Phone response from web sites

[cbscreative]

One of huggytree's threads brought up the issue of phone book advertising. I thought one of his questions would make an interesting discussion that deserves its own thread. I'm sure the experience will be different for various types of businesses, but that's partly the point.

Here's the question:
How much phone call volume does your web site produce?

In my case, it's very light, but that's OK. Most visitors who decide to contact me use either email or fill out a form. But I designed my site with that expectation.

Share your experience, and why you believe your phone call volume is high, medium, low, or non existent. You may want to include whether or not you publish an 800 number. I do not.

[Patrysha]

My phone number is on my site and on my business cards...but most either email or just talk to me when they see me around town.

I use my pay as you go cell phone for my business line. I generally reload it once a month at $25. Considering the outrageous prices they charge per minute (compared to a plan phone), not many calls at all.

The reason I go with no plan even though the plans are cheaper per minute is that a plan that would meet my needs would cost more than $25/month and I'd be tied to a contract...and I am planning on getting a second land line or even perhaps an office one day.

[vangogh]

I voted regular or medium. Most people will email me, some use the contact form. Calls are the lightest of the three, but I do get enough that I wanted to bump up a category in the poll. The vote was more that my calls are greater than none to low. I could have gone either way and may have chosen the low choice had it been worded differently.

Email is the dominant contact, followed by the contact form. I do have the form on every page of my site outside of the blog and most pages do have a link to start an email.

My phone number was listed alongside all the email links, which might explain why I received a few more calls. I recently removed the phone number from all but the contact page. I prefer an email and business has picked up to the point where I can afford to lose a few people who might have called, but now won't.

No toll free number. I don't think I could justify the cost (as minimal as it may be) or more importantly the call volume. I think the 800 number might lead to more calls that wouldn't be real leads.

Even though I prefer initial contact to be email I do like talking to new clients on the phone to get to know them and gather information in the beginning.

[cbscreative]

Yeah, I realize the choices are generic and subject to interpretation, but I wanted to make it scaleable to business size. Some sites will have fairly low traffic volumes while others will be higher. I figure everyone can answer based on their overall perception.

Your comment did cause me to change the 2nd choice to "Occasional" which should work better.

[vangogh]

I probably would have voted for the occasional or low, but that's ok. My one vote won't throw off the poll. I hope I explained it well enough in my post above.

It's an interesting question. I've always advised people to offer as many contacts as possible when they're looking for more business. Why lose even the one person in a year who prefers to call. I also think that having a phone number on your site leads to more trust in your business. People want to know they can call even if they don't want to. That might be more important for an ecommerce site than a lead generation site, but it should still be a consideration.

[billbenson]

I get about 40% phone, 55% email, and 5% online orders. There are a couple of reasons as follows:

1. The shopping cart is buggy in checkout (oscommerce). Its been that way since the last update. Rather than spend time fixing it, I'm working on cutting over to a different cart. The phone number is very prominent and I think a lot of people just get frustrated with the site and call. I think they don't go to other sites, but call or email instead because I have better product information, free shipping, and a few other things that keep them on the site. The email is very prominent and is on the site in several places. Both in a form and open a email format (using js to keep the spam out to some degree). The phone is large and in the top nav bar.

2. The product is quite technical. Most orders go to phone at some point as product explanations are frequently necessary. Its a frustrating product to sell because I'm frequently on the phone from 8am Eastern time to 8pm Pacific time. I'm very much trapped in my office because if someone wants some literature or a quote, I have to have both internet and phone access. If I run to the grocery store, it could cost me a large order.

3. Purchasing people often need quotes for approval. They usually send an RFQ via email. I send them a quote and then it usually goes to phone contact. I prefer the Outlook approach for emails over forms because people frequently misspell their email in forms. Its usually correct in their outlook setup.

When I get the new site up and running I'm going to try some things to steer the visitor to purchasing online. I'm also going to add a quote generator and see if that doesn't help lower the phone traffic. Right now, I want to steer them into calling me because the cart isn't working properly. It does show that you can push people one way or another to a degree, depending on how you do things on the site though. In my case, I don't think I loose business because the cart has problems as its easier to close them on the phone anyway.

[vangogh]

That makes sense Bill given your business. It's understandable why you'd get more calls than some of us. Do you think an improved cart would lead to less calls? I realize you'd rather migrate the site than fix the current cart, but I wonder if reducing your calls would give you more time to migrate.

[billbenson]

It's a chicken and egg problem in my case VG. I spend so much sales time on the phone that I don't have time to work on the new site; and the new site really only has a couple of solid days to put it up and have it working.

I think an improved cart might lead to fewer calls. I'd also like to play around with things like better pricing when purchased on line. Better pricing is kind of an oxymoron in this case since I mark the products up much higher than my competition. The thing that is interesting is my customers don't price search very often and I have pricing for all products on line (several thousand), and my competition will have pricing and descriptions for 50 products at best. Customer just don't email every distributor for pricing and buy the cheapest.

I think I close substantially more orders by getting them on the phone and closing them. The other thing is getting them to email me for information while we are on the phone. I try to get them to send an email by clicking on the email link on the site and then send them a quote or data sheet. Now within a couple of minutes they have a quote or product manual and my web site and contact info. Its in their inbox to contact me to place the order or ask more questions.

So from that standpoint, having the cart that doesn't work properly significantly improves my bottom line. I'm convinced of it. Unfortunately, it also gives me no time for web development and looking for new opportunities which impacts gowning my business.

Not sure; I think I kinda answered your question...

[Dan Furman]

I get maybe 75% form, 15% e-mail, and 10% phone. I like it that way.

I have my phone number on every page, but it seems most people want to contact me via e-mail (and most of those use the form - I have my e-mail addy everywhere, too - it just seems people prefer the form. Odd.)

[billbenson]

That is strange Dan. People really tend to hate forms in general. It's a pain to mouse from field to field and most people don't know they can use the tab key.

As a user, I always prefer email. Mostly because its not real time. I can shoot you a quick question Sunday at midnight when you are sleeping and you can answer me when you get time.