Supercharge the Inbound Call Channel 4

Transcription

1 White Paper Supercharge the Inbound Call Channel 4 TIPS TO STREAMLINE SALES AND SPEED UP CONVERSIONS pro.whitepages.com

2 Executive Summary Introduction Leverage Location and Demographics to Prioritize and Route Calls Boost Your Arsenal to Better Detect Spam and Fraud Extend Your CRM Functionality Enhance Lead Recovery by Immediately Following up With Dropped Calls How Whitepages Pro Can Help pro.whitepages.com 01

3 A recent CallRail study found that U.S. companies reported a 24 percent spike in inbound call volume 1. Combine this surge with BIA/Kelsey s projection that inbound calls from mobile devices will more than double by 2016, reaching 65 billion annually 2, and suddenly those figures make the importance of streamlining your inbound lead sales channel more relevant than ever. Are you ready to capitalize on this trend and maximize conversion rates from call to closed sale? One key method for accomplishing this is by knowing more details about the caller as they come into the inbound call channel. In this report you ll learn four simple yet impactful ways to supercharge your inbound lead call channel, including: Leveraging location and demographics to prioritize and route calls Boosting your arsenal to better detect spam and fraud Extending your CRM functionality Enhancing lead recovery capabilities Inbound-Call?utm_content=buffered774&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_ campaign=buffer#%2eu575wjrdx6y pro.whitepages.com 02

4 91% 89% 84% 73% 75% Rise in U.S. Cell Phone Ownership Contributing to Increase in Inbound Calls The Pew Research Internet & American Life Project 3 notes that 90% of American adults have a cell phone, 58% of those are smartphones. THE INBOUND CALL CHANNEL IS EXPLODING. One contributing factor is the increase in mobile and smartphone usage by consumers. While U.S. mobile ownership is continuously growing (now up 91 percent since 2006), landline phones are dropping just as fast. A shift in technology usage like this also drives behavior changes. Mobile devices enable users to be more immediately available without having to go home to make a call, this immediacy may also be driving better conversions. A recent BIA/Kelsey report 4 supports this, noting that 7% of desktop searchers will call at the end of a search, compared to mobile searchers who will call an impressive 57% of the time. To capitalize on these behavior trends, businesses need to quickly identify mobile caller details with a reverse phone number lookup as soon as the call comes in. Mobile number lookup can help prioritize and route calls based on where the mobile number is coming from. This makes having access to mobile phone data an obvious requirement for lead-related marketers, demand generation experts, sales operations and contact centers. Yet mobile lookups are just the beginning. When armed with an extensive array of phone details there are four additional ways businesses can make inbound call channels more effective. 3 Pew Research Internet & American Life Project fact-sheets/mobile-technology-fact-sheet/ 4 BIA/Kelsey pro.whitepages.com 03

5 1. Leverage Location and Demographics to Prioritize and Route Calls In addition to having relatively simple mobile phone details to help manage calls, businesses need all of the digital identity data that s available in order to prioritize and route calls with the highest likelihood of conversion. Knowing details such as where a call is coming from, line type and how that caller is connected to address and other people, provides the ability to route and prioritize calls so that the right leads get to the right agents. It s all about optimizing for conversion. Let s look at a few specific examples of how identity data can be used to help route and prioritize incoming calls: pro.whitepages.com 04

6 Specific call centers often have better results with calls from one or two geographic regions the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast, for instance. When identity information pinpoints calls from those regions, calls are assigned as a high priority and our routed immediately to an available agent. Lower priority calls, those originating from the East Coast, are given a lower priority and those callers wait in queue. If the target audience of a campaign is ages 45 60, callers from this age bracket can be assigned a higher priority than those callers in the bracket. Perhaps the campaigns perform better among mobile users. In that case, mobile calls can be assigned a higher priority or routed to an agent specifically trained to help mobile users. Is there a benefit to route callers back to the agent they spoke with the last time they called? By storing data on this number, calls can be routed to the appropriate agent. This can increase rapport building and reduce average handling time since the customer won t have to re-explain their issue. The list of possibilities goes on. With the right data at your fingertips, your business can begin testing, measuring and adjusting contact center activity to optimize conversions and create cohesion between everyone in the process from lead marketers, demand generation experts to sales operations and contact center managers pro.whitepages.com 05

7 2. Boost Your Arsenal to Better Detect Spam and Fraud Knowing phone number and other details associated with a call as it comes in can ensure more orders are legitimate. This ultimately protects your business. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. First, there are ways that an incoming call identifies itself as spammy, but the data is hard to collect for the average firm. Have others reported it as a bad number? Is it a non-fixed VoIP line or 10-digit number from outside the U.S.? These details could lead you to send the call to voice response for qualifying versus using a live agent. Once the call is answered, it is time to quickly validate the caller's identity. If anything seems off, it is best to end the call and move on to a better lead. Examples of the types of validations you should perform include: Address validation Is this a recognized postal address by USPS? Is it currently receiving mail? Is the caller, or a related person, associated with the address now and for how long? Phone validation Is this a correct area code and format as per NPA-NXX? Was the caller formally associated with the phone number? Is this phone currently assigned to a carrier? validation Is the domain legitimate? Is this well established and currently in service? pro.whitepages.com 06

8 3. Extend Your CRM Functionality Wouldn t it be great to identify new callers from existing ones? With reverse phone search, businesses can cross reference call data with data in a CRM application to make this distinction. In some cases, all phone details associated with a phone number can be linked back to your CRM for added visibility into behavior and enhanced lead scoring capabilities. Going beyond just identifying a caller to actually expediting cross-sell potential by linking phone details directly to your CRM is the goal. Connecting identity data with a CRM makes it possible for applications to interact with each other and share data quickly, enabling screen pops for your agents. Integration also helps maintain data quality as there is no manual data entry. This rapid connection between caller and record in your CRM allows sales teams to view the latest activity associated with that lead, such as notes from the last phone conversation or that the caller downloaded a white paper. Your sales team can better recommend supporting products and services when they can see the big picture. Using call identity and phone details also enables agents to target select prospects based on known personas and buying activity pro.whitepages.com 07

9 ONE AGENT 15 MINUTES PER CALL 300 CONTACTS HANDLED PER MONTH ONE AGENT 10 MINUTES PER CALL 500 CONTACTS HANDLED PER MONTH 4. Enhance Lead Recovery by Immediately Following Up with Dropped Calls While contact centers strive to manage call volume efficiently, there are times that callers just don t want to wait. If a caller had enough interest to pick up the phone, the likelihood of their response to a timely follow-up communication is greater. Capturing all the information about the incoming call, even if they hang up before the call is answered, enables more effective follow-up with a mailer, or a direct callback. (Note: Be careful of TCPA regulations. Calling a mobile number back without written consent could mean a large fine. Make sure you are capturing line type for all dropped calls.) Consider sending more information about your business or a special offer. This is a perfect opportunity to offer a case study, e-book or an invite to a webinar to an engaged and interested audience pro.whitepages.com 08

10 The Opportunity To reduce call duration and improve customer satisfaction by examining time lost to manual data input. The Solution Adding Whitepages Pro smart data to the equation allowed VIZIO to identify unknown numbers and import contact information with just a click. The Results 31 SECONDS Average time saved per call with Pro phone number intelligence 2 DAYS Time it took to integrate the Pro API into VIZIO call center systems pro.whitepages.com 09

11 Whitepages Pro helps you build a more robust marketing database that gives agents a holistic view of the customer relationship by communicating information based not only on one data entity, but how that entity is connected to other demographic details. Our graph-structured database provides name, address and phone details for over 700 million landline and 300 million mobile numbers in the U.S. and Canada. Additional data details such as age, associated people and a spam score deliver a full picture of a caller s identity. Plus, updates and any changes in these digital identity links and key data happen in real time. When you pair Whitepages Pro with your call center system, your contact center agents are empowered with pre-populated customer contact information that enables them to get to conversions faster. With this data, they can automatically identify inbound callers to shorten average handling time, reduce keystrokes and data entry errors, and thereby significantly reduce the overall costs associated with lead communication. To learn more about how Whitepages Pro can help your business, contact us at pro.whitepages.com 10

12 Put Whitepages Pro to work for your business. Contact us to learn more pro.whitepages.com