When to Outsource Call Tracking
Tracking phone calls. What is it? Why should you do it?
Call tracking allows you to figure out where your calls are coming from, how often the phone is ringing, length of calls, and other information. These metrics can help you determine the health of your support team, success of your call center, and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
With call tracking, you can:
- Determine how well offline efforts are performing, such as a billboards, direct mailings, or print ads.
- Identify which pages on your site drive the most phone calls. Do people call more from your home page or your help page?.
- Integrate offline data into online analytics – perfect harmony!
- Track calls in certain geographic locations. Learn if you’re penetrating certain regions more effectively than others.
- Integrate calls into a customer relationship management system to keep track of which customers have called you before.
But is this something you can do on your own or should you find someone else to handle your efforts?
Here’s how to see if you should outsource your efforts:
Determine Your Scope
Are you just trying to determine the success of one billboard or do you plan to track calls over a long period of time over a vast geographic area? The size of your project will determine whether or not you should outsource or keep things in house. The bigger the project, the more likely it is that you’ll need an expert or software solution to guide you through.
Know Your Goals
Before you make a decision, you need to know WHY you’re looking to track calls. Trying to determine who calls from your website is a different beast than using call tracking to determine the health of each and every sales call.
Check Your Tech-Savvy-ness
How tech savvy are you? Do you have the ability to integrate call tracking into your existing solution, or would you need help? Most people aren’t tech-savvy enough to do call tracking on their own. Even if they are, the time commitment isn’t worth it. Most businesses are better off focusing on what they’re good at rather than implementing their own call tracking system.
Look at Your Budget
Call tracking costs money, and that’s something to consider before diving in. LOGMyCalls charges $69 per month for their most basic package, but includes a 15 day free trial so you can test out the service. Ifbyphone charges $100 per month for their most basic package.
Pros and Cons of Both Strategies
| Pros of Outsourcing | Cons of Outsourcing |
|---|---|
| Equipment savings | Can get very expensive |
| Someone can run it without you being involved | May be inflexible when setting up |
| Experts are always on hand so you don’t have to learn anything new | Could get roped into lengthy contract |
| Saves time |
Looking for the perfect number for your business? Look no further.
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What Companies Offer Outsourced Services?
- Ifbyphone – Allows you to dynamically show numbers of your site and can integrate with Google Analytics, AdWords, and Salesforce
- CallSource – CallSource’s CallTrack captures every caller’s phone number, identifies the advertising source and records calls for review. It lets you capture lost leads.
- LOGMyCalls – Offers a host of features and integrations to help you determine the quality of your leads and increase your marketing ROI.
- Twilio – Add call tracking numbers to ads or listings with a few lines of code.