The Mission
BBQGuys is a barbecue grill retailer headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 20 years, the company has strived to be the most trusted resource for grilling and outdoor living. Not only do they offer the largest online selection of premium grills, BBQ smokers, and backyard essentials, but they also connect customers with experts who are well-versed in their products. Being Born to Grill™ means more than just hosting a great BBQ — it’s about helping others realise and live out that same calling.
The Challenge
Though BBQGuys is an online retailer, phone calls play a key role in the buying journey — consumers often call to speak with one of the company’s expert sales reps and get their barbecuing questions answered. These phone calls are a key part of the sales strategy for BBQGuys because they create an opportunity for genuine human interaction. When a customer visits website, they make a purchase less than 1% of the time. But when a customer calls the sales centre, that number jumps to over 50%.
BBQGuys wanted to drive more sales calls, since these interactions are far more valuable than website visits. However, the marketing team had a data gap and was unable to attribute calls to the marketing programs and website pages that drove them. This made it difficult for them to make the right marketing optimisations to increase phone leads.
The Resolution
Optimizing Media Spend to Drive More Phone Leads
The BBQGuys marketing team uses a variety of marketing channels, including Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and more to drive phone calls to its sales centre. In the past, the team couldn’t attribute sales calls to the marketing channel that drove them — this left them unable to calculate the true ROI of each campaign. This was especially problematic since phone calls were often the most valuable conversions their marketing programs drove.
With Invoca, the BBQGuys team can get detailed reporting about how many sales calls each of its marketing programs drive — and how much revenue each of those calls create. This allows them to double down on what’s working and cut spend on underperforming campaigns. With Invoca, they can then prove their full ROI to their executive team and make the right optimisation decisions to drive more high-value sales calls. As a result, they were able to attribute 100% more revenue to their advertising campaigns. This better attribution allowed them to decrease cost per acquisition on paid marketing campaigns by 5.6% and save 14% on digital ad spending while increasing conversion rates.
Invoca also pushes call conversion data back into BBQGuys’ martech platforms, so that they know when the customer has made a purchase offline. They use this information to retarget the caller with ads for relevant companion items or suppress them from future campaigns to conserve their budget.
Invoca shows us the true, verifiable number of sales calls our marketing campaigns drive. When our team members build reports, they can answer questions like, ‘Are our calls going up or down?’ and ‘Are those calls making it to the sales centre or is there a problem going on that I need to fix?’ It’s helped us significantly increase our conversion rates.
BRIAN TODD, SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST AT BBQGUYS
Improving the Call-in Experience from the Website
Since phone calls convert at a much higher rate than website visits, one of the BBQGuys marketing team’s goals was to drive more sales calls from its website. In the past, the team didn’t have the right attribution data to make this goal measurable.
With Invoca’s Adobe Analytics integration, the BBQGuys marketing team can see exactly how many sales calls each website page is driving. They can also get more granular and track which page elements are generating the most calls. This allows them to A/B test click-to-call buttons and other CTAs on their website — and get granular data about what drives the most calls to the sales centre. By continually making these kinds of optimizations across the website, BBQGuys has driven a 16% increase in phone call conversion rate and an 11% increase in average revenue per sales call.
In addition to running tests, the BBQGuys team also uses Invoca and Adobe Analytics to monitor the performance of the website and detect issues that need to be addressed. For example, the team can track if certain items, like built-in gas grills, are driving fewer calls than other products categories. They can then investigate and make sure that those pages are optimised for the call-in experience.
Though we’re an eCommerce business, the call-in experience is vital for our brand. It’s our differentiator — it gives us a chance to make a genuine connection with our customers and give them expert grilling advice. Invoca has helped us take the call experience to the next level. It’s now easier than ever for customers to get help from our sales centre agents.
BRIAN TODD, SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST AT BBQGUYS
Using Invoca to Measure Sales Centre Agent Performance
To deliver outstanding customer experiences, the BBQGuys team needs to keep a pulse on what’s happening in phone conversations at the sales centre. For example, they need to see if agents are sticking to the right scripts, and if there are common customer issues coming in that the company needs to address. In the past, BBQGuys didn’t have the right analytics in place to do this.
To solve this problem, BBQGuys uses Invoca to create AI-powered signals to automatically detect when keywords and phrases are spoken. This allows them to set up scorecards for their agents, where they can automatically track if they’re greeting the customer correctly, asking the right questions, mentioning protection plans, and closing the sale. They also have a signal set up that detects order cancellation calls, so they can see what the common causes for cancellations are. This visibility helps BBQGuys ensure that its sales centre is providing the best possible customer experience.
We were amazed at how hungry our sales centre agents were to get feedback from Invoca. They loved that we could listen to calls and help them prepare responses for common issues that customers were having.
CHRIS ERCKERT, CHANNEL DIRECTOR AT BBQGUYS
Searching Call Transcripts for Trends and Customer Feedback
With Invoca, the BBQGuys team receives a transcript of every phone call — they can then use the search features to automatically find transcripts where customers mention keywords or phrases. This has allowed them to get ahead of issues that are impacting their customers. For example, Invoca recently helped the team identify that there was an issue with one of its manufacturers’ grill knobs. Customers were calling in after spending $5,000 on their grill, only to have the knob break within a month. Thanks to Invoca’s insights, the team was able to quickly get in contact with the manufacturer to correct the issue before it affected more customers.
BBQGuys also uses Invoca’s global transcript search feature to get feedback on new product lines. Category managers will often ask the marketing team to run a search about their latest product so they can see what customers are saying about it. They can then use this feedback to tweak how it’s presented on the website and to update FAQs on product pages. For example, if people consistently ask how many burners a grill has, the team can add that information to the product page.
Invoca’s global transcript search feature has been a game-changer for us. It helps us quickly identify issues and understand, ‘What is the impact this will have on our sales centre staff?’ It’s also spurred collaboration with other departments, especially the R&D and category management teams. We can now give them feedback straight from the voice of our customers.
BRIAN TODD, SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST AT BBQGUYS
The Results
- 100% Increase in attributed revenue from advertising campaigns
- 16% Increase in phone call conversion rate
- 14% Digital ad spend savings while increasing conversion rate and value per call
- 11% Increase in average revenue per sales call
- 5.6% Decrease in cost per acquisition on paid marketing campaigns
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