By: Dann Anthony Maurno
“Optimize the customer journey for your best leads: phone calls,” promises DialogTech, the call attribution platform. The company today announced an integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365. The integration enables companies to automatically capture intelligence on every phone call, caller and conversation generated from marketing within Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The integration automatically populates CRM records with data on every call and caller (even if the call goes unanswered), ensuring accurate and comprehensive customer data.
The value proposition is that marketers gain actionable insight into how every channel, ad, search keyword, web session and marketing interaction drives leads, customers and revenue, whether a consumer converts online or by phone.
Between all those channels for interaction, marketers struggle to measure how each channel generates calls and customers. The ROI on an unstructured telephone call is particularly elusive compared to, for example, a Web-based live chat. DialogTech notes that calls to US businesses from digital advertising are expected to reach over 100 billion in 2017 (the company names no source for this figure), which are captured readily with the DialogTech integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The phone call is hardly “old school”
Phone calls are “the most valuable customer interaction,” said DialogTech SVP of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships Josh Mallamud, adding that DialogTech brings intelligence to that on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. “Businesses can now access data on both online conversions and marketing-driven phone calls within the platform, giving them a complete view of the customer journey, key data to close the loop on marketing attribution and insights to optimize marketing spend across all channels to drive more revenue more efficiently.”
DialogTech customer Arbor Memorial has piloted the solution and reports a 150 percent increase in revenue it can attribute to marketing efforts within Microsoft Dynamics 365. Arbor Memorial is described as Canada’s largest provider of cemetery and funeral services, and “Families want to speak to a real person over the phone when planning memorial services,” said the company’s Marketing CRM Specialist Jeffrey Loretta.
Prior to the DialogTech integration “we couldn’t attribute calls to our marketing efforts,” said Loretta. “Now with DialogTech, we’ve added callers from marketing to the mix,” which is where that 150 percent revenue jump arises. “And having data on the call and caller captured automatically in a CRM record frees up our sales team to focus on providing the quality call experiences that our families deserve.”
DialogTech describes several other industries that are highly dependent upon phone calls, including:
- Financial services and insurance, where inbound calls are invaluable leads
- Agencies, where there is the need to prove to clients how marketing campaigns impact business
- Retail and logistics, in which phone calls can be invaluable to increase sales and customer loyalty
DialogTech describes the highlights of its integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 as including:
- Detailed call attribution from source to sale. Which marketing channels, ads, search keywords, campaigns and website interactions generate calls that become customers?
- Demographic data on inbound callers: Users can capture over 50 data points on each caller (e.g., name, caller ID and geographic location), even if the call goes unanswered.
- Detailed reports on call impact. Reports are available on call volume from each marketing source for any time period, detailing its impact on sales opportunities, prospects and revenue.
- Call logging. Sales agents save time and manual errors are minimized by having information on each call and caller (including call duration, time and date) logged and tied to a new or current lead or contact based on caller ID.