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Call intelligence has to improve to create a single customer view says Response Tap head

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By Dani Gibson | Senior Writer

October 12, 2017 | 5 min read

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Call intelligence has evolved over the past few years from just tracking calls to being smarter about the data it collects, but where the industry has stalled is integration with other marketing platforms to achieve the, much sought after, single customer view.

Nick Ashmore

Industry has stalled on integrating with other platforms in achieving a single customer view says Response Tap head

Nick Ashmore, head of marketing at Response Tap, believes that a focus on simply extracting valuable data, from multiple systems is needed.

What are the key trends right now for call intelligence?

We’re seeing the industry move away from simple ‘call tracking’ where marketers can measure which campaigns and keywords are driving phone calls.

The trend is a move to understanding the true value of those calls. Call Intelligence particularly benefits businesses that take a lot of sales over the phone, usually high value or complex purchases. The trends now are to understand the differences in the types of calls that their marketing activity is driving. For example, a business will want to know which campaigns drive the highest value, most likely to purchase phone calls, compared to, say, a general enquiry. Not only does it help them to optimise campaigns better for higher ROI, but also route and handle calls to give a better customer experience.

What have been the challenges that the industry has had to contend with over the past year?

A customer’s path to purchase increasingly spans multiple channels and touchpoints and that creates a real challenge in attributing sales value to the multiple campaign touchpoints, making measuring ROI difficult.

Also, if a marketer wants to optimise campaigns based on quality of calls rather than just quantity, they absolutely have to know the outcome and value of each call. Historically, this has meant either getting the call centre agents to manually record the sale, adding an additional process, or getting access to scarce developer resource to integrate with other technologies, such as CRM systems. Both are considerable challenges for a marketer and may be conflicting with other departments’ objectives.

Where do you see the industry going in the next 12 months?

Over recent years, we’ve seen marketing increasingly move towards programmatic and increasingly use data to drive decisions. As search marketers are leveraging multiple, complex data sources and technologies to highly target ads, the Call Intelligence industry needs to ensure that it fits into that landscape. It needs to easily integrate with bid management platforms, analysis tools and marketing automation platforms.

We’ve seen the Martech landscape explode with hundreds more platforms launched every year. The key for all Martech providers is now to make their customers’ lives simpler, rather than more complex.

Who are your biggest clients right now?

Lots of travel clients are seeing the benefits of ResponseTap now, they’re particularly data driven and good at measuring campaign success. Neilson are undertaking a project with us to integrate with their other systems to link up the various data points for a more holistic view of the customer, their online activity and the phone call.

Go Ape are getting new visibility on what campaigns drive their higher value corporate bookings and we have several Financial Services clients who are now understanding what makes the phone ring.

You are sponsoring the use paid search and use of data categories for the DADI Awards, what do you think is innovating these areas?

We chose to sponsor these particular two awards, because the innovation is connected – the increasing use of data to inform paid search strategies. We’re all about giving marketers valuable data to help them optimise campaigns, removing the data blindspot that traditionally occurs when a sale happens over the phone.

Response Tap are a sponsor for the DADI Awards, which brings together individuals and companies at the forefront of digital, providing a perfect opportunity for those entering to prove how good they are.

The ceremony will take place on Thursday 19 October at the Park Plaza Westminster, London. You can book your table now online.

The Drum Awards Martech The Drum Awards For Digital Industries

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