BIA/Kelsey Bytes are excerpts from research reports. This is the latest installment from the recently launched report, Call Commerce: A $1 Trillion Economic Engine. It picks up where last week’s post left off.

The report can be downloaded for free here.

Call Routing

Another outcome of call analytics is routing. Most of the technology for analyzing calls and determining quality can be used to optimally route them. This can be done by probabilistically determining things like call quality and caller intent and then routing calls accordingly.

This process examines call data — the same data used in attribution — to inform intelligent routing. It can include everything from caller ID to caller history to situational factors like location. And the data can be further populated by integrations with CRM systems like Salesforce.

The sophistication of these methods is compelled by smartphones. Due to the highly personal nature of such devices, more and more have unlisted numbers that block caller IDs. This was previously a go-to method for identifying callers, so innovative workarounds are needed.

Utilizing location data is one example, as explored above. When a rental car agency knows the caller is at the airport, a phone menu can lead with contextually relevant information about shuttles or upgrades rather than a general phone tree. This could avoid a “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” situation.

Data-informed call routing can also probabilistically determine warm leads and route them to reps based on their specialties in different product areas. And routing can alleviate one of the biggest pain points for businesses of all sizes: opportunity cost.

Opportunity Cost

For most businesses, time is money. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are often time-starved and wear many hats. And bigger businesses succeed or fail on larger scale efficiencies. In either case, time spent on suboptimal calls, such as those that have been misrouted, affects productivity and profitability.

Another way to look at this is to compare it with adjacent forms of marketing. The opportunity cost of fielding low-quality calls is higher than online clicks. There is little incremental resource drain to getting more clicks, whereas low-value telephone calls can meaningfully tax resources.

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