The UK is obsessed with shopping online, yet with all the multiple contact avenues, we Brits still prefer to make that call.
With 80% of people in the UK preferring to shop online you’d be forgiven for assuming that your customers only want to connect to you via the internet. After all, there’s email, web chat, live chat and direct messaging via various social media platforms. And surely dialling and making a call on the phone is a concept of the past? Well, apparently not! We’ve discovered that calls convert better than leads.
The reality is that there are at least 33.85 million people and potential customers in the UK, born before 1981 who still appreciate a good old-fashioned phone call. That’s three generations of people that prefer the more personable touch of communicating with an actual human being.
And the research data on this is quite compelling. The advisory service BIA Kelsey revealed that 64% of small to medium businesses find phone calls convert better than any digital lead. Even foot traffic converted less than calls.
More surprisingly, the marketing moguls at Hubspot and Marketing Sherpa discovered that leads from online form completion only converted leads to customers 2% of the time.
The information collated does not ignore inbound call conversions either. It found that 25-40% of incoming calls qualified into paying customers. When you crunch the numbers, that’s an uptake of 12 x more sales than generated via web leads.
Marketing Decisions
The case for ramping up your marketing efforts with outgoing calls and call management is a solid one. But with digital marketing taking most of the budget of small to medium businesses, how can they compete in the telemarketing space?
As with anything, smaller companies especially need to find ways to work smarter rather than harder. In the case of utilising phones for sales and customer service, we suggest,
- Ensuring all numbers are accurate for viability.
- Outsourcing your call handling.
- Targeting the right people with the right marketing method.
Although our little list may sound costly and time-consuming, it really couldn't be further from the case!
Number Accuracy
Making sure any customer data that you hold is accurate is something all businesses should do as part of the GDPR guidelines. With Data Soap, you can quickly check single numbers or whole lists in a matter of seconds for very little cost with our mobile and landline number validation service. The benefit of having correct phone numbers is that each one dialled is a potential sale and customer. Dead numbers, incorrect numbers and calling a number on the do not call list or telephone preference service will become a thing of the past. This boosts staff morale in that they are unlikely to get a hostile reception and that targets will be easier to achieve. Along with happy, proud and efficient employees, you will also find your marketing data results are far more accurate enabling you to forecast more precisely.
Cleaning your data in this way is far cheaper than you’d imagine. Prices start from just £1.70 for 1000 mobile number lookups. You can also start as you mean to go on and make use of our API on your website. This will check any phone number, postal address and email in real-time as your potential customer enters it. Using this handy tool will ensure all information that is filtered into your database will be both accurate and valid.
Call Handling
Small and medium businesses can struggle to expand in any way due to the high cost of staff recruitment, training and employment. That’s why thousands look to outsource some of their services because it cuts costs but retains quality and professionalism.
Some companies may choose to ask existing employees to make or answer calls in addition to their other duties, however, this makes staff stressed, and less efficient and dilutes the quality of customer service.
We recommend that to maintain a high level of customer service and keep your business running efficiently that you outsource your call handling and management to professionals like the team at Pocket Receptionist.
They are highly trained customer service professionals who seamlessly fit themselves into your business. By answering customer questions, making appointments, taking orders, taking payments and qualifying leads, you’ll find them integral to your telephone marketing strategy with a saving of 97% compared to hiring additional in-house staff. Check out their reviews.
The Right Marketing for The Right People
Knowing your target market's likes and dislikes can go a long way toward achieving marketing success. We know from the data that baby boomers, the silent generations and gen x are happy to use a phone the way Alexander Graham Bell had intended. But, when it comes to millennials and elder gen z, answering the phone fills them with dread. In fact, according to Bank My Cell, 81% of millennials surveyed said they experience anxiety at the thought of even making a call.
But we don’t recommend that you abandon the phone just yet with this cohort. Why? Because the best way to capture the attention of anyone between the ages of 27 and 42 is via text message. Of course, email is still a great way to market to this audience of 14.26 million Brits, however, 60% of them have expressed their desire to communicate with businesses via text and 73% said that they prefer to interact with brands' loyalty initiatives through their phones.
The truth is that text message marketing is vastly underutilised but highly effective. Plus it’s super easy to do, especially with our SMS marketing service. Send just one text or create a whole campaign with just a few clicks, and within minutes you’ll engage perfectly with a whole other market. Plus, when used in conjunction with the mobile validation service, you’ll have peace of mind that every SMS you send will be to a genuine and live number.
The Final Point
For anyone who made it this far (well done) and those who skipped to the end (time is short), the concept of the phone call is not dead. The research shows that calls convert better in spite of the digital age we live in. Yes! Your customers still want to talk to you, so of course, they deserve the best customer service you can provide
Offering a professional service from real people will nurture existing customers, making them feel appreciated. In addition, it will convert or qualify more leads than your online forms and cold emails. From exemplary service will come, not only direct sales and residual income but, good reviews and recommendations. For your younger market, make sure you open up a communication channel that makes them feel comfortable. We definitely recommend giving texting a try.
And if you’re worried that your budget won’t stretch to implementing telephone marketing and customer service, then we recommend you have a chat with the 5-star team over at Pocket Receptionist, for call handling on your behalf. You can try their service for 99p for 30 days*. And for validating your numbers and text messaging marketing, give us a call here at Data Soap or click the link below for our prices. Quality call handling and SMS marketing do not have to break the bank!
*New customers only
