Counting Phone Calls Properly

What a tap actually records

Tracking a telephone link records that somebody pressed it, and nothing after that.

The call may not have connected, may have been cancelled, may have been the same person twice, or may have been an accidental press while scrolling.

So the tap figure is systematically higher than the call figure, frequently by a wide margin.

Which matters because for most trades the telephone is the actual conversion and this is the only measurement of it most businesses have.

Why the gap is large

• Accidental presses while scrolling.
• Cancelled before connecting.
• The same person tapping twice.
• Copying the number to call later.
• Calls outside hours that ring out.

The first is larger than people expect on a phone, particularly where the number sits in a sticky bar under the thumb. That is otherwise a good placement, so the inflation is a side effect of something worth doing.

Establish your own ratio

Which is the whole of the useful work here.

For one month, note the number of tap events and count the calls you actually received that you attribute to the website.

Divide one by the other and you have a factor specific to your site, your placement, and your customers.

Most businesses find something between a third and two thirds of taps become conversations.

Write that factor down and apply it thereafter rather than repeating the exercise.

That converts an inflated number into a usable estimate, which is the best available without a tracking number.

A worked example

A business reported telephone taps as calls and calculated a conversion rate they were pleased with.

Counting for a month, ninety-one taps corresponded to about forty-four calls they could attribute to the site.

Their real conversion rate was therefore roughly half what they had been reporting for two years.

They kept the tap measurement, applied a factor of about half, and their figures became consistent with the number of jobs they were actually winning.

Nothing about the business had changed and the reporting had been wrong throughout.

The month of counting was the only work involved.

A separate number is the accurate version

Worth considering and not for everybody.

A dedicated telephone number displayed only on the website attributes calls exactly, with no factor and no estimating.

The cost is that it becomes a second number in circulation, appearing in customers' phones and eventually in listings, which creates the inconsistency problem discussed elsewhere.

The usual arrangement that avoids this is a number that swaps only for visitors from a specific source while the published number stays constant everywhere.

For a business spending meaningfully on advertising, that accuracy is worth having.

For one relying on organic enquiries, the ratio approach is proportionate.

Ask, which beats all of it

Since the simplest method is also the most accurate.

Ask every caller how they came across you and note the answer.

That captures the website, the referral, the van, and the person who searched your name after a recommendation, none of which any tracking separates properly.

It takes four seconds per call and it produces the only figure that covers every route.

Whoever answers the telephone needs telling that this is expected, and a note beside the phone is enough.

A business doing this for a year knows more about where its work comes from than one with any tracking arrangement.

Watch direction rather than level

Which is how to use the tap figure day to day.

The absolute number is inflated and the change over time is not.

Taps falling by half from one month to the next is a real signal whatever the ratio is, and taps being ninety rather than forty-four is not a fact about calls.

So report the trend and keep the estimated call figure for anything where the level matters.

That distinction prevents most of the misreading in this area.

Check the number is tappable everywhere

Since none of this works if it is not.

A telephone number written as plain text on a phone requires copying it out, which a meaningful proportion of people will not do.

Check every page, including the footer and any page built outside the template.

And check the tracking fires on each, since a tappable link with no event is invisible in the figures while working perfectly for the customer.

That second check is the one that explains a call volume higher than the tap count suggests.

Missed calls are the other half

Worth measuring alongside, since it is the same conversion failing at the last step.

A tap that becomes a call that nobody answers is worse than no tap at all, because the person had chosen you and has now been given a reason to try somebody else.

Most telephone systems and mobile providers can report missed calls, and the figure is frequently higher than anybody expects, concentrated at particular times.

Count them for the same month as the taps, since the pair together shows where the loss actually happens.

Where the answer is that a fifth of calls ring out, that is a bigger problem than anything on the website and it is cheaper to fix.

The counter-case

This can be over-measured.

A business with fifteen calls a month knows exactly where they came from without any of this, and the ratio exercise is a month spent producing a factor for numbers small enough to count directly.

Tap tracking also misses calls made from a desktop, from a written-down number, and from a saved contact, which for an established business is most of them.

And the telephone is not the conversion for every trade.

Count taps against actual calls for one month, write down the ratio, ask every caller how they found you, and report the trend rather than the level.

The month

1. Confirm the number is tappable everywhere.
2. Check the event fires on each page.
3. Count taps for a month.
4. Count calls from the site.
5. Write down the ratio.
6. Ask every caller how they found you.
7. Report the trend.

Step six outlasts every measurement arrangement here, since a direct answer covers the referral, the van, and the recommendation that no tracking has ever separated.

The wider gap is covered in phone calls, walk-ins and the numbers you never see.

Frequently asked questions

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