Now, Pay Per Call itself brings with it many different ideas of what a conversion is. For some businesses, a conversion could be an actual transaction that takes place over the phone. For others, scheduling an appointment is a conversion in terms of determining the success of Pay Per Call in generating client actions. How can Cost per acquisition pricing models work with Pay Per Call?
Whatever the reason your business relies on the phone, there are ways to make it easier for consumers to call your company. In one way, shape, or form, every consumer has had a miserable experience calling a company on the phone. So here’s five ways you can help your customers avoid the frustration and make it easy for them to get in touch.
Put Your Number Out There
Shockingly, there are still numerous businesses out there that fail to put their phone number on obvious display in all of their ads, on their site, and on various landing pages. Pay Per Call marketing is the best tool you have in this regard, helping you to get your number in front of consumer eyeballs. Don’t think this matters?
Keep in mind, BIA/Kelsey predicts that annual calls to businesses from smartphones alone will reach 162 billion by 2019. Consumers want to call your business, but if your number isn’t easy to find they’ll just move on to the competition.
Don’t Make Them Memorize Your Number
For consumers searching on a desktop computer, it’s easy enough to keep your business site with phone number on the screen while they pick up the landline or smartphone to make a call. They can see your number, punch in the digits, and off they go. But what about mobile consumers? Can you really afford to alienate 162 billion callers that don’t want to memorize your number and quick switch to the call screen?
With a simple feature like click-to-call, you don’t need to leave them in limbo. Click-to-call on mobile devices allows consumers to simply click on your number in ads or on landing pages, and their smartphone automatically connects the call to your business.
Avoid Long Hold Times
This should be a no-brainer. Consumers don’t have time to sit on hold and wait for someone, especially when there is really corny hold music playing in their ear the whole time. Someone with a broken water pipe at home doesn’t want to hear elevator jazz, they want answers and help. Improve their experience with call routing that helps direct them to the right department within their company, or at the very least give them the option to leave a voicemail rather than remain on hold.
You’ll need to be on the ball returning voicemails to ensure that that individual consumer’s call isn’t missed entirely. In this case, something is better than nothing. Keeping consumers on hold for too long will push them to simply call the next company in line on their list.
Staff Appropriately at High-Volume Times
Pay Per Call distribution partners such as RingPartner give you a lot of powerful data you can use to improve your business, and that includes information on the days of the week and times of the day your company receives a higher volume of calls. It shouldn’t shock any business owner that consumers who bother to make a call actually expect to hear a human voice on the other end. Use the data your distribution provider offers and ensure you have enough staff on hand to answer calls, address concerns, and make a direct connection with consumers.
Simplify Transfer Routes
Most larger business have some type of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to help route calls with a few prompts the consumer must answer. This helps avoid a backlog of calls jamming the lines, and speeds up the process of getting a customer the answer they’re looking for. However, if it takes more than three steps (prompts) to connect the consumer to the right department, your IVR isn’t working right.
Make sure you have simple transfer routes that connect each customer with the proper department as quickly as possible. Frustrated callers don’t often turn into conversions for your business, so make it as easy and simple as possible to connect callers to humans.