Conversations are the currency of a business transaction. Prospective customers contact your business by phone call, chat, or text, to get product or service information, understand pricing, and then, to book an appointment, schedule a demo, or plan a visit. To get the information they need, your prospective customers share information with you—and this first-party information is an untapped asset you can use to systemically improve your business. A conversation intelligence (CI) platform turns first-party conversation data into rich consumer intelligence that can be applied to business decisions across multiple functions.
CI connects conversation outcomes to your digital campaigns
To drive leads, businesses often run digital campaigns using paid search, display ads, local webpages, and social media. To understand performance, you need to know the outcome of each click or call. While understanding click conversions is clear, there can be a blind spot when it comes to call conversions. With a CI platform, you can connect each call to its source, meaning you can link revenue outcomes to each call, making decisions around your campaigns and media budget much easier.
CI increases response and engagement rates via a text channel
Consumers like things easy–including their sales conversations–and it doesn’t get much easier than text. The device is nearly always at hand, and a text app is native to every mobile phone. Text-enabled phone numbers are a natural extension of business communications and businesses are increasingly implementing this channel to boost traffic. Research has shown that open rates are as high as 98% and response rates are around 45%.
CI provides your business a second chance to close a missed deal
Not every sales call goes as planned. For a variety of reasons – misunderstandings, price objections, items, or appointment times not available – an intentioned prospect ends a call without taking the next step. With conversation intelligence, you can be alerted about this near-miss and get a second chance at a conversion in near real time, eliminating the possibility the prospect calls a competitor.
CI empowers your business to boost sales rep performance
Sales reps and call center agents vary in their on-call experience. Since conversations are two-sided, your business can learn about your employees’ performance as well as consumer intentions. Many business operations teams have used conversation intelligence as a full-scale “mystery shopper” program, that monitors and evaluates call-handling performance in real time against a predetermined, customizable scorecard. Use this knowledge as a training tool for individual employees, as a benchmark for a local team, or across your entire business.
Conversation intelligence can be collected and applied at every stage of the customer journey. From driving leads and facilitating better conversations to saving missed opportunities and training staff for better outcomes, this data that you likely already collect can be an integral part of your decision-making process, allowing you to constantly refine and optimize your business.
To learn more about Marchex conversation intelligence solutions, contact us today and sign up for our free 30-day trial of Marchex Marketing Edge.
