How to use unique phone numbers to improve customer experience and boost website conversion
I've been meaning to write about the power of unique phone numbers in optimising user experience and campaign conversion for a while now and the below research published on Reuters has finally provided me with the right ammunition!
According to the report, Americans (and Australians too I'm sure) are fed up with bad customer service, with 67 percent (that's 2 out of every 3 callers) hanging up on a call before their problems are even addressed. The most annoying gripe is not being able to get a person on the phone, followed by rude sales people.
While rude sales people are harder to fix (try firing a few as a start), getting the right person on the phone should not be so difficult and companies could make that process a lot easier using more unique phone numbers, especially online and on direct mail. Apart from providing more granular campaign response data, marketers should use unique phone numbers to help control the customer experience! Think about the following examples.
Unique phone numbers by product category: Prospects browsing a particular product category should be shown a phone number unique to that category enabling calls to be routed directly to the right call center team that specialises in that particular category. This approach should cut down phone steps, improve overall call experience and thus also increase conversion. Equally, website visitors identified as existing customers should get a priority number, after all they're already a customer and should be treated as such.
Unique phone numbers by purchase lifecycle stage: Similarly to the above, if a website visitor has already started converting (i.e. started checking out, filling in a lead form, etc), are you just going to show him the standrad website phone numbers? I hope not! If by their actions, website visitors are showing some serious purchase intent I would strongly suggest you display them a special unique number that ensures their call is answered as a priority, after all they're most likely to convert.
Finally, you're comments are always welcome, but I don't want to see any comments on your 1300 number being part of your brand or phone numbers are being too expensive. Maybe Pizza Hut can claim that for its best customers that call every day but the rest of us just doesn't care enough about your company to remember your 1300 number. Also, the true cost comes from the amount of phone calls not the number of unique numbers and pales next to the potential revenue increase from more sales and happier customers anyway.
Read on to find out how many numbers you might need and visit our partner Jet Interactive to set-up some additional unique numbers online including detailed data on call performance and origin.
1 unique phone number
+ Phone number is considered part of the brand
+ Media origin of calls cannot be established
+ Added value of website interaction unknown
2-10 unique phone numbers
+ Different numbers for different media channels
+ Exclusive number(s) reserved for website use
+ Call origin data more granular but not perfect
+ Difficult to rotate and pause numbers
10+ unique phone numbers
+ Different numbers for different media channels
+ Different numbers for different product categories
+ Different numbers for different conversion steps
+ Call origin becoming useful to shape call script
+ Feasible to pause numbers to improve integrity
100+ unique phone numbers
+ Different numbers for different website visitors
+ Call origin and time stamp enable individual match
+ Call conversions matched back to search terms
