Improve Your Business Strategy (With Data From Calls You’re Already Making!)

Pull Revenue, Get Leaner, Hire Better 

Your business is already making calls – revenue depends on it, whether it’s to drive direct sales, or keep customers informed and happy with your service or product. But are you making the most of the data you’re gathering from those calls?

Every call you and your team makes – even if it’s a dead end – is loaded with information that can inform future strategies. Maybe you have great gut instincts and your business is doing fine, but could you be doing even better? Or you’re new to the digital landscape and you haven’t yet realized that activities you’re already doing, like making calls and sending texts, are amassing you a goldmine of insights. Read on to discover how communication data analytics can help you increase revenue, lean out your team without losing sales, and hire better in the future. 

Maximize Revenue with More Answered Calls

You probably already know that certain times of days are black holes for getting a connected call. Certain times are obvious – don’t call too early in the morning! – but it’s possible you have a sweet spot for getting calls answered, and you don’t even know it.

Heat Maps allow you to really zero in on when you’re getting answered calls by visually displaying the best times. With a quick glance, you can immediately deduce your busiest and quietest times for answered Outbound calls. For example, looking at the graph below, you now know Thursday at 5 PM is when your calls are likely to get answered.

So what can you do with this information? Here are some actionable steps you can take to improve strategy: 

• Staff up at these times – put more employees on the clock during your best performing hours, and lean out during the quietest times. With the same amount of hours worked, you could be getting more connected calls! 
• Schedule your highest performing agents to be making calls at these times. Do you have an agent that can always close a deal? They should be utilized at a time when they’ll get the most connections to leads. 
• Monitor when calls are connecting – either when training or doing quality assurance, you want to plan on Monitoring calls when customer interactions are happening. 

Reporting for inbound calls provides invaluable data, and helps ensure you never miss a call. Whether it’s a potential sale or a vendor that you want to maintain a good relationship with, you want your business to have a reputation of being reachable. Be ready to answer at the times you get the most calls and maximize your revenue.

Mindful Marketing: Learn What’s Working and Scrap the Rest   

The beauty of having multiple phone numbers isn’t just about call volume – it’s also about finding out which of your marketing efforts are working. When you have multiple phone numbers, they can be strategically tied to specific marketing campaigns to better find out how to reach your audience. Commonly referred to as “tracking numbers” these separate numbers are an easy way to ensure you attribute all leads generated to the proper channels.  Use Number Performance Reporting to find out which numbers (and marketing campaigns) are actually performing. 

• Put separate, tracking phone numbers on marketing flyers in different neighborhoods to find out where you’re getting the most calls from. 
• Utilize paid media that has different tracked numbers to figure out where to place ad spend in a thoughtful way – sometimes click through doesn’t paint the fullest picture.
• Dynamic Number Insertion can be another way to use phone numbers to understand the effectiveness of your marketing. DNI automatically updates the visible number based on the marketing campaigns you setup.
• Set up a specific phone number for a conference to decide whether to return annually. 
• Test different phone numbers – try different area codes, vanity numbers, and even toll-free versus local to determine what maximizes lead generation.

Before data analytics, you might have been sure a certain neighborhood or marketing effort was your best pipeline, only to find out there was a better stream all along. Going forward, this can inform your strategy. Stop putting up flyers in low performing neighborhoods, cancel that annual conference you’ve been sinking money into, and lean out your marketing spend while improving revenue. 

Build Lean and Effective Power Dialing Campaigns (Saving You Time and Money)

Power dialing campaigns are phone system automations that allow you and your team to dial a specific group or list of targets with maximum efficiency. These Campaigns can have a lot of factors: multiple teammates, sessions at different times, and they can range in total call volume. If you’re already making these calls, the obvious next step is distilling the data from your Campaigns and using it to strategize on what’s working, and what’s not. A Campaign with many calls made, but very little overall Talk Time is clearly a waste of resources, but you might not realize it until the data is clearly laid out. Reports that show Campaign Activity, such as the one below, can help you stay on top of which Campaigns are actually working out. 

What to do when you realize a campaign is closer to a dud than a money maker? 

• Analyze those lead lists – if you’re not getting connections, or have very short call durations, it’s possible that a lead list isn’t worth continuing on. 
• If some employees are having a ton of success on a Campaign with the same lead list as another employee who is struggling, this is a great way to identify who needs additional support. 

Train Up and Staff Smarter

Your team is obviously a vital consideration when it comes to strategy, in not only identifying who is struggling, but whose stellar performance you can learn from. Check Team Performance Reports to discover how agents perform within given timeframes, such as how many inbound calls they receive, outbound calls they make, and how many calls they miss. But what to do with that information? 

• Give additional training to team members who are making a lot of calls, but not landing a lot of sales. They have initiative, but something is keeping them from closing – this is a great opportunity to use Call Monitoring, or the Whisper feature, to guide and coach without the caller hearing. 
• Identify the strategies of your best performing agents – how are some agents keeping callers on the line? Who is never missing a call? The agents can become models for future hiring, and potentially trainers for new hires. 
• Set reasonable expectations using raw data – sure, you might have one agent who can make triple the amount of calls that her peers do, but data allows you to create averages, which helps set reasonable expectations for future employees.

Graphs are a great way to visualize your call volume, for example Inbound Calls by Agent or Disposition (Answered, Busy, etc.). You might assume that one employee or department fields the most inbound calls, but only data can show you the real picture. Why does this matter? It helps you plan, train, and promote. 

• Finding out that one agent is fielding the lion’s share of inbound calls can help you hire up, direct calls to other Agents, or simply give credit where it’s due. 
• If one department is receiving more calls than expected, it can be a great way to inform hiring priorities. 
• If you’re using smrtPhone’s Simultaneous Ring feature which allows inbound calls to ring multiple Agents at once, you may find that one or more consistently do not answer. This data helps you decide who needs to step it up or receive more training. 

Most good business owners and managers have a sense of what’s working for their business, but data can still prove to surprise and enlighten. If you’re already making the calls, why not take a look at what those calls can tell you about your business? Improving and adapting is part of the growth mindset – even if you’re doing well, there’s a chance to get better. Use data to improve your revenue, scale back in areas that are bloated, and staff up where it’s needed. You already have the clearest picture of how your business is doing – now the next step is to use that information to level up. 

Read more about smrtPhone’s KPI Reports here. Don’t forget that your phone system is more than a way to make calls, it’s your partner in strategy.