CallRail vs. Kall8

Date: November 30, 2020
Category:

• Marketing

Author: Taylor Dahlstedt

Call Tracking

The reason we at Infinity Dental Web have for years recommended using call tracking software is that it helps you know how effective your website is. The way call tracking works is that it displays a unique phone number on your website, different from the actual number. The posted phone number forwards seamlessly to your main incoming line and your staff answers it without being aware that it is a forwarded call. But you can later log in to a web page where it will display the identities of the forwarded calls. You then will know how many calls are generated by your website.

Up until a few years ago, we were recommending Kall8 as the call tracking service provider. Inexpensive and reliable, it gave good data on the number of phone calls coming from your website. But, as with everything else on the internet, the landscape has changed in recent years.

One change has been consumer behavior. There has been an increasing tendency for new patients to call the main office number instead of the call tracking number that we ask them to call. They are leery of what they may perceive as a gimmick, and as a result we have been finding that the call tracking data is becoming less and less accurate.

Another change has been technology. In response to this growing tendency of patients to call the number they please, coding has been developed that will actually change all the phone numbers displayed on the website, depending on the way your patient found the website. If they entered the URL directly, it will display one number. If they came from an organic search, it will display another. If they clicked from a paid ad, it will display even a different number.

This new coding technology is available from CallRail, a company based in Massachusetts. We consider this the industry-standard call tracking service. While it costs more (about $45 a month as opposed to $15-30 a month) it has a number of advantages that our old system, Kall8, lacks.

What makes them different?

With Kall8, all you get is a unique phone number that we post on your website along with a request that, if they are a new patient, please call that number rather than your regular office number. Unfortunately, many patients ignore that request. In addition, there is no way to segment the calls as to source.

CallRail allows us to track all the possible sources of the referral to your website:

• Organic search
• Direct entry of the website URL
• Referral from social media or another source
• Google ads, including tracking the search term that was used

 
In addition, it can be coded to mark calls according to whether or not the patient ends up booking the appointment. You’ll also receive a custom report that tracks the number of monthly new patient phone calls. An option allows you to record the phone calls so that you can listen to incoming calls and train your staff on how to better interact with patients on the phone, convert more inquiries into appointments, and help reduce new patient no-shows. (If you have problems with no-shows for new patient appointments, those problems can usually be traced to telephone skills.)

The CallRail dashboard allows you to easily view all of the information.

While this is a service that you employ separately from any contract with us, if you are serious about measuring the impact of your online marketing, we strongly recommend CallRail tracking. The extra cost is minimal as measured against the benefit. If you ask us to do any online advertising for you, we’ll almost insist on tracking your results with CallRail.

Ready to Switch?

If you’re interested in switching over to CallRail, just let us know and we can take care of all the details.