The Comprehensive Voice Stack Analysis from Agencies and Consultants

The voice technology providers we work with here at Partnerprograms work closely with their agency partners on all areas of the business – helping them with internal operations as well as helping them to setup/sell new services for their clients. These tools range from virtual reception, to call tracking and VoIP tools. We left out chat as a category as we were genuinely curious what level of knowledge and influence these agencies had over their clients voice stack.

To find out, we surveyed consultants, marketing agencies and MSPs to determine: “What experience do you have working with your clients voice stack?“

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Let’s meet some of these agencies who replied:

Boyd Wason, and Engaging Partners – a Marketing Agency which is Agnostic – their services can be used by any industry/vertical.

Boyd and team use just about everything:

• Landlines & desk phones
• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)/cloud phone system (with or without VoIP-enabled desk phones)
• Call tracking
• Vanity numbers
• Call answering service
• Receptionist service (i.e. lead qualification or calendaring)
• Calls are logged in CRM

Boyd’s agency uses:

• A cloud-based SaaS solution (i.e. Ring Central or Phone.com)

But, he typically see’s his clients using:

• A local internet/phone service provider (i.e. Comcast or AT&T)

Brad Golchin of Markezing, an agency focused on B2B marketing services, also have a huge influence over their clients’ voice stacks. They help their clients with all of the following:

• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)/cloud phone system (with or without VoIP-enabled desk phones)
• Call tracking
• Vanity numbers
• Call recording
• Call answering service
• Receptionist service (i.e. lead qualification or calendaring)
• Call transcription
• Click-to-call phone numbers
• Calls are logged in CRM
• Calls are logged in analytics software (or other analytics tool)
• Service/support call analytics and service-level improvement (SLA) listening tools

Ryan Jones is the founder of Refuel Creative – an agnostic Marketing Agency in Australia who uses CallRail has this purview over his clients’ voice stack:

• Landlines & desk phones
• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)/cloud phone system (with or without VoIP-enabled desk phones)
• Call tracking
• Click-to-call phone numbers
• Calls are logged in analytics software (or other analytics tool)

The first thing we asked these agencies was:

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How critical is having a voice strategy in helping clients achieve performance metrics?

And the answer was surprising:

• 77% agree voice is highly-relevant for performance.
• 45% say “Very”
• 32% say “Critical”

This means that marketing agencies (the majority of the surveys were submitted by marketing agencies) really do try and influence their clients phone systems and analytics in order to convert the traffic/calls they are bringing.

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What is your business’ current voice solution?

• 65% use “A cloud-based SaaS solution”
• 16% use “None or personal cell phones”
• 11% use “A free solution like Google Voice”
• 8% use “A local internet/phone service provider”

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What voice solution do you typically see your clients using most often?

• 54% of the clients of those surveyed use “A local internet/phone service provider”
• 22% of the clients of those surveyed use “A cloud-based SaaS solution”
• 16% of surveyed agencies mentioned “I don’t know what they use.”
• 8% of the clients of those surveyed use “A free solution like Google Voice”

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Which, if any, of the following tools & services are in your clients’ voice stack?

• 54% of respondents did not know!
• 16% mentioned their clients use “Landlines & desk phones w/ VoIP”
• 14% mentioned their clients use “Landlines with desk phones on a local network provider”
• 11% mentioned their clients use “Advanced – VoIP + Call tracking | Call recording | Receptionist service | Calls analytics software”
• 5% mentioned their clients use “Basic VoIP only”

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But wait… how could this be possible??

How could 77% of agencies surveyed agree voice is highly-relevant for performance, but 54% of respondents have no idea what their clients voice stack includes?

This seems to be an opportunity for agency services…

Let’s sidebar that for now and hear from the agencies who use software to track and convert calls:

Which of these (if any) call tracking and analytics platforms have you implemented or managed for your clients?

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• 38% of respondents haven’t worked with any of these voice saas solutions.
• 51% of respondents have implemented and/or managed CallRail.com
• 16% use Smith.ai in their voice stack.
• 16% use a combination of Smith.ai + a call tracking platform like CallRail.com

What other VoIP, reception, or call tracking products are you aware of your clients using?

• The data was evenly spread between agency-use of these providers (~5% for each): 3CX, Ruby Receptionists, Greetly, The Receptionist, 8×8, Hubspot Sales Hub, Callbox, PhoneWagon, Cradle.io, Dialpad, Google Voice, Jive, Nextiva, VoiceNext, NovoCall, Ring Central, 8×8, Broadvoice, Backoffice Betty, CloudTalk.io, Star2Star, Allworx, Windstream, Yay.com.
• Surprisingly, 43% of respondents said they were ONLY familiar with implementing/managing these few tools we mentioned in the previous question (none other than): CallRail, Smith.ai, CallTrackingMetrics, Invoca, and WhatConverts.

Let’s hear from the agencies who use software to track and convert calls:

Mike Belasco, founder of eCommerce marketing agency Go In Flow has used:

• CallRail
• CallTrackingMetrics

And believes:

A voice strategy is critical is having a voice strategy in helping clients achieve performance metrics?
- Mike Belasco

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Ryan Ruud of LakeOne, a B2B marketing agency partnered with HubSpot says:

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While we use a local internet/phone service provider (i.e. Comcast or AT&T), our clients are vastly on a cloud-based SaaS solution (i.e. Ring Central or Phone.com). And we help our clients with everything including: Call tracking, Vanity numbers, Call recording, Click-to-text phone numbers, Calls are logged in CRM…
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- Ryan Ruud

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Our friend Salvatore Tringali, founder of Pro Echo Solutions, a great vertical agnostic marketing agency, uses Ring Central on top of Smith.ai, but we’re trying to convert him to Cradle.io on top of his HubSpot instance ;)

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And if you thought voice has no place in SEO, you are mistaken. One of the best SEO agencies out there, White Hat SEO, does a lot to help with their clients voice stack:

• Landlines & desk phones
• VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)/cloud phone system (with or without VoIP-enabled desk phones)
• Call tracking
• Call recording
• Receptionist service (i.e. lead qualification or calendaring)
• Call transcription
• Calls are logged in CRM

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And let’s hear from agencies who use cloud-based phone systems for their agency, but their clients are still vastly on local phone providers:

Bashfoo, a Brick/Mortar business marketing agency, is ahead of the curve with their cloud-based phone system while most of their clients are still on local phone service providers.

And Mark from GNGF, an award winning local marketing agency, uses a VoIP system to power their agencies but sees most of their clients using a local service phone provider.

Clay and Bostic Heller are in the exact same boat – knowing and loving cloud-based, but servicing clients who are on local…

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Conclusion and Pivot Tables

45.95% of those surveyed believe their clients’ voice stacks are ‘Very’ important to their growth KPIs:

How important is the voice stack for your client’s KPIs?
Of total:
‍Somewhat = 18.92%
Very = 45.95%
‍Critical = 32.43%
Not at all = 2.70%
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• All of the Consultants surveyed believe the voice stack is “Somewhat” important for the growth of their clients business.
• The majority of MSP’s (62%) clients are on a cloud-based SaaS phone system like Aircall or Phone.com.
• Where as the vast majority of Marketing Agency’s clients (85%) use a local internet or phone service provider as their primary phone system (i.e. Comcast / Xfinity).
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…the vast majority of Marketing Agency’s clients (85%) use a local internet or phone service provider!

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This is the opportunity for you marketing agencies out there – don’t let MSPs come in and take your clients who need help choosing and setting up their voice systems and stack.

The saas we mention in this article and below are (a) dead simple to work with, and (b) supply marketing with the CRO and analytics you need to increase budgets or optimize campaigns.

So, if I were a marketing agency, I’d strongly consider the following steps to add a new revenue stream to my business:

1. Take this course on White Label Virtual Reception services for agencies (in our agency community so simply request access) >>
2. Book some time with the partnerships team at Smith.ai to hear how their solution can be everything your clients need for answering chat/calls.
3. Book time with CallRail.com to hear how to add tracking and analytics to that.
4. IF your are HubSpot – definitely grab one of Cradle.io’s free agency accounts and see what that can do for your and your clients VoIP.
5. And if you are in professional services, automotive or doing anything offline, check out Ringboost.com for vanity numbers for increased conversion and branding of your clients.
6. After learning from each and hearing how they work together, start determining hours and purview so you can decide on a service to go back to your clients who are a fit.
7. Ask your new partners for collateral to email out about the platforms or use case.
8. Send out a nurturing email campaign to all of your prospects and clients talking about why and how of voice systems.

If you are in need of peer support for this and other services:

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