I’m a marketer who recently started using 800.com’s services and software to launch marketing campaigns and track data. I highly recommend this software, especially to those who would feel more comfortable thinking about their SMS campaigns and inbound calls as an extension of their existing marketing efforts – like email, social media marketing, and radio advertising. I thought managing the 800 numbers I bought through 800.com would be a huge responsibility, but it’s as streamlined as possible, and customer service reps are typically available.

Getting Your Toll-Free Number

I had a lot of questions during the set-up process. Since I work in digital marketing, I was hoping to find something easy to manage that could integrate with my other marketing dashboard metrics, but learning new software and integrating it into my software processes seemed intimidating.

I utilized the chat interface on 800.com’s website to get a customer service rep (no automated menu) to walk me through my service selection. I explained that I needed a few different numbers since I needed help tracking specific campaigns, and they walked me through the most cost-effective way to make that happen. I felt pretty at ease after talking to the rep, and the actual purchase process was simple.

Since everything is managed within the 800.com dashboard (accessed solely online), I learned that I could always reach out to customer service or even make quick adjustments to call routing while I’m on the go. Billing info, information about active numbers, and metrics are extremely clear on the software’s dashboard. The representative answered all my questions about how to seamlessly integrate these 800 numbers into our business, especially when it came to call routing and making sure the right people get the right calls routed to them.

Dashboard Metrics: Call Analytics and Call Tracking Software

As a marketer, I’ve found the metrics from 800.com to be the service’s most useful feature. I can set up a number or phone tree selection for a specific campaign and then analyze which marketing campaigns resulted in the most inbound calls. From there, I can also see how many of those calls were lengthy or even resulted in a sale or sign-up.

It’s often hard to prove ROI in marketing, but with inbound call and SMS tracking, I’m able to hand over hard metrics about how my campaigns performed. My call to action on a social media post or radio ad might be, “text SALE to 555-5555 to get a 30 percent discount on your first order,” and the number of SALE texts I receive on the line tells me exactly how many people responded to my call to action. This also informs me about which ads (time slot, radio station, social media location) result in the most inbound inquiries. From there, I adjust the time of day I’m trying to reach our demographic.

I feel like this software has helped me prove my improvement with marketing campaigns. It makes me feel empowered and informed.

Through inbound calls and SMS, I can also track:

• Which products or services receive the most inbound calls
• Whether those calls are related to a customer service issue or a problem with the product
• What customers are most concerned about

I’ve used this information, along with search engine optimization and keyword research, to improve rankings on Google by posting an FAQ on our company page, and answering the questions that people most often call about. I couldn’t have made this informed content decision without the data from 800.com’s software interface.

Call Routing Made Easy

I handle marketing and some of the inbound customer service responsibilities for a growing small business. We have a distributed workforce, and most of our employees, including me, are on mobile devices to receive calls. We needed the capability to route and handle calls from anywhere in the world.

800.com’s software makes it easy to route the right number or phone tree selection to the right individual. If someone takes PTO, and I need to temporarily cover customer service myself, it’s simple to reroute temporarily through the software. 800.com provides us with the flexibility we need as an agile small business. Having reviewed the service options at purchase, I see how 800.com will be valuable as we continue to scale after going through our next round of venture capital fundraising. I’m eager to use screenshots from this software to demonstrate our streamlined internal call-handling process — which has also helped us save time and money.

SMS Campaign Simplicity

One of the biggest trends I wanted to jump on to grow this business has been SMS campaigns. With a millennial and Gen X segment as our main target audience, a preference for texting means more engagement with customers, and they reach out to us via text or web interface instead of complaining loudly on the internet. Having an easy-to-remember, visible number to receive either calls or texts puts the customer in charge of how and when they want to communicate.

I’ve used SMS to run opt-in sales campaigns and just started doing these before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. My results were fantastic – with only a few unsubscribes, thousands in sales were attributed to my marketing campaigns for Black Friday sales.

I found that customers also took the time to ask questions via SMS, which led to either superlative customer service or another sales opportunity. I automated the campaign and took time off for the holidays – it was very “set it and forget it,” and I was able to log on and help customer service handle responses when I was ready.

The bulk messaging screen in the software permits me to segment my audience. I can choose customers who have responded recently or any other lists I upload. Similar to email marketing software I’m familiar with, such as Constant Contact, 800.com delivers dashboard metrics about each campaign, letting me know how many messages I sent, how many were delivered, how many people responded, and how many of those messages resulted in an unsubscribe. As someone intimately familiar with email marketing, this made using SMS software so much easier. I now think of it as an extension of my email marketing campaigns and coordinate social, SMS, and email regularly.

The only drawback I noticed to the software is it’s sometimes challenging to reconcile this data with the data from my other advertising sources. However, it is incredibly easy to combine this with a report from Constant Contact, which is a huge bonus when trying to get execs to understand dashboard metrics.

Read also:

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• Best Call Tracking Software – Features That Drive Results
• How to Use Email Communication to Improve Internal Comms?
• An Effective Guide For Reducing Email Spam and Protecting Your Digital Privacy
• How to Boost My Mobile Phone Signal?