If you haven't read part 1, you should probably start there! http://blog.datalicious.com/call-center-tracking-using-omniture-site-cata

Where to begin setting this up? As with all analytics and tracking, there are many ways to approach the problem, but below is our preferred solution as it fits so easily with the existing online architecture. If call centre staff are indeed able to use a modified version of the online store, the steps below will slash wasted time, improve call to sale conversion as well as bring your phone and online tracking together into a single reporting view.

Step 1 - The basic link
Configure your call center software such that an answered phone call will trigger the opening of a URL. To avoid opening lots of new windows, you should give the window a name, if the name is the same, each call will trigger in the same window.

Step 2 - Where the magic happens
Call center software has access to lots of information, the number dialed, the callers number, who answered the call, the time the user has waited in the queue, any menu selections, the calls unique ID, etc. There is no limit to what is available. You need to look at all the information and decide what is relevant (both for tracking and sales optimisation). Once you've decided what is relevant, you need to pass this information in the URL triggered when a call is answered. Example below:

http://callcentre.example.com/redirect.php?cc=yes&caller=5551231234&dialed=1800123123&id=1234567890&queue=350&agent=samsmith

Step 3 - Now what?
So you've completed the most important step, you've passed all the key information seamlessly between two previously independent systems. Now it's time to use it. The redirect.php is a script written to deal with the information passed. This is not only for capture in Site Catalyst, but also for directing the Agent straight to the right product or content to save time. This happens effectively instantaneously.

Examples:
- Take the sales agent straight to the product page associated with the number dialed.
- Apply appropriate discounts based on known customer information
- Populate fields with customer information to save time

Step 4 - What about the tracking?
The redirect script will send the agent to the appropriate page with all the appropriate site catalyst data as URL parameters. You can then use the getQueryParam plugin to extract these parameters and direct them into the correct Site Catalyst variables.

Typically an Agent will sit on their computer all day, that's no good as the one session will stay alive. To start a new one in Omniture for each call, set the visitor ID to be equal to the unique ID of the call. This will ensure each call appears as a visit in your reports. Usually you would put this ID into an eVar as well, so you can use classifications to import additional data later.

To differentiate call centre traffic to the online traffic, set an eVar and persist it (you must have the get and persist plugin installed), this will allow you to break out call centre traffic with a vista rule later if required. All your Agents traffic will be marked.

Some information you'll want in eVars: Typically i would put the Agents name, the number dialed and any customer ID as a first start. Products, Events on the modified call center interface should follow the logic of online where possible, so they can be easily compared, ie checkout, order, registration, etc.

Before you know it, you'll have some very rich information on your call center. This is only the beginning though, some more advanced segmentation and targeting techniques will be discussed in part 3, along with data imports to close the information loop.

Firstly you may be thinking, why track a call center with Site Catalyst? Initially it seems like a strange thing to do, hopefully after reading this article it won't seem as strange!

The motivation...

1. The invisible connection
Many businesses generate sales through both online and phone based transactions, most would think these two methods are relatively disconnected, but this is not always the case. Lots of customers struggle with the online payment process and happily pick up the phone if they see the option is available, some never get that far as they would never pay over the internet, but you may have already collected useful information online that could accelerate or potentially close a sale over the phone.

2. Apples and Apples
For compatibility with online sales systems, many call center staff applications are now built using web based (or compatible) technology. Conveniently this allows web based tracking techniques to work much like they do online. Seeing phone based purchases in the column next to online purchases for a given product makes sense, especially when campaigns have both online and phone based calls to action.

3. End to end reporting
The final key reason is that most call center analytics are disconnected from the actual sale data, so the rich information on which products were viewed and purchased is sadly lacking (unlike online purchase data in Site Catalyst). This is particularly frustrating if you want to relate product information and conversion ratios to each campaign phone number to calculate your ROI, or you want to know how John's "call to sale" ratio changes between 8-11am compared to 2-5pm.

All this may not sound like much, but in reality small tweaks make big differences. Being able to truly understand the link between online and offline transactions, along with being able to report them together in the same report, in almost real time can only be advantageous.

This post has tried to justify the reasons why you would want to try an integrate call center data into Site Catalyst, but it doesn't go into the details of how you would actually do so. That will follow in part 2. See part 2 here: http://blog.datalicious.com/call-center-tracking-using-omniture-site-cata-0