Cold calling is dead. Long live context calling

The process of purchase has severely transformed ever since the first online stores emerged. It is quite common for customers to do a research and form an opinion on the product before they appear in a shop (ZMoT = Zero Moment of Truth). If the user finds our website and starts checking our content – that’s perfect, however, 98% of the visitors will leave it anyway, without finishing the purchase. Real human advisor might come in handy – all you gotta do is engage users and talk to them. Just like in traditional stores. Now it’s possible. Cold calling is dead but prepare for something new!

Example. The bottom left corner of GrandService.pl includes a widget, which encourages the visitor to start a conversation with a consultant. User clicks „Yes, call me” and the consultant initiates a voice conversation via a browser, while having all the data on user’s browsing history.Context calling allows to call the person who’s currently browsing your website and talk by voice with him or her. It doesn’t obviously mean calling all users at random (like, for example, people who only entered your site). It is about sticking to a context by engaging in a conversation via a browser only those who have spent some time on your website. This attitude fits the trend of contextual marketing and Brian Solis’ prognosis, which holds „context as the future of marketing”.

Cold calling is dead? Now what? Long live context calling!

Context calling is a functionality and technology of LiveCall, Polish SaaS solution. All it takes is a nice and easy implementation of JS code on your website, which allows identifying users (both new and returning, with an exact list of pages they’ve visited and the time they spent), their behavioural analysis and getting in touch with them. Cold calling is dead. Analysis of visitors’ behaviour allows to determine which stage of the customer journey they’re currently at. Thus – it enables contacting them in a specific context, which allows better communication and understanding.The customer journey might be split into a few stages: awareness building, consciousness of a need, purchase, loyalty, recommendation. At each of them the user should be reached with different messages from different sources (such as organic search, display advertising, paid search, social, e-mail, remarketing). The conversion seldom happens after encountering only one  advertising message. After the recognition of interesting types of behaviour of users, we might engage visitors in conversation.Context calling allows reaching only those customers who are interested in a purchase (e.g. people who visited the prices section and have spent at least 30 seconds there) and gives them a chance to have a real-time, voice conversation with skilled sales rep or customer service employee. User initiates the conversation by himself via an LiveCall widget (appearing in specified moment). It encourages to start a conversation with an available consultant, who will call them at no cost. That is why we believe that cold calling is dead.The main use cases of context calling  are:

• sales increase, as an inbound calling booster – that is the most efficient sales channel in many branches;
• customer service , more human image of the brand, higher satisfaction(or simply consulting). This aspect still exists in physical stores but is really difficult to transfer into online purchase experience. Offline shop attendant asks, if he or she could help and later provides valuable expertise.

• customer development at an early stage of setting up a startup. It has been written many times, that t is not necessary to invest serious resources in a non-validated idea. All it takes is creating a landing page where traffic should be directed (e.g,via paid search or Facebook Ads). The first validation is the number of people, who will be directed to the page (this indicator, however, is not perfect, as too low number of visitors might be the result  of not optimized campaign etc.). The users who will make it to the webpage might be of key importance for  validating the business idea and model. They may leave their email  with the promise of letting them know once the business goes live, as well as talk to the founder via LiveCall. Website owner needs only to set up „get out of the building” question. and thus gain valuable feedback, based on the real conversation with potential customers.

Example: Report dashboard, with pre-defined info on users’ behaviour. The owner of the webpage wants to engage visitors, who have spent at least 60 seconds. Out of 29 users 1 indicated that they’re interested in closing the purchase and want to talk right now. Cold calling is dead.

How to reach the visitor in an appropriate context?Example use cases.

 The users who visit our webpage appear in a dashboard provided by LiveCall. Check out some of use cases:

1. At this moment a webpage for MBA studies is being browsed by a person, who within the last 3 days checked all the key sections, read the general info on studies (seen all the unique selling points), knows the agenda, the teachers, passing criteria, checked the pricing plans and finally made it to the „contact” section. As it is clearly a user who has info on the product, he might be more open for interaction than a person, who has received a cold call at random. Context calling  will make it possible for the appropriate person to contact the potential customer. Precisely selected visitor will see the banner, informing that he can now talk directly with the studies coordinator – all he has  to do is click  “Call” button on the widget.
2. The webpage of an event company is being viewed by a person, who looked through all the sections on the oncoming e-commerce conference. He or she also read the agenda and the list of keynote speakers, checked the pricing and sponsorship options. Context calling will allow the project manager of the conference single out this person from croud and have a live conversation on the guest’s needs, give an option or provide a consultation.
3. E-store with female lingerie is being browsed by a person, who looked through many kinds of bras, but quite a few times returned to a specific section. Context calling will provide the brafitter with an opportunity to talk, give advice and deliver instructions on how to determine the most appropriate size of underwear (and thus prevent returns or decisions to visit a physical store).

Can interaction be automatized?From the perspective of business/webpage owner, context calling allows pre-defining a customer path, which will lead to  a conversation with a consultant – as it seems pointless to „attack” the user who has only just opened the landing page. Those scripts might include preliminary identification of the current stage of user’s journey.For example, car insurance and real estate insurance sections can include separate widgets, with different messages, graphic designs and consultants appointed for each. Those widgets might appear at predefined time, e.g. once the visitor has spent 1 minute on the website. The consultant will only initiate the call once the user shows his or her interest.

Example: The owner of eWejsciowki.pl determined the automatical initiation of a LiveCall widget once the visitor has taken specific time spent on the website.

The benefits of context calling

 To sum up context calling allows to:

1. Automatically engage visitors without being permanently at the computer;
2. Calling website visitors without knowing their phone number;
3. Reference to the context – calls start while the user is browsing company website;
4. presenting yourself as an advisor/expert, which, in the long term influences branding and provides insights from the consumers.