Yesterday was a Bank Holiday in England. That basically means a shopping day for most people or a day watching cricket on the television.
For some people, like me, who are fascinated with how companies respond to enquiries by phone, it's a day to do phone research. (Sad but true!)
I know that companies are reluctant to pay lots of staff to come in on Bank Holidays, (after all there are quite a few every year in the UK.) Retail outlets are often understaffed, garages are short of sales people and the normal office world...well everyone has gone away to Cornwall or Majorca for the school half-term haven't they?
So let's find out what the results are of calling a few main players in my home town.
Research on calling on a Bank Holiday
Estate Agent - call handling
I called up 3 real estate agents. I phoned at 11am - which gave the staff plenty of time for them to open, have a cup of coffee and man the phones. Results of the customer enquiries were as follows; One estate agent open and answered the call. One was closed and didn't answer/no answer-phone and one was open and didn't answer full stop.
Results - One win, two losses.
Car Dealer - call results
I phoned these at 1pm. Sneaky I know, it being lunch time and all. But hey, that's when I like to call, (along with lots of other people that want to set up a test drive of a £20,000 new vehicle. I expected car dealers to be better at answering the phone and they were.
Of the three that were called, 2 answered the phone within 3 rings, (via a receptionist). The other one didn't answer but did have an answer-phone. Now I hate answer-phones and declined to leave a message.
What was I going to say? "Er...I just wondered...if I could take a test drive...and I am available this afternoon...but I'm not sure if you are going to get this message...and if you don't them I'll waste all afternoon wondering if you did or not...etc"
Results - Two wins, one loss.
Furniture retailer - results of calls
Now I don't need a new sofa. But as all these furniture retailers insist on advertising on TV over Bank Holiday weekends, they could at least answer the phone couldn't they? Well the answer is yes they could. Because of the three calls I made, all three answered.
Now I think that's pretty standard because companies should answer the phone. What I think they didn't do is capture my phone number for marketing reasons because they aren't using a call tracking system that automatically does this.
When I call back in a few weeks, (in response to a campaign from this weekend, they'll have no way of tying the two things together...the sale to this weekend's advertising).
Results - 3 wins (First leg) 3 losses (Second leg) That's football terminology by the way.
What are my conclusions?
Firstly, call tracking, missed call email alerts, automated text messages and the whole armoury of what something like AdMeter can bring to a company is a must. Hundreds of millions of £'s worth of enquiries are made every Bank Holiday, often driven by a desire to spend, (the customer) and marketing (the company expenditure).
Secondly, it's obvious that companies are automating data capture and are therefore leaving millions of pounds of sales on the table. When people make an enquiry by phone, they can be captured. It's the first aspect of finding a customer. The second aspect is to get them, which you can do with something like sms text messaging. (Keeping them and growing them can then follow post-purchase using successful loyalty marketing programmes.)
When you want to look at how you can find and get more customers you might want to consider a call tracking system as a fundamental buidling block of your marketing systems.
The call tracking system from AdMeter will help you get more sales. Period.
When you want to find out if you have a problem then let us have your office or retail outlet phone number.
We'll soon tell you how AdMeter can help you by doing a little phone research.
P.S Ford Retail don't miss calls on Bank Holidays because they use AdMeter.
