The Mission
Since its launch in 1994, DIRECTV has continually evolved its product, best-in-class content, service and user experience to provide customers with an industry-leading video offering. DIRECTV offers the industry’s best picture format and exciting content in 4K HDR. DIRECTV also gives customers the choice of watching movies and TV shows from virtually anywhere – on their TVs at home or their favorite mobile devices via the DIRECTV app. DIRECTV STREAM, the streaming video service, is designed for the household that wants the best of live TV and on-demand, compelling live TV packages, sports and, when using a DIRECTV STREAM device, access to more than 7,000 apps on Google Play.
The Challenge
“DIRECTV strives to deliver an omnichannel experience for its customers. While we certainly lean into digital-first, that doesn’t mean we are digital only,” said Nesby Ingram, Lead Marketing Technology Manager at DIRECTV. “We provide opportunities for the customer to complete their order within several channels, including call-in. This is an especially important channel since we receive over 250,000 calls a month.”
Though a significant number of DIRECTV customers convert over the phone, the team had a data gap in the call experience. When customers jumped from online to the phone, DIRECTV had difficulty attributing the leads to the marketing campaigns that drove them and tracking the entire customer journey. This left them unable to prove their full marketing ROI and provide seamless digital-to-call experiences. To solve this issue, they turned to Invoca.
The Resolution
Using Invoca to get call attribution for marketing campaigns
Phone calls are an important conversion point for the DIRECTV marketing team. However, they were unable to tie them to the marketing programs that drove them. This made it difficult to optimize for the best-performing campaigns and prove their full ROI.
To solve this problem, the DIRECTV team uses Invoca. They started by using Invoca’s Google Ads integration to track the phone leads driven by their paid search campaigns. They then used Invoca to inform Google’s smart bidding algorithm, which allowed them to scale their results and achieve a significant decrease in cost per acquisition.
Invoca has become a critical part of our tech stack. It’s given us full visibility into the call channel and significantly reduced our cost per acquisition. And we’re just scratching the surface of what it can do.
MARK LOOVIS, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING TECHNOLOGY, DIRECTV
The DIRECTV team began to use Invoca across its other digital channels so they could determine how many sales-related calls each source was driving. With Invoca data, they could cut spend on programs that were driving non-sales related inquiries. This helped them allocate their marketing dollars more efficiently and further decrease cost per acquisition. It also helped them prove their results to the leadership team and get credit for the phone leads they drove.
Improving the call routing experience
Once the DIRECTV team started tracking the phone leads they drove, they wanted to make sure they were providing the right experience to convert those leads to customers. Invoca gave DIRECTV full visibility into the digital-to-call experience, allowing them to detect issues in the buying journey that were causing churn.
When the DIRECTV team started using Invoca, they quickly noticed one of their IVRs was routing callers to the parent company, AT&T, rather than to a relevant DIRECTV agent. They also discovered that their third-party call center vendor, which was answering calls from paid search, was telling existing customers to hang up and call another number. Thanks to Invoca, the team was able to quickly correct these issues, reducing barriers to purchase and increasing conversions.
Being able to get an omnichannel view of the customer experience is invaluable. With Invoca, we can quickly identify issues in the buyer journey and correct them. It’s had a huge impact on our conversion rate.
MARK LOOVIS, DIRECTOR OF MARKETING TECHNOLOGY, DIRECTV
DIRECTV also uses Invoca to serve consumers dynamic toll-free numbers based on channel entry. So, someone who entered the site from a specific email campaign would receive a different toll-free number than someone who entered from a search campaign. This way, callers get an IVR customized to their needs and high-value callers can reach an agent more quickly.
“Originally, our IT team billed the dynamic toll-free number project as a million-dollar investment, because of all the infrastructure and IT support required,” said Loovis. “But with Invoca, we were able to quickly configure dynamic toll-free numbers at a small fraction of that cost. On top of that, we didn’t have to rip and replace any existing infrastructure or wait around for other teams to assist us.”
Empowering call center agents with PreSense
To provide the best possible call experience, the DIRECTV team uses Invoca PreSense to send its sales agents a screenpop with each caller’s digital journey information. The agents receive the screenpop just before the call is connected and it gives them valuable information, such as: who the caller is, the geographic location they’re calling from, any digital ads they may have engaged with, the webpages they visited before placing the call, and if they’re a repeat caller.
With Invoca PreSense, the agents can proactively understand the caller’s needs, pull up the relevant information, and tailor the conversation accordingly. For example, if a customer placed a call from the DIRECTV Sports Pack page, the agent would be able to proactively pull up information on the package, and prepare for questions about how the caller could bundle it with their existing packages. This creates a seamless digital-to-call experience that makes each caller more likely to convert.
PreSense also reduces call times, since agents already know the context of each call and can jump right into the conversation. This improves efficiency and allows call center agents to handle more sales inquiries. Invoca PreSense helped the DIRECTV sales team improve their close rates by an impressive 110%.
The Results
- 110% Improvement in sales agent close rates
- Decreased cost per acquisition
We really enjoy working with the Invoca team. They’ve been very responsive and are always helping us find more ways to expand our usage of the platform.
NESBY INGRAM, LEAD MARKETING TECHNOLOGY MANAGER, DIRECTV
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