Call Handling and Out of Hours Answering Services

Are You Getting Good Service From Your Call Centre?

One of the great things about AdMeter is that we have lots of clients that use call recording.

The reason they use it is because it can tell them things they cannot get any other way...for example, if their calls are being handled in the right way...or the wrong way...by call handling services.

When you're a business and you are getting calls out of hours you might be tempted or already using one of the many call answering services available. You have probably briefed them on what  types of call they'll get, how to grade calls, what you want them to do with the call, and how you'll pay them..either per call answered, fixed fee per month or maybe even a commission based system.

What you probably have not done is requested that each call is recorded and graded and that you get each recorded call as a file you can listen to. This is an absolute must. And let me tellyou why.

Good Call Centres - Bad Call Centres

There are good call centres and there are bad call centres

and some in between. But unless you have call recordings you will never, really truly know how your calls are being handled.

And there's nothing worse in my mind than paying a lot of money for your phone to be answered in response to your expensive a dvertising...only for the person answering the phone to totally decimate your image, your reputation and any chance you have of earning a penny from a new prospect (or even worse, an existing client).

Bad Days At The Office

You've got no control over who answers your phone at your call centre. Some days it can be someone who is aligned to your image and expertise. Some days it can be someone dozy, who sounds like they are smoking a fag between sentences and who obviously has not got a clue what your business is about. Believe me...this does happen. I know on at least one occasion when a call recording has enabled the client to terminate his contract and revert to an out of hours answer message.

Lost Profits

When you have a number from AdMeter with call recording you are in control of the situation. You'll know if your call handling is done well or poorly. Without this information it could be months before you realise the damage that is being done. You could be out of business by this time at worst, or at best, suffer losses and damage to your hard-earned reputation.

The Solution

When you are going to consider a call centre, ensure that you use your own phone number from AdMeter with call recording. You then have a safeguard over the quality of the call and the way it is handled. With call recording and call grading it is possible for you to turn a good call centre service in to an even better one. Don't assume your call centre service will work to make themselves better - it's your business we're talking about - no-one else cares the same way as you do.

Call Answering from AdMeter

If you use your own answer machine instead of a call service you can do a number of things with AdMeter. Firstly you can have missed call alerts set up to come to you by SMS text so you can call someone back if you want to immediately. You can also have these alerts sent yo you by emai.

Secondly, you can automate a text to go to their phone saying you will call them back as soon as you can the next day. They'll be amazed at this, especially if you carefully word the text to make is sound human.

Thirdly, as AdMeter can record calls for you, you can ask people to leave a message with the contact details, listen to the message to know what they want, email them or text them with the right info before calling them back and use the call you make as a follow up/conversion call.

If you are currently using a call centre we'll provide you with a free set up of call recording in the next 7 days so you can hear if you're getting a good service.

Just mention CALL CENTRE HEALTH CHECK when you phone or email us.

graham.pollard@admeter.co.uk

Customer Insight and Customer Sales With AdMeter Call Tracking

I know I need an eye test. The Boots store, Reading, kindly sent me a postcard reminder. (Which I recycled). My wife “suggested” I get it sorted so I went to the mighty Google and searched....and I found the excellent Boots.com website and used the Store-locator thing...... a bit similar to this...........

This was really frustrating. Because I had to explain to my wife I hadn't done what she wanted me to do (get an eye test sorted) and doubly annoying because I had to call them again. (At the third attempt I did manage to get through - only because the pain from being "reminded" was more painful than hitting redial).

WHAT REALLY IRKED IS THAT NOBODY EVER CALLED ME BACK.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

After experiencing this call-engaged-hang up scenario, I thought maybe Boots were using local tracking numbers and they would soon call or text me back. My local search soon told me that they were not using unique numbers.

If this was happening to me in Reading, I figured it was happening all over the country. (Just as it does with Estate Agents who miss 19,734 calls every month).

I decided to take this personal experience and talk to the head of marketing. A few weeks later, the issue was raised with the now ex-head of customer care at Boots. And this is the reply I got.

"Whilst your product is fascinating, we don't use the telephone as a lead or order generator it's simply a traditional customer care operation. All of our advertising is geared towards converting customers to purchase in store or on line."

Not Using The Telephone To Get Leads Or Get People In Store?

I should have been shocked but it's a familiar story with lots of companies that invest money on marketing and then don't even pick up the phone!

Here are some things we know that Boots could do to get sales using AdMeter;

• Capture missed callers and phone them back
• Send an SmS text apologising for the missed call
• Send an SmS reminder of appointments to Optician customers
• Send an SmS text promotion e.g. free prescription sunglasses
• Find out what people are calling for and improve marketing response
• Discover geographic areas people are calling from, (marketing opps)
• Drive online and store sales through text

AdMeter can't be the answer to everyone's needs. Because not everyone is prepared to take the action to improve customer engagement, and sometimes it's difficult to get through to the right person that can make decisions. (Although we think a "No" in this instance is a "Maybe").

However, there are some easy low-hanging fruit opportunities within most companies big and small. Where Boots has 3,300 retail outlets and a huge number of engaged and missed calls the opportunity to drive sales may be in the millions. For smaller companies it may be a few thousand.

The only way to find out truly is to take a trial of AdMeter to discover the insights it can provide and the action that results in more profit.

Whether you a big chain and you want to track all calls, capture the call data and use it for promotions - or a smaller company and you want to make the best of your marketing...

Get in touch today on 0800 158 8825 and we'll explain in a 10 minute call how we can double your leads in 6 months.

SMS Text Marketing Software From Admeter

Is Admeter an SMS Marketing Company?

The answer is yes. And we are a whole lot more. But one of the underutilised aspects of a call tracking software system is that it enables you to do automate some marketing functions.

Set and forget marketing

Most people love "set and forget" marketing because it's efficient and effective.

SMS marketing can be automated with Admeter and this is how it works.

Firstly, you get calls coming in to your call tracking unique number.

Secondly, these callers either get through or they don't.

If they don't you'll get an email or text alert saying you missed a call (if you have this feature set up on Admeter)

Then the prospect that could not get through...gets sent a "holding text". Something like;

"Thank you for calling. We're hate missing client calls. We're going to be calling you back soon. Love Admeter."

This can be an entirely automated text. It's incredibly cheap. It's highly effective and what's more...it gets through!

97% of texts are opened within 3 minutes.

This means that you've probably bought yourself 3 minutes of breathing space when you can get back to that prospect before a) they think of buying or inquring from someone else or b) go on to get distracted by some Facebook or web shopping stuff they've got to do and get out of the mood to buy from you.

When someone calls you they are in the mood to buy. You need to keep them in that frame of mind and the automated text is a way of doing that. Why wouldn't you want to set it up?

Proactive SMS marketing

Another way of using Admeter as a text marketing system is pro-actively offering products and service offers by text. You've probably received marketing texts yourself. They are used  restaurants clients we have to market special events and also clients such as car servicing companies as reminders of due services and MOT's.

These type of texts are highly effective at getting customers to take action. They are more likely to be opened than emails. They are instantly actionable, many people just click on a link to make the call and they can be sent easily to a list of prospects and clients stored in the Admeter system.

Admeter builds your sms list

Because everyone that phones you has their name held in your Admeter database (as long as they are not number withheld) it means you have a list of people interested in your products and services that you can send a message to.

You're ok to market to them because they made an enquiry already. And if the offer you send them is a good one...it may even be forwarded on to friends or business colleagues...a great way to spread your marketing message via sms text marketing.

The point we want to make at Admeter is that you can market using a variety of channels, capture the mobile numbers of all prospects and market to them using SMS...all through the same system...namely Admeter.

If you want to get in touch about your sms marketing through Admeter please do!

For your call tracking measurment phone 0800 158 8818 or email video@admeter.ad-ml.co.uk

To see a little video of our car dealer client that does this as part of their call tracking please watch the below video.

Ford Retail's secret weapon pulls in enquiries for car dealerships nationwide from AdMeter onVimeo.

Missed Call Alerts And SMS Response from Call Tracker AdMeter

There's nothing worse than investing in marketing to get calls only to have those calls unanswered. With Admeter you've at least got a chance to recover that lost custom with ouremail and sms alerts

But there's something neater that you can do to ensure you don't lost those customers that didn't get through.

SMS Respond is similar to the Missed Call Alert feature within AdMeter, but this time it is the caller whose call has not been answered that receives a message.

Imagine you are a property agent and you get lots of calls...some of those calls may go unanswered, for example, at lunchtime. Now of course you'll get back in touch with those callers by using the missed call alert feature but what about having a holding message sent out to the callers mobile phone? Via text?

How to turn a negative missed call into a positive automated marketing with Admeter

With AdMeter you can configure a text message that goes out to all missed callers. This may be a simple,

"Sorry we missed your call. We're out with clients on viewings. We'll call you as soon as we can. Gary Mays, GM Properties."

Or it could be a more direct message of;

"We're sorry you could not reach us. My personal mobile is 0795 128487. Incidentally if you don't have a mortgage I recommend James Smith mortgage adviser"

Whatever approach you take, there's something you can do to prevent the missed caller from going elsewhere and you missing out on business.

You can create whatever message you think appropriate for your business and send it to either mobile callers only or to both mobile and landlines. (Landline callers hear a text to speech playback of your message).

This is automated marketing that you can set and forget.

We think this is a great way to use the Admeter system and make the most of missed calls. We'd be happy to help you set up SMS Respond. Gives us a call.

Charity and Non-Profit Marketing With SMS Data Gathering

Charities and non-profits are in a perfect position to use sms text marketing to help get donations.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to build an sms texting database by capturing mobile phone numbers at the moment people call. Rather than having to have an agent or staff member do this it it possible to automate the whole thing.

Charity and Non-Profit Marketing Just Got Easier from AdMeter on Vimeo.

When someone calls the charity phone number the caller gets and option to opt-in to receive further messages via their mobile phone from the charity.

Not everyone will opt-in, but those that do are then good candidates for one-off campaign messages, (such as a time-critical fundraising effort) or for regular communication of important messages.

With texts being opened 97% of the time within 3 minutes, this is an effective means of communication. It is also very efficient as donations can be made easily by texting back to another number or clicking to go to a donation page or calling the charity with a single click.

Admeter supports charity work and is delighted to offer the set-up of this system on a no-cost basis to a charity every month.

Admeter only charges for the texts which are used in the outgoing campaigns.

Charities do not need any telephone software upgrade and this system can be set up quickly and without any fuss. All it requires is for the charity to publicise the unique Admeter.co.uk phone number.

As well as the text opt-in function Admeter.co.uk can provide call tracking metrics enabling a charity to know exactly what marketing works, whether it's offline or online marketing.

Please contact us at www.AdMeter.co.uk today to find out how we can help you raise money for your cause.

SMS Texting Services - Admeter's A Dynamic Marketing Machine!

Why Your Humble Text Message Is Your Marketing Machine 90% of texts are opened within 3 minutes – compare that to email which only 15% beats the spam filters...and when you text your own prospects and customers you have complete control of the message.

Because AdMeter automatically captures the mobile numbers of people who call you, you have a ready made database of people you can communicate with. What's important about this is that you aren't buying in leads, these are leads you have already paid for...you just need to make the most of them.

Often, AdMeter clients forget that SMS is part of the AdMeter system and is a very powerful tool. We're on mission to ensure that all our clients know about and use it before taking options such as deal websites that promise a lot but don't deliver what you expect.

For example we were talking to owner Wendy Oxlade from the The Shoulder of Mutton in Playhatch, a restaurant in Berkshire. She told us she had used Groupon, but hadn't used text marketing.

“We did an offer with the BIG G and the company were so bad we told them we were not redeeming any vouchers and in the end they gave everyone their money back.”

Let me ask you a question...

When a deal website offers your services or products and takes 50% commission who are they looking after? Is it you, the hard-working owner? Or the big investors looking to make millions when the company floats on the stock market?

The trouble with lots of voucher schemes is that they sell only to those looking for CHEAP offers. What’s worse, they don’t give you any of the email addresses they have collected! They know that having a contact email, (or even better a mobile number) is where their value is. If you are a restaurant, your value comes from having a starving crowd thinking about you when they are hungry or want to have a night out.

If you are a business to business company you need to have your clients thinking about you exactly at the moment they want to solve their problems. For them to be thinking of you, it needs you to be in their thoughts.

One way for you to do this is keep your herd of customers intact through text messaging.

Don’t let others rustle your herd away. Keep in touch with them with text messaging.

Send them offers of value, news, special events but most of all – remind them that you are the place for them to go when they want to buy.

With AdMeter all your SMS and texting needs are at your fingertips.

• You can automate texts so everyone gets one when they call you (upsell/upgrade offers)
• You can broadcast special news and offers
• You can refer partner offers, (and they can reciprocate to you)

The SMS suite in AdMeter has 6 separate modules:

• Send One-Off SMS
• Broadcast SMS (requires the CRM Module)
• SMS Respond
• SMS Alert
• SMS Reporting
• SMS Ignore

To ensure you are utilising your data in the best way, get in touch and ask us about sms text messaging and how it can keep your herd intact, (and grow it).