 questions that we’re actually looking at when someone answers the phone.
Again, like McKay said, are they asking for the person’s name? Are they being clear when they’re picking up the phone? “ABC Tire, this is John.” Are they being clear? What’s their demeanor like on the phone? Are they asking for the business? Those are all questions that get asked on the scorecard to determine how well the person did on the phone, and how we can make that person better.
Different programs, different options for the call program, for the Engage program, it depends on how much you want to spend and how many numbers you want. You want just the call recordings and the phone number. We can score for you and you don’t change your number. We can do training, we can do coach calls. Once a quarter we listen to phone calls and give you input, get everybody on the phone and do a conference call, and do some coaching.
There are a lot of things, depending on if you want one phone number on the website, or you want a phone number on the website, a phone number on your direct marketing, a phone number on Google. So there are different ways and different budgets that this all can be applied to. One of the things about listening to phone calls, as Scott said, he listens to some of these phone calls, and I do as well. What can I learn, talking to the dealers, the customers on the phone calls that I listen to?
Some of the main things that I have found are that they’re not asking for the business. I don’t know how many calls I’ve listened to, “No, I don’t have those tires,” and then you hear silence. Another customer calls and says, “Can you get those tires?” “Yeah, my warehouse has them,” and you hear silence, and then you hear again the customer calling, “A couple of days?” “No, I have them at my warehouse. I can have them to you tomorrow.” So instead of saying, “No, I don’t have those tires, my warehouse has them. I can have them here in the morning. I’ve got an opening at 10:00am, and at 2:00, which time works for you better, and I can get you in?”
They’re not asking for the sale. They’re not asking for the appointment, and that’s one of the biggest things that’s a common denominator in the number of calls that I’ve listened to. So we’re trying to help the dealers, trying to help you become stronger, to close more sales, to get that bottom line revenue up. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there in the automotive service industry. You know that. They’re popping up all over. You’ve probably got a competitor down the road. How are you going to differentiate yourself from that competitor down the road?
McKay: That’s great, Jerry. That’s great advice. We’ve got a couple more questions. Two really good questions here, three… yeah, a lot of good questions. This one’s from Robert. He says, “You mentioned call recording is legal in most cases. What’s the case in Pennsylvania specifically, and what are federal laws regarding that?”
So here’s the deal with call recording, and I’ll look up Pennsylvania, I’ll throw Wikipedia up here, and we can look – the source of all knowledge in humanity, Wikipedia. Here’s the deal with call recording: Call recording is governed by what are called one-party and two-party consent laws. So here’s what that means. One-party consent means that just one person on the phone call needs to know it’s recorded, i.e., your employee. So if your employee knows it’s being recorded, that’s sufficient in about 36 states, I believe, and those states are predominantly sort of in the middle of America. The coasts are a little more firm on call recording.
In the middle of America typically – and I’ll look up state-by-state, and, you know what, Robert, I’ll send you Pennsylvania information after the webinar is over. But in most states, all you need to know is the employee needs to know the call’s being recorded. You don’t even need to have that little, “This call may be recorded” disclaimer.
In 14 states, there are what are called two-party consent laws, meaning that both parties on the phone – i.e., the employee and the caller – need to know the call’s being recorded. And all that means is there needs to be the little two-second blurb, “This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes,” or whatever. And we have some of those pre-recorded on Convirza, so you can just go into the setup area, click that you want that recording, that notification, to play for about two seconds, and then it plays. That’s the call recording rule right there. So as long as they’re notified in the two-party states, it’s legal, and in the other states, as long as your employees are notified, it’s perfectly legal.
So that’s the question to that, and let me know, Robert, if that doesn’t answer your question sufficiently. Daniel asks a good question. He says, “Who establishes different numbers for use for different media for your tracking?” And then Brad asked a follow up question to that. He says, “If you have a couple ads for promotion, like print, website, radio, etc., how do you track all of them?”
So I think this is the same question. The way you would do that is you would put different tracking numbers on each of those channels. You would actually put different local numbers, for example, on your direct mail pieces than you would on your website. You would change your number and put that new phone number associated in your radio ad than you would from your direct mail campaigns or with your local phone book. So you just simply use different numbers in all of those places, and you’re able to track which of those is producing phone calls and which isn’t.
Now, as who determines that, I think to Daniel’s question, that depends. If you’re running your own marketing, or a substantial portion of your own marketing, you would. You’d just go into Convirza, get a number, and throw it on your direct mail piece. We work with Convirza to get phone numbers for you. Then we will give you the phone numbers. You just tell us where you want them pointed to, and we’ll point them to you. As McKay said, they’re all local numbers. They’re not going to be a long-distance number for somebody calling that particular location, if you have multiple locations. So they’re all going to be local numbers.
If you’re looking for a specific number, that might be a little more difficult to find, because there are only so many phone numbers to be had for certain cell phone numbers, there’s only a certain bank of phone numbers for landlines, a certain bank of phone numbers. There’s only a certain bank of phone numbers that are allowed, but we work with you on getting the phone numbers. We can get the phone numbers for you, however many that you need, and then you just need to let us know where you want them to point, and then we’ll point them to wherever necessary.
Before we ventured into doing the call tracking, the call recording, there are obviously other companies out there besides Convirza that do recording and tracking of that sort. We did a lot of extensive research on some of these companies out there, and from the research that we did before we ventured into call tracking, which we’ve done now since last year, we did a lot of research, and we decided to partner with Convirza because of the metrics that they have, and their customer service, and how they’ve worked with us.
We’re very pleased to partner with Convirza. We found that they are one of the better ones in the business, the way their reports work that they have. You have our reports, but you also have their reports as well. We like their reports, we like the speed of how quickly their reports generate. We like the type of reports that they have. They’re very, very easy to use. Like I said, we did a lot of research before we partnered with somebody when we partnered with Convirza.
McKay: Awesome. Thanks for that. Good, and then we have one more question here. Let me see, just making sure I don’t miss any. Okay. We’ve got a couple of questions about specific states about call recording, Pennsylvania, Maryland – we’ll get that to you guys. And, as I said, please know that there are no states in which call recording is illegal. There are some states where you just have to play the little message before the call. Some people are saying, “Well, is call recording illegal in this state?” Well, it’s legal in every state, just in some states you have to play the little disclaimer, and other states you don’t.
Jerry: Let me interrupt really quick. So far, we do have the – in everybody that’s participating in the Engage program and the call tracking program – we do have that little sentence that goes on before the call goes lives that says, “This call may be recorded for training purposes.” So, by that, you’re letting the person calling know that the call is being recorded. Then you have a meeting at your store and say, “Hey, we’re going to be doing some call recording,” and all your bases are covered.
McKay: Yup, all your bases are covered, and the thing that’s funny is immediately when employees know their calls are being recorded, performance improves, period. Like even without training. Performance gets better even if they just know their calls are being recorded. Then the last question, Brad asked, “Are these actually live calls?” And the answer is yes. So you’ll actually be able to log in, go to this Listen area, and hear your actual customers talk to actual employees about actual tires, and that’s pretty cool stuff, honestly. It’s actually kind of addicting. You can sit there and listen to calls and get a lot of good data, so.
Scott: Oh, you can. Once you start listening to calls, “Oh, this is a good call.” “Oh, I’ve got to talk to this guy, this was bad.” You know. But you can, it’s very interesting to hear the calls. And, yes, they are live calls. They’re actual calls from people picking up the phone. It’s not mystery shoppers, it’s not canned phone calls. It’s actual dollars that you can assign to each phone call. Did you get that sale or not? Did you get that appointment or not?
McKay: That’s right. And the last point I’ll make, and I know that Scott and Jerry would say this, too. Ultimately we want you to improve your marketing tactically as well as with the data, and so you certainly don’t need to… I guess the way I’ll put it in this. You could certainly get by without using call tracking. I mean, you know, people are in business and don’t use it, but you will have much more efficient marketing spend if you would use call tracking than if you don’t. That’s from data, from case studies, from the industry.
Anyway, with that, unless there are any other questions – and thanks for your questions, everybody, we really appreciate it. Anyway, with that, guys, anything else to add before we conclude?
Scott: No, I want to thank you, McKay.
Jerry: No, thank you. And thanks, everyone, for joining in and listening to our webinar here on call tracking and the best reasons to change your number. Hopefully we can help you guys out and increase your bottom line, increase your appointments from the calls that come through. But again, thanks everyone, and thanks, McKay.
Scott: Yeah, thanks again. Let’s go sell some tires!
McKay: Let’s do it! Thanks, everybody. Have a wonderful day, and have a great rest of the week. Bye-bye.
Published on: Sep 17, 2015
