Prominent Telephone Numbers

[Qui Gon Jinn]

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Simply look at the sectors & compare which have high leakage to the telephone call center, like holiday packages & finance.

[pistol101]

Odds on Affiliate Future having a phone tracking system in place by Xmas 2006?

We've been doing this for 2 years now! We developed tracking for an SMS client and the same system is and can be used for any merchant to track telephone orders.

There really hasn't been the call for it to be used much as explaining to merchants and implementing the phone number removal code has been much better. No merchant has ever put the phone number back on the site after they have removed it!

[soccer-systems]

I saw comments above about removing phone number displays from affiliate referrals.

I supect many merchants would not like that too much.
eg they may argue that many shoppers like to see a valid contact number in case of ordering problems / grievance etc.

ie Even if not actually used to buy, phone number availibility will aid conversion ratios. ( increased perceived trust)

A very simple idea would be to display on the contact us page where the phone number is displayed , a conditional variable.

ie the affiliate ID..perhaps give it a better public name such as "web visit referance number"

The customer could then be asked for this when calling and the affiliate ref associate with the sale / account.

Many will be looking at the contact us page or have the browser open when making the call.

Not fool proof of course but very simple for any existing merchant to add to add to their own site if they run their program in house. A 10 min hack.

If they operate through a network, well the network will have to provide some form of java script include I guess as they will be the only site able to read the cookie.

I suspect the above would be a help to many sites wanting to be seen to be "tightening up" and improving their affiliate tracking.

I Guess for aff program managers they should remember the old "car lock" scenario.

Two identical cars side by side..one with a big yellow lock, the other without. Which will the thief choose to try and steal 99 times out 100?


Simialrly with competing programs of a similar nature, promoters will likely not put huge effort into yours if there is something similar but with tighter tracking.

Just my tuppence worth on the subject

cheers
Mick

[pricethat]

Mick, i think you miss the point with the telephone tracking, it still requires the merchant to ask for that web reference number in the first place. Even if the customer is asked for it by an automated system it would probably lead to a lot of visitors just not bothering, which i guess is good.

But the problem with any requirement for the merchant to ask for a reference number or something is that they dont do it, they forget, dont care etc etc. Most affiliates go with the big programs from brand name merchants because its easy, trusted brand, best price they could find, done. Do you really see big brand businesses changing their whole telephone answering and sale recording process just for what 20% of sales, less than that. It just wont happen, if it could then i am sure it would of been done before.

Any part where a human being has to do some work like record a reference number or enter a sale manually will be doomed to fail. Strange though how merchants seem to be more than capable of making sure their reversals are kept in order though

[leec]

Hi

Ive been updating sites this week and as you do click links to see what is on the merchants page ie 0800 numbers

So after spotting a large amount of telephone numbers i emailed one of the networks to ask about a merchant that has this problem

This is the message that has come back!

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A company like XXXXXX would need to place contact details on their site for their customers.

In order for them to sell their insurance, their customers would need the option to contact them diredtly to gain access to additional information. E.g. For motor insurance they may need to discuss extra details, like mileage.

So unfortunately they can not remove these numbers.

If you have any further queries just reply to this ticket and the issue will be raised with the account manager.


Regards

End

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Ok i can understand what is being said but if the customer calls the number then we lose our part of the deal so to speak ( unless it is tracked another way )

What is other peoples views on this?