CustomerBloom is a Digital Marketing Agency that specializes in Website Design & Development, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Reputation Management. CallRail allows CustomerBloom to track & record calls produced from their marketing efforts to their clients, illuminating the gaps previously found in client reporting.
The Challenge
As an agency’s client deck grows, reporting becomes more and more of a challenge due to the time it takes to create reports. Reporting consolidation applications are starting to take the legwork out of the process; however, many of these applications don’t integrate out of the box with some of the more popular tools used by marketing agencies who work with small-medium businesses.
“We loved the functionality of GeckoBoard, a popular reporting consolidation tool, and the fact that it allows our clients to view reporting on the metrics they care most about in real time via the iPhone app. The problem was, it didn’t integrate with half the tools we use – most importantly CallRail.” – Matt Coffy, CEO, CustomerBloom
The CallRail Solution
CallRail’s open API allows developers to access metrics from your account and connect them with external applications. CustomerBloom was able to connect CallRail with Geckoboard via a custom WordPress plugin they built using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) to push call data into a Custom Bullet Graph widget within a corresponding Geckoboard account.
The result is that CustomerBloom is able to set up bullet graphs that indicate both the number of calls within a time period and also the range in which that number falls based on color. For example, if a client usually gets 30 calls per month, the graph will show 0-15 calls as a Red Zone, 15-25 calls as an Orange Zone, and 30+ calls as a Green Zone. This allows their clients to quickly get a sense of how their call flow is doing for the month.
Additionally, other widgets can be configured to show the number of calls in a given time period with an accompanying percentage number, indicating how the calls from that time period compare to the previous time period.
Because CallRail reports data on calls by source, CustomerBloom is also able to display call data from specific sources within the custom widgets. This allows their clients to quickly understand how many calls are coming from organic search (SEO efforts) vs. PPC (paid efforts).
Shifting the Paradigm of Client Reporting
The current state of client reporting can be summed up with one word: bloated. Each tool an agency uses will offer it’s own reporting designed to be as robust as possible. Combining the reports from each tool yields a textbook sized report filled with charts and graphs that most clients will never actually end up reading. CustomerBloom is changing this by focusing on the key metrics that really matter to their clients and by presenting them in real time on mobile devices.
“At the end of the day, there’s only one question on most of our clients’ minds: Did I get more leads today? Because the majority of our clients are service oriented, an acquisition to them is an appointment booking, which means phone calls. CallRail enables us to track and measure that and thanks to their API, we can put those metrics in the pockets of our clients. There’s no more asking ‘Where’s my report’? It’s right there on their phones – whenever they want it.” – Chase Buckner, VP OPs, CustomerBloom
